EDIT since I don’t seem to be able to comment anonymously:

He does only seem to act worse when he is at school or with another adult. He’s by no means perfect at home, and has acted the same way both at our house and his mom’s. It took years for us to finally get him into a good spot, behaviorally. Throughout the years, we thought him bouncing from home to home might’ve been it, and even blamed that for a while.

I have a child the same age who lives full time with us and doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. We’ve never had any of these issues out of him and they’ve been together since they were under a year old. It’s a lot to get into, but both of his parents did not get along for a while and there was custody battles and some other things. They both struggled to team up as parents which made it even harder for them to make a plan together since they both thought their way was right, and the other’s opinion/way was wrong. This has gotten way better now though and it’s in the past.

His pediatrician once recommended a play therapist, but when we spoke to them they said he was too young to go. We will be looking back into that. I also agree that he needs to be evaluated and we spoke about that last night for being our next step. Thanks for the responses!

My stepchild started kindergarten a little over a month ago. The first week was okay, but it has been downhill ever since. He is staying in constant trouble.

He’s constantly provoking other children- destroying their papers, poking, yelling in their ears, hitting and growling at them.

He is saying bad words (mother fucker, what the fuck, etc.) to the other children.

He’s disrespecting the adults- pretending he’s going to hit them.

He is tearing apart his teachers property- ripped apart her teachers manual.

He took another child’s glasses off of their face and threw them, breaking them.

And with all of this, he is also not listening on the bus. He is pulling kids hair, jumping around from seat to seat, not keeping his hands to himself..

We want to find a good form of discipline because what we are doing clearly does not seem to be helping him.

We’ve gotten down to his level and just talked with him. We have told him if he ever feels like he needs to hit, to smack his leg/book-bag (hoping it kind of acted in the way of a stress ball), he has lost his tablet time and tv time. He has lost his chance at helping his dad outside because that was something he enjoyed doing. We’ve had him go and apologize to every kid he hurt. I know everyone has their own strong opinions on the right and wrong ways of disciplining a child and as much as we all would love to gentle parent him and not have to go to the extreme, this just isn’t the case here. If you’re not stern with him he will run all over you. We really want to get through to him without having to constantly having him sit out or put to bed early.

For reference, my husband & I have him full time and prior to him starting school, his mom and dad rotated every other week since they split at his birth. His mom now only gets him every other weekend as she lives 2 hours away.

He’s had problems with being too rough and not listening since he learned how to walk. And for a while we blamed it on age since he was young, but after years and a lot of redirecting, he never really got better. I have a child the same age and he constantly went after him. Punching in the face, biting, taking his toys.. My child never did anything back and would mainly just come to me crying. They are the polar opposites.

He does not act this way at our place or his mom’s anymore, he has his moments of course as any other child, but he will stay at my husband’s mom’s and he runs all over her. Throws huge fits, makes big scenes in public if he doesn’t get his way. Doesn’t take no for an answer and will try to destroy her things out of anger.

He is such a smart child and when he wants to be, can be so sweet and helpful. I know he is capable of being better and we want to give him the right tools to get him there.

ANY recommendations would be so helpful!! Thank you!