I really need some help with my child. He is 6, and we’ve been having a lot of behavioural challenges lately. We’re trying to understand what’s going on so we can better support him.
He is very social and outgoing, with a kind heart. He loves deeply and has lots of friends, but recently he’s been pushing boundaries quite a bit. We’ve been struggling with this for at least a month, and it doesn’t seem to be improving.
I’ll share some real examples to give a clearer picture of what we’re dealing with. I’m not necessarily looking for an explanation for each one, but rather hoping they help paint the overall pattern.
He behaves very poorly during playdates at our home. He seems to “show off” to make his friends laugh and starts doing things he would never normally do. He’s thrown food, poured water on the cat, stomped on cat food, and even encouraged his friends to do the same. These are not behaviours we see when he’s on his own. He also shows little respect for our authority in these moments—when we ask him to stop, he may run away laughing, say “blah blah blah,” or encourage his friends to ignore us as well. Even his friends have questioned his behaviour.
As an only child, his friendships are really important to us, but this has made playdates very difficult to manage.
On a walk, he wanted to go a certain way. We said no because it was muddy and we had our dog with us. He chose to ignore us and ran off in the opposite direction, out of our sight—something he has never done before.
At school, he is often the instigator when there is trouble, encouraging his peers to misbehave and follow his lead.
He frequently feels the need to “one-up” others. If a friend accomplishes something, he will insist he did it better.
We’ve had dozens of conversations with him about this behaviour, why it’s inappropriate, and how he can correct it. We’ve taken things away from him, like play dates, for example. Nothing seems to work right now.
We’re feeling stuck and unsure of what to do next.