Appropriate response when 13 year old son hits me

amother

DarkViolet

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 3:31 pm

We have had similar situations at home.

What I wished would have happened:

DH taking our son aside, making a very serious face and saying in a very serious “I mean real business” type of a voice:
“YOU. DO NOT. TREAT. MY. WIFE. THIS. WAY.”
Make it clear and scary.

Or

I wish my other kids would take their brother aside and punch him in the gut for hitting their mom and calling their father an “idiot”

Neither doesn’t happened, though.

Instead I remind DS that we learn from Torah, that respecting your parents is a sgula for a long life, meaning, disrespecting your parents is a recipe for shortening your life. And it’s my job to remind him that. Also I mention, that I don’t hit back because I consider myself physically and mentally stronger. I won’t hit someone who is weaker than me. Though many people he will encounter in life won’t share this attitude.

My son is apologetic. After an outburst he tries to be very helpful, will offer to clean/cook/organise/run errands… I can’t help thinking about his poor future wife. Or wives…

OP - hugs. You are not alone.

amother

Hosta

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 5:19 pm

Op, your child is not typical. If this is sudden onset, look for a physical reason. If he has pretty much been headed in this direction for a while, change your parenting. I'm not saying you are a bad parent, just that for this child you need to make a change.
Looks like from your examples, the two of you need to work on EFFECTIVE communication. And I second the idea of implementing the explosive child approach. I read the book and it was very helpful for me. Your son is missing something and it's making him lash out. You can give him those skills and keep a good relationship with him in a compassionate way. You have to treat him more like an adult in the way you resolve conflicts. You have to show him respect, so he can use it as a model. I like another posters idea of explaining it like he's a coworker. I know it seems wrong to treat a teen who is your child in such a respectful way, but there are some children that absolutely need that kind of parenting.

amother

↑ Tanzanite ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 5:54 pm

shachachti wrote:

What is your experience with your last sentence?
Has the extreme behavior stopped because of the extreme response?
And how many extreme responses at once are necessary?

Tell us more.

I have a bunch of teens. Yes sometimes extreme reactions are necessary to show the seriousness of a situation. Taking a way a tshirt is much less extreme than a child hitting or swearing at his mother. "Use it properly or lose it" is a very normal sensible idea.
When my son buys a phone secretly to have unfiltered internet, I take it away.
When my son uses his phone to call 900 numbers, I take it away.
When they use apps improperly, the apps go away.
When they make a mess in my kitchen and don't clean up, multiple times, they lose the privilege to use my kitchen.
Etc

I don't make rules I can't enforce. If I tried grounding my kids they'd laugh in my face and walk out the door anyway.

The most extreme reaction was by my husband. When one of my sons was 13, he got into an argument with my husband and tried to physically attack him. This is unheard of in my house but my son was going through a major macho stage. My husband had a hurt arm at the time but had to physically tackle and hold him down until my son gave up the fight.
My husband told him: Don't you ever try to attack me or anyone in this house ever again! You knew I had a hurt arm and you were going to fight me anyway? Don't you ever do that again!
My son got up angry but once he cooled off I saw that he gained more respect for my husband than ever before. It's almost five years later and my son not only trusts and respects my husband as his main role model, but he has never tried anything like that again.

↑ WhatFor

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:15 pm

amother OP wrote:

The entire incident seems to me to be an extreme example of my son's complete disrespect for his parents.

Two weeks ago he did something that also shocked me. We were driving and he was in the front seat. DH called to speak to my son about a game a team they follow had won the night before. It was a purely friendly call, not asking him to do anything or talking about an annoying topic. Here's a rough sketch of what happened:

Phone rings. I answer and put on speaker.
Hi Son, how are you? Wasn't the game last night crazy? What did you think of X's shot?
And my son, without saying a word, just hit End Call and disconnected.

Again, I know it sounds hard to believe but DH and son ordinarily have a great r/s. I was so shocked at the level of chutzpah. I asked my son why he did that and he said he didn't feel like talking. I said that's fine but just express that. Eg: Hi Abba, I don't feel like talking about the game right now. We'll talk later, bye.

But deep down I'm wondering, how did we get to this point?

I really think a neurosych exam would benefit him (assuming there's nothing physical going on). You're describing a pattern of antisocial, impulsive behaviors. Sure, teens misbehave occasionally. But no, it's not normal for a healthy teen to be violent to family members a few times a week, and to be regularly cursing family members out if nobody uses curse words in the house.

I think it is potentially possible for a teen to turn this way based on inappropriate parenting, and obviously you can work on your reactiveness, but something about what you're describing sounds like some sort of regulation issue coupled with missing communication skills. I think you need to get to the root of why.

The fact that he's great with peers and school doesn't rule out a neuropsychological issue. Some kids, especially if there's a more mild case, are great at "masking", meaning they can hold it in and keep it together when it would be humiliating for them to act a certain way in public. But this takes a lot of mental and emotional energy and the mask needs to come off sometime, and that can happen when they're finally home.

Also, you seem to keep personalizing why he's doing these things, which is only going to escalate things, but it's possible that hanging up the phone is not about "chutzpah" and your relationship. That viewpoint only serves to increase the power struggles and take you further from understanding what's at the root of this. Obviously I don't know what issue he has. But I could explain how that scenario might look to someone with no regulatory skills.

Imagine a kid who is feeling overwhelmed, for whatever reason. Maybe they're overstimulated. Maybe they're really hungry and irritable. Now because their brain tends to bypass the "stop and process" part of the brain when they're experiencing things, this feeling, when triggered, goes straight from feeling to reaction. Imagine this kid has never been taught what's going on with his brain, never been taught skills about what to do in that scenario, and/or even if he has, that part of his brain is simply not working right now. So there he is, subtly feeling like he's at the edge of the rope in a car, and suddenly a call comes in, demanding he give the caller some energy which he simply doesn't have. Because right now he has no capacity to think this through, he simply hits "end" to make it stop. Does this have anything to do with chutzpah, disrespect, malintent? Of course not. Trying to look at it that way is going to get you nowhere.

And predictably, people are going to argue that you can't just let a child do this, which literally no one is suggesting. But trying to "discipline" regulation into someone with certain mental health issues will be as effective as trying to discipline a diabetic to tolerate eating lots of sugar. That is, not at all.

OP, in the book The Explosive Child, there are exercises that help you identify specifically what skills your son is struggling with (and I know you think he's socially/academically great but these skills are much more nuanced, and will probably make more sense). It also helps you identify when it's happening, so you might be able to discover some triggers. And it gives concrete exercises on how to approach issues with your child. I keep recommending it only because it really seems like it could be good for you and your son.

And as I keep saying, please get him evaluated. Worst case, you ruled out any neuropsychological issues and never have to wonder about that.

↑ shachachti ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 7:37 pm

amother Tanzanite wrote:

You didn't explain where you see that giving a teen 6 punishments at once was helpful.

To the contrary you're on the same page as me.

You wouldn't dock because they would walk off.
Ditto.

Your husband simply spoke to him. And that made him have respect.
Ditto.

You take away phones because unfiltered internet. That's not extreme. (Maybe unhelpful in the long run but thats a longer discussion)
Ditto.

Taking away a tshirt sounds way less extreme than taking away a tshirt and throwing it into a big dumpster.
Ditto.

amother

Antiquewhite ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:01 pm

amother OP wrote:

I appreciate any thoughtful responses. I don't mind criticism; I'd like to learn something from others who can avoid or navigate these situations better than me.

Background:

My son just turned 13. He is our eldest; we have 4 younger children. He is smart, kind, and popular. He has no social or emotional issues. However, a few times a week he will start a fight or lose his temper and things spiral quickly. He will likely name call, swear, or hit one of his younger siblings (most likely) or either me or my husband (less likely).

My husband and I are involved parents. We express our love to our kids, try to keep them active and really like spending time with them. I am more of the disciplinarian. I think that I give my kids a pretty loose leash but do not tolerate meanness/physical abuse.

I was a terrible teen and mouthed off to my parents all the time. I'm not proud of it but I think it's normal for kids to express anger toward a parent. But an older child hitting a parent is beyond the limit, in my opinion.

Today:

My son got annoyed at me because I told him to stop spraying room spray around the kitchen (he thought it smelled bad in there) but he did not stop so I took the bottle away from him. He reacted by whacking me with a t-shirt he was holding, hard. He then said "oops, my bad," and tried to pretend it was an accident. It was intentional.

I took the tshirt (his favorite one) and threw it outside in the big dumpster. I told him he was grounded for the entire day. It's July 4th and we have a few fun events and activities on today. He cannot join us. He showed no remorse, tried to pretend he didn't care he was grounded (I know he was very excited to go out today/tonight) and then told my husband to "shut up, idiot" when DH tried to explain the consequence.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. I know that if we don't figure out how to manage this it will likely escalate over the teen years. Also, my younger children are watching and learning.

Please advise. Is hitting normal?! What would you do in this situation?

Absolutely not! You’re modeling physical behavior don’t you see? Who was first to get physical? You. Only following that did he respond by doing that. A warning should be provided verbally with a consequence following after but do not take away something he wears. A child can lose their sense of self by doing that. Staying home when you guys go out is a great consequence, but you throwing away his item seems to me like your anger was playing a role here. Next time take a ten minute break before responding to his insolent behavior and provide a consequence that matches the “infringement” not too severe, and without you modeling bad behavior.

amother

↑ Antiquewhite ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:07 pm

[quote="amother Dandelion"]She wasn't physical. She asked him to stop he ignored the next step is removing the item, that's a perfectly normal action. Hitting is not normal and it's concerning that he does it at this age. I wouldn't salvage anything. She reacted appropriately.

The correct thing is to stick to your word. Don't undo anything and stick to the consequences.[/quote
Physically “taking away” a bottle is a physical act. Maybe not forceful or violent but to a kid that’s how they will think. I’m trained in this behaviorally and this is the fact. If you want to know why a behavior is occurring look at what happens before the behavior. If he only acts this way when “things are taken away” or someone does something physically, that’s his trigger to doing a physical act in return. An easy way to stop this cycle is to stop being physical.

B'Syata D'Shmya ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:52 pm

amother OP wrote:

You need to find him a good Rav-therapist to help him with his anger management- to give him tools to identify and deal with his feelings before they escalate and he loses control.
Punishing him now is ok, it tells him you are in control and dont like his behavior but he may lack the ability to control it. And you wont always be around to punish him. He needs to learn that his feelings are ok and how to handle them.
Now before its too late.

↑ B'Syata D'Shmya ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 8:55 pm

amother Antiquewhite wrote:

First figure out when he does this. Is it always as a response…. And why… then you can focus on allowing him to do something to get the same response (ie using his words instead of using his hands)
To me this looks like he’s trying to exercise his sense of control, you responding with force only exacerbates the situation. Give him lots of choices and show him you trust him. Do not allow him to see you lose ur sense of control. Maintain the demand in a calm voice, provide reminders, and always give attention for all good behaviors that he does

Parents wont always be around to help their child identify their feelings and control them. DS has to learn to do it for himself.
OP may benefit from talking to a chinuch expert as well to develop her own tools to deal with this. Since its not an isolated event.
Some people try a contract with their child. If you do this, this is the consequence - so child knows in advance the "rules". However if the child loses control - they dont remember in the moment of anger.

naomi2

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 9:00 pm

WhatFor wrote:

Op, please take Whatfor's advice seriously.

↑ giftedmom ↓

Thu, Jul 04 2024, 9:05 pm

amother Tanzanite wrote:

You’re right. Some things only a father can and should do. Kudos to your husband.