Why can't life just be normal?

Im thinking he could have mooned the kid and the story got twisted in translation

Definitely ask your son in the most charming manner you can muster. Perhaps a gentle-tell me about what you guys did together?

It IS inappropriate but the kid is 6, not 16!!! No need to get paranoid; yet…..there are some who are going to worry FOR your son not ABOUT him, thinking HE has perhaps been exposed to something he shouldnt have been, KWIM?

That may not be as meanspirited as it sounds. I would want to know where my 6 year got the idea to be sure everything was a-okay

I asked him after school today what happened at his friends house yesterday, and indeed he did expose himself to this kid. He thought it was a riot. He cracked up and said, “yeah! I wanted him to give me his rake, so I told him I was gonna show him my penis if he didn’t.” And that’s just what he did.

I was seriously hoping for it to be a mooning, but apparently not. I explained that this is not appropriate, and that the boy was upset enough to tell his mother and his other friends mother. I also tried to impress upon him that this isn’t something normal, and that people might think he’s very strange. I also explained that if an adult did something like that people might call the police.

My son is very unimpressed with what others think of him. This really makes changing inappropriate behavior difficult. You can’t say, “All the other kids are doing this or that” and actually have him care.

I didn’t make too big a deal out of it. I try not to punish him if he tells me the truth, because I realize that only encourages lying. But even though I realize he thought it was funny and I’m not that concerned about it, I certainly cannot have him shaking his penis at all the kids in town. Plus it’s just one example of all the inappropriate things he does.

Recently he got it in his head that it was a riot to stick his hands in other people’s pockets to see what they had in there. He usually did this to the other mom’s on the playground after school. He’d shout, “Pickpocket! Pickpocket!” I pulled him aside a few times to explain it was inappropriate, and that people didn’t like it. Then we were at Target last week. A woman came up to me and asked me a question, then walked away. My son then went up to her and did his pickpocket bit. The woman was flabbergasted, and I was mortified. I just want to shake him sometimes. Why doesn’t this kid just STOP DOING THESE WEIRD THINGS?!?!?!

I just want some harmony. Is that too much to ask for? A friend of mine once read a book called “The Spirited Child” or something like that. It said that when you have a child that is difficult you must mourn the loss of the child you thought or hoped you would have. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do that. Sometimes I’m okay, but other days I just cry. You know? I love him, I hate him, he’s wonderful, he’s maddening. This ADHD thing has really kind of ruined the relationship I hoped to have with him. He’s a cuddly kid, but not with me. My husband, in spite of always saying our son needs more discipline is the softy. I can never bend or he will walk all over me. I’m the Polizei—the Gestapo. I want to hug and kiss him, but I find myself pushing him away. He just makes me so tired that I want him to leave me be.

I need to be more for him. But I know I’ll never be enough.

Wow, you really said a lot of heartfelt things. I find that coming here to this site really helps. All of our kids do wierd things and when you’re among people who understand firsthand it really helps. For example, I wasn’t going to post this but it might help. The other day I had one of my adhd students intentionally staple himself in the stomach several times with a staple gun. It’s a first for me! He refused to go to the nurse and says he used to do this all of the time. I tried to call his mother and just left a message for her to call me when she gets a chance. Then not even an hour later my daughter’s teacher called and said she found globs of my daughter’s hair in her desk and she thinks she’s pulling it out! So, in the same day I was handling these wierd things as an educator and a teacher. When I finally spoke to the mother she freaked out! I repeat, freaked! I told her I understand totally how she feels because of the phone call I got from my daughter’s teacher about her pulling out her hair and that she is also adhd. I think it helped the mother. I spoke to my daughter’s doctors and they switched her back to Concerta. My daughter was bored at free time and was tying knots into her hair and then working them out. The result was a glob of hair.

So, hang in there! Visit frequently and maybe you can find some support here!

Thank you so much. There is a CHADD support group pretty close by and I think I might join. I’m having a hard time with some of this stuff, and his ADHD is not as severe as some kids. How do those parents deal with it? I try to tell myself that comparitively I have it easy.

Now I’m wondering if I should have him call this kid’s mother and apologize. I’m conflicted. If we lived in a bigger town I would probably leave it at the talk we had after school. Also there is the very distinct possibility that my son will do it again. I don’t know if having to apologize will make the kind of impression that needs to be made.

He’s really turned into the class clown lately and he seems to be doing more and more outrageous things to score a laugh. We had parent teacher conferences, and his teacher agreed about the class clown thing. I made a comment like, “Yeah, but it’s just not funny.” Her reply was, “on the contrary, he’s very funny, and the kids all love him.” Swell. I mean I want the kids to like him, but I don’t want this bad behavior to be encouraged. You know, he actually works on his comedy routine with my husband. He tries out new jokes on him and often has him act as his straight man—“okay daddy, when I say this, you say that. Okay?” It would be adorable under different circumstances.

You know what’s very strange is that a little over a year ago he would freak out if you laughed at him. He’d scream, “NO LAUGHING!!!!” and then cry.

YOU SAID: “You know what’s very strange is that a little over a year ago he would freak out if you laughed at him. He’d scream, “NO LAUGHING!!!!” and then cry.”

And this should tell you something — provided you make it CLEAR to him, and keep making it clear that showing off your ‘censored’ manly parts and playing ‘pickpocket’ is NOT ACCEPTABLE, in another year he will likely not believe you that he ever did these ‘weird’ things!

Some of us find ‘social knowledge’ harder to come by than others. Ask my son, who is still struggling with ‘at age 11 it is NOT ok to spontaneously hug your 11YO guy friends when you see them after a long absence’…!

The hardest thing is to hide our own adult-type judgements about this sort of behaviour — but that is essential! He didn’t show his ‘man part’ cuz he is a future nutbar — but because he is a 6YO who will do anything for a laugh! NOW, he needs to learn that SOME things just can’t be done for a laugh, or eventually they will get us in big trouble — seems like you did a good job of passing the message. Just don’t freak if it happens again and you have to deliver the message in a stronger fashion…at 6, it took my son a couple of times to REALLY learn this, as a younger friend had been doing it, so my admonishments were not taken seriously. It was just a big ‘yuk, yuk’ part of the toilet humour stage…

Luckily, the second instance happened just as I came around the corner to witness ‘the show’, and so we firmly got the lesson across that this is NOT acceptable — if you end up in the situation again, mention that not only would the police be called if a bigger person did it — but ‘only BABIES do that!’ I felt bad that I had to be quite stern the second time — but it was the last time, and now he’d NEVER believe he ever did this!

Welcome to the boards!

Hi there,
Like Elizabeth said Welcome! Your son sounds just like mine at 6. He is 9, and in 3rd grade, and doing pretty darn good right now. But it is such a long journey. Like your son my son was impulsive and didn’t seem to care what others though. Sadly it took being shunned a few times and excluded before he really started to understand the impulsive behavior wasn’t always going to result in the laughs he expected. In addition to the meds our son had behavior charts/contracts w/ both his 1st and 2nd grade teachers. They focused on his successes but were a way to communicated the harder times to us. Additionally he is in therapy once a week and has been in and out of social skills groups. Whether it’s the social skills group or me when something goes wrong “role playing” has been KEY for my guy. In addition to going over why the way he behaved was inappropriate we actually act how to do it differently next time. My son does not know intuitively how to respond in social situations, especially the first time something comes up. I also feel like maturity is on his side. On some level I think he is taking more ownership of all the “tools” we’ve given him the past several years and using them more often on his own. So many of the tools we have implemented I learned about right here. So keep coming back, and try out suggestions that you are comfortable with. Some work, some don’t but you’ll figure it out. He is very lucky to have you as his advocate. Hang in there.

Wow! Thank you all so much! There is a social skills group very close to where I live that we have considered taking our son to. The teachers at his school have been wonderful and supportive and highly recommended it.

You know it didn’t occur to me that the whole “don’t laugh” thing was much the same as what we are seeing now. I guess you get so concerned that your kid is turning into an elementary school flasher that you don’t stop to realize that this too, like so many other things, will pass given time and guidance.

The busy body mom who told me about this called and I explained that my son thought it was a big joke. I considered telling her it was none of her business, but it would then be all over town (I would like to keep my child from alienating me from every adult acquaintance I have). I figure the only way to keep a person like her from spreading rumors is to just be honest. Be vague about it and she’ll just start making things up.

Thanks!!!