Member Comments are provided by individuals and reflect their personal opinions only. Under NO circumstances should you act on any advice or opinion posted in this forum. ALWAYS check with your personal physician before taking any action regarding your health! MedHelp International and our partners, sponsors and affiliates have no obligation to monitor any comments posted on this site, or the content and/or accuracy of such exchanges. MedHelp International does not endorse the views of any user.
Maternal & Child Community
This patient support community is for discussions relating to breast feeding, childhood disease, colic, child discipline, immunization, lactation, newborn care, post partum depression, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and special needs children.
10 yr old boy crying and tantrums
by GP0391, Aug 18, 2004 12:00AM
I have a 10 year old boy. He is very bright, a model student and very well behaved in school. He is a good looking boy and very popular in school. However, he is prone to crying attacks. In his baseball league he is prone to a crying attack if he strikes out. Another example, before school the other day, he put on his new school uniform pants and found he didn't like how they fit. When we told him that he had tried them on himself at the store and said they were fine, and now he had to wear them, he broke into a crying tantrum that lasted at least 10 or 15 minutes. Many times, if his brother or sister call him a name, he will break into a crying attack and have a tantrum. It seems like on a daily basis, he has a crying attack for one reason or another. Once he gets past it, he goes back to his normal self.
What do you make of this behavior? Is this normal for a 10 year old boy? How do we deal with it?
What do you make of this behavior? Is this normal for a 10 year old boy? How do we deal with it?
Post Comment
I do not have a 10 yr old myself, though my best friend does and I can tell you her son does not act like that. He is getting into the back talk really badly, but he doesn't cry or tantrum. He just flat refuses to do things she asks or talks back to her, calls his little brothers names...stuff like that.
I would say that it probably is not normal, but may not be that big of a deal either. Is it possible he is already "changing"? I know if you were asking about a girl, this behavior might be completely normal if she were experiencing hormone fluctuations related to puberty onset. I see no reason why although he is only 10, that he can't be experiencing early hormone fluctuations himself. If that IS the case, then of course somethign that may not seem big to him one second might send him over the edge the next.
But again, this question might be better addressed to the child behavior forum! Hope I have at least given you an idea of what it could be!
the 11 year old is starting into the if it doesn't go my way i'm going to cry about it and the other one is starting into the agressiveness and backtalking thing. they were born only 18 month apart and for a long time swore they were twins, but man i tell you they are so different.
their mom and dad did and are going through a nasty custody fight so i'm not sure if they are dealing with that in their own way or if they are going through the boy's version of PMS.
a lot of things change for boys at around that age and well.. i guess it can be pretty emotionally challanging.
good luck
~nanci
HE does nothing but watch TV and play video games all day and has put on a ton of weight and she KNOWS its a problem, but feels powerless (she says). I keep trying to tell her that SHE is the parent NOT him, abut her response is always a dejected "I know".
Just to name a few examples of his behavior:
The other night she told him to shower before school and he flat refused. She had to beg plead and finally cry to get him to get in the shower and even then, she said he let the water run on him but didn't wash with soap or wash his hair. MY OWN reaction would have been "Fine, go to school stinky." the way I see it is eventually he would be humiliated into WANTING to shower. Sounds harsh I know, but with two other young boys at home, that LAST thing she should be doing is trying to coax her 10 yr old into the shower.
They got home from grocery shopping and she asked him to please help unload the bags. He got out ONE bag and dropped in in the doorway on his way to his room. She yelled at him he was grounded but like he cared. Grounded from what? Helping put the groceries away? He wasn't doing that anyway-he was playing his video game in his room (where he was grounded to-big whoop).
Probably the WORST thing he did that I would have wanted to just wring his neck for....One day she got a call from her ex husband asking why the hell she didn't make lunch for him. She was dumbfounded. She said she did make him lunch or give him money EVERY morning! Apparently, he got a call from one of his work buddies wives saying that she went to school to have lunch with her child and he asked her for money for lunch. He said his mom never gave him money or made him lunch. My friend questioned her son when he got home (his lunch was still sitting on the counter), and he said he didn't want what she made. She asked why he didn't ask for money, he said he forgot. She asked why he lied to that mother and he just shrugged. At 10, I think HE is OLD ENOUGH to be making HIS OWN lunch anyway!!!
my sil's oldest just turned 8 or 9, (sorry she doesn't let us see them unless it conveniences her)
anyway....OMG as you discribed that boy...over weight only plays video games etc., it was almost like you were talking about my sil's son.
he is way heavy for his age and for good reason...he does nothing but watch tv and play video games. we've gotten to see them a lot lately (she is the one going throw the supervised visitation thing) and when they are at our house it amazes me how it can be just beautiful outside and he wants to sit in the house.. if it isn't raining in buckets my ds thinks he should get to go outside. the second time they stayed with us they both(her kids) fell asleep so early in the evening because it had been nice out so we went and played in my sisters back yard and then went and played at the beach and then played ball with all the kids. (this is a normal nice summer day for our kids, however to her kids it just wore them out)
i sooooo agree with the statement that you want them to have their own opinion but I'M THE PARENT and that is just how it goes. it's not like i make rediculous demands of them or anything, but i expect my children to have manners, both table and verbal and to know that they have to follow the rules and if they don't what the consiquences are, and i DO follow threw with them.
sorry i'll get off my soap box now. :)
~nanci
Let's see....he does cry sometimes but usually only when he gets very frusterated, when he is in trouble or asked to explain his feelings about certain things.
He never just refuses to do something he is asked to do.....I might get a 'major sigh' or a 'but' but then he goes and does it.
He has chores (trash, put your own dishes in the dishwasher) and he is limited to his time on the video games (1 hour per day)
I never have to argue with him about his nightly shower however I do have to remind him to wash good and stay in there longer than 2 minutes.
He will push his bedtime limit though. If you don't tell him it is almost 8:30 then he will just keep hanging out and hanging out......actually I put a stop to that by telling him that for each minute he was late getting to bed that was a minute taken off his video game time for the next day. Worked like a charm!!!!!!!!
He also knows that as soon as he gets home (before he does ANYTHING else is his homework.) By the way, for those of you that knew I was homeschooling this year......I'm not!!! I gave him a final choice yesterday (school started today) what HE wanted to do. He chose public school but felt bad because I already had his school lessons planned and printed out. I told him that it was alright and if that was what he wanted that he was old enough to make the decision for himself. It didn't really matter to dh and I either way, the school he goes to is one of the better public schools around.
Anyway......I just set limits and he usually only puts one foot outside of those boundries....nothing I can't handle. I choose my battles, not everything needs to be a fight (one cookie before dinner isn't going to kill him or not wanting to eat the skin on the chicken isn't worth the fight)..... He is a good boy, great grades, very respectful and the teachers have no problems with him.
The only major problem I have (has already been addressed on here) is that he will tell me one thing and tell his father something else (we are divorced) and sometimes is causes major problems between his father and me. But mostly he just doesn't want to hurt anyones feelings so he tells me what I want to hear and tells his father what he wants to hear......we are working on this issue.
Good luck to you.
Sorry I couldn't really help you.
his mom left when he was about 10 or 11 and dad is the hippy stoner type. well at first it was just a stuggle to get him to understand that in our house he would go to school and improve his grades, then i found pot parafinelia(sp?) in our truck(that he drove) so i pee tested him at home and of course he popped hot. well that turned into a fight, for the first time he yelled at me and got into it with my dh and threatened to move back with his dad then stormed out the door. so my dh went downstairs and got a big box (we just happened to have just bought a new tv) and brought it up and threw all his stuff in it.
when he got home the next morning he saw the box in his room, my dh told him that as long as he lived in our house he will not talk to either one of us like that and he will not threaten us again, he will follow our rules or he CAN just go back to his dad's. dh looked and him and said so what's it going to be....with a dumbfounded oh sh!t look on his face he said he did want to leave and to please not make him. my dh said then get in your room and put your stuff away.
we still had a little battle over the pot smoking but we won that too eventually(come to find out his dad was smoking it at his house, so of course i think that made it that much harder to get it through his head)
he is now stationed in georgia and even now when he comes home he comes to our house!
so what i am trying to say in a long sort of way is yes they will thank you later.
~nanci
I mean how hard is it to set limits? My DD gets 30 min's of tv time a day. She can use this as computer time, tv time or video game time, but she doesn't get all 3 each day. I love the "for every minute you stay up late is one minute off video time". How brilliant is that?? :)