My 10-year-old nephew is aggressive and difficult to manage. Kindly help.

Question

Hello doctor,

I am writing on behalf of my sister. She has 10 years old son. And it is getting difficult to manage him especially in lockdown. He makes unnecessary demands and keep arguing, shouting, disrespecting other people in house. He threatens us by missing his school classes, and at times scare us by saying that he will jump from the balcony. It is just tiring every day to argue and convince him to do little chores. And it is started affecting my sister's mental health and it just scary to see 10-year-old talking and shouting like that. Please help.

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

I can understand the pain and frustration experienced by parents, and family members if the child is misbehaving like this. From your description, it looks like your sister's son is showing oppositional defiant behavior.

Is it something new since the lockdown or was he oppositional before as well? How is his behavior at school? How does he respond to other elders apart from his parents?

1. Behavioral management is the solution to this problem.

2. Parents need support and encouragement to become more firm and strict with boundaries when dealing with the child.

3. Positive parenting will help.

4. Firm, fair, and consistent boundaries to be maintained.

5. Provide stability and consistent environment to the child.

6. Encourage child to talk about the feelings.

7. Parents to model emotional regulation. Do not shout or hit the child when he is misbehaving. It will worsen his behavior.

8. Rewards chart technique can be tried to be reinforced regularly for encouraging positive behavior.

9. Time out technique to manage negative behavior.

10. Give lots of praise to child’s efforts.

11. Avoid excess criticism.

It will take some weeks to bring about changes. The child's behavior may seem to get worse initially for one to two weeks when you enforce these rules but in two to four weeks his behavior should improve.

If there are any persistent problems, consult a behavioral pediatrician or child psychiatrist for an indepth assessment.