DS has a temper....

amother

Lavender

Mon, Jan 30 2017, 2:40 pm

I suggest an psychologist. Not because I think your son is mentally ill or anything like that, he sounds like a normal kid, but because his temper sounds outside the range of age-appropriate behavior, and a psychologist can help him and you learn to manage his temper and frustrating situations better. Essentially, his temper is beyond what he and you have the tools to deal with at this moment. These tools can be learned, by both him and you, but sometimes the most direct and effective way is to work with a psychologist to teach him and you those tools. There are other ways of learning those tools (reading a great book on the topic, trial and error of various parenting methods or reward / reinforcement / discipline systems), but I believe they are often slower than working directly with a psychologist, since it takes more time to figure out what works and implement it.

Essentially, the best way to determine if it' worth it try a psychologist now, rather than try yourselves with books or methods, is to ask 2 questions:
1) Is your chlids behavior disrupting his and/or your family's ability to function? (If the answer is yes sometimes, then it's a yes). Sounds like a yes to me.
2) Is the duration and/or frequency and/or intensity of his outbursts beyond that of the average child? Sounds like a yes to me.

If it were me, if I answered yes to the above 2 questions (or even if I answered yes to 1 of them), then I would consider that a situation which needs to be fixed as soon as possible, and most often with a little professional guidance. In other words, I would go with a psychologist as soon as possible (and this doesn't exclude great boos on the topic or other strategies you might hear). The reason is because every day that this continues causes a little bit of damage to both your child and the rest of your family, and I don't believe it's fair to allow the involved parties to suffer through it longer than necessary.