My son recently turned 5, and things are going downhill very quickly. He’s always been a destructive, keep you on your toes kind of kid. However, it’s getting progressively worse. For maybe the past 6 months to a year or so, he’s been refusing to listen to a single thing. Any rule that we have set for him, he will break. And his reasoning for breaking it has never changed. Every single time, it’s “because I want to” I understand children have impulse issues but this is ridiculous.

Here’s a few examples.

We do not give drinks after 7 pm because he will pee the bed. Well, if I don’t monitor him 100% of the time, he will do this anyways. He’ll ask if he can have something and I’ll explain that he cannot because it’s getting close to bed time and he rarely ever fights it, he’ll say “okay mommy” and walk away. He’s been peeing the bed every day, and at first I didn’t think much of it because he’s still so young and I thought maybe he was regressing a bit, just like my daughter did when she was 5. Turns out, he’s been sneaking drinks every single night. If I give him a cup of water during the day, he’ll pour it out in to something else and hide it and drink it later. If he doesn’t do that, he’ll use his hands and drink from the sink after washing his hands or when brushing his teeth. We do have a water machine and if me or his dad isn’t around, he’ll just press the button and drink it straight from there. When he does get caught, or when he pees the bed a lot and we know it’s likely caused by that, he’ll be honest and say “yeah I did this ____” and we’ll explain the rules and he’ll respond with “well I wanted to so I did” Which is crazy because he has plenty of stuff during the day and is not dehydrated at all. Sometimes he’ll change it from because I want to, to “because my sister had a drink later and that’s not fair” or “daddy was drinking at night so I can too” and this is something we’ve explained probably every single day for over a year. If this was the only issue, it wouldn’t be that bad.

If he gets a new toy or book and he decides for any reason that he’s not interested in it, he will destroy it. And I mean completely destroy it. Around 6 months ago we removed all toys from his room because of this and we put them all in a playroom where we keep it organized and rotate toys to keep it interesting. When he’s supervised it’s great, he’s so gentle and he takes care of everything. But if he gets a moment alone, it will be destroyed. Today while I was upstairs, he ripped up 2 books that were brand new. They were both books he begged for and seemed so excited to read them before bed, but he just destroyed it. I asked him why and he said “I wanted a new one. This one was boring” and I explained about how he cannot destroy it because he doesn’t like it and he could have just put it back and told me he didn’t like it. Again, he responded with “well I wanted to break it”

Yesterday at dinner, he got up from the table, threw his entire plate of food into the trash can, came back and sat down and said “I’m hungry can I have more” the whole plate. He hadn’t even taken 2 bites. Again, his response was “because I want to. I didn’t want that plate. I wanted a new one.”

Last week, he tore up my daughters art project because he “wanted to” I could go on and on and on with examples very similar to that. Punishment doesn’t work. We’ve tried smacking his butt, putting him in the corner or timeout. We’ve tried all the gentle parenting techniques like talking it out and trying to understand where his mind is. We’ve tried redirecting the destructive behaviors into play. My husband built him a little set where he can dig outside, break things, and he has a punching bag to hit as well. We thought he was under stimulated but even with all those efforts, it’s not enough. We have taken him to a doctor who tells us that this is all normal but it doesn’t seem that way.

When he’s angry, he will scream “you hate me” “you don’t love me” “you’re so mean to me”

When he’s sad, he’ll tell me to go away because he doesn’t want to talk. When he’s calm, he won’t even hold a conversation with you for more than 3 seconds before he’s completely uninterested and not listening.

I don’t understand because no one in the house is like this. His siblings aren’t like this. He has all the means to be a happy 5 year old but something isn’t right. We have made another appointment with a different doctor to see if there’s something else going on but I’m at a loss. I hate saying it, but my days revolve around his attitude now. I’m finding it hard to spend time with anyone because I’m always being screamed at, or having to watch him all the time, and I think I’m becoming depressed. He does get a lot of socialization and no one has ever taken him overnight or even away from us often so I know nothing is happening to him that we wouldn’t be aware about, such as abuse and things of that nature. I acted out a lot as a child because I was being abused but we know that’s not the case here.. so I don’t understand what to do. What’s the best punishment or correction for a 5 year old? How do you make them understand that they do have rules they need to respect?