Anyone had experience of being frequently attacked by their child? My son who is 7 has had issues for quite a while in terms of being really naughty at bedtime, I wrote about this earlier in the thread in 2018 and 2019:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/forums/posts/32924279
However in the past couple of months, I would say roughly since schools came back after summer he has started to become angry at other points in the day. This is more of a problem now because since I posted last time we've had a baby who is now a toddler so we can't afford for him to be 'silly' around them (pulling on them saying <name> likes it look he's laughing! when trying to put baby to sleep etc). If you want him to do something he doesn't want to do he'll get increasingly angry and has now starting hitting me (and occasionally his mother).
Today was first day of home schooling without his mother (who was at work) and it was OK initially with us doing some study in the morning but it descended into chaos with me getting attacked because I wouldn't let him have any sweets until he'd done more study. He then attacked me again in the afternoon and again this evening after my wife got home. I don't really know how to deal with this, it's happened maybe half a dozen times before but usually has ended pretty quickly but this has been more of a sustained battle lasting say 5-10mins at a time. Obviously as he's 7 he can only hit my body rather than face and not hard enough to do any serious damage but nevertheless I'm obviously forced to parry his blows, push him away, drag him up to his room for timeout etc and I really don't want to be fighting with him. Today was also the first time where it gave me a horrible feeling of unease where I didn't want to turn my back on him, or if he made a sudden movement I'd instantly brace, which really isn't a great position to be in with your child.
I still think as I did when I posted in 2018 that this is some sort of issue with expressing his emotions, my worry is what was once him needing to get told off to generate an emotional release (where we sometimes get him to open up on what he's worried about) is now rapidly descending into a cycle of him needing to get in fights until he can break down and cry. The root causes I seem to be some fears about school and his perceived lack of parental attention (due to the 1yo taking priority in some circumstances, and my wife who works for NHS having to go out to work) but even when we specifically make a fuss of him and take time out to do activities just with him having undivided attention like bike riding, cake baking etc it still doesn't seem to solve the problem. I also implemented a thing called 'talk time' where it's a code-word that means you have to stop what you are doing and give attention to talk about something which seemed to help a bit initially but no more.
I'll be honest I think we are really struggling at the moment what with the lockdown and bedtimes frequently taking 90mins+, you just feel exhausted or resentful, typically it takes to 21:30-22:00 to get eldest to sleep (and this is a mission at least 5 night out of 7, it's not a nice pleasant read a book and turn off the light, it's either trying to peel him off the ceiling or stop him from hurting people) and then you have to burn the candle to do any leisure activities late at night before getting working up early either by a toddler or an alarm to go to work. We live in a terraced house and I dread to think what the neighbours think of our daily screaming matches.
Obviously I'm worried about where this road will lead, it seems to be escalating so how long before he starts using dangerous objects to attack with, or starts attacking his brother.
edit: reading my original posts again it's all a bit depressing, there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. He was better at going to bed when he was aged 3 than aged 7!
at least wfh so should be able to help a bit.
