He argues with me at every turn. He’s rude, argumentative, moody and confrontational about everything. It feels like there is constantly rage bubbling under the surface and I find myself almost fearful of asking him to put his laundry away or put his dishes in the dishwasher.
“You don’t get to talk to me like that. I’m your mother.”
“Please have some respect for your dad.”
“Why on earth are you picking on your brother AGAIN? Don’t you know how bad that you hurt his feelings?”
“I don’t care how late your friends get to stay up or what they had for dinner tonight – you live here and I’m in charge here. Get used to it.”
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 
I find myself cringing at the thought of him coming home from school and some nights I leave him at the hockey rink a little longer than I would have a year ago just so the rest of us can have an hour of peace and quiet. My husband and I have spent many hours wondering if it’s school, if it’s friends… what is causing our sweet little boy to suddenly seem so unhappy?
I want to help him (read: mostly I just want him to KNOCK IT OFF ALREADY) so I did the only thing that has consistently worked for me over the course of the last 11 years of mothering: I started googling. I started reading the stories of other people, people brave enough to confess to the fact that they really don’t like their own kid at all.
I learned that I’m not the only parent of a nine year old that is about ready to package him up and sell them on eBay. As it turns out, the Terrible Twos (more like Terrible Threes – I’m glad I never have to live in a house with three year old again), are caused by a big emotional leap in their cognitive development…
Imagine my relief when I found out that they go through another big leap around age nine.
They go from being a bystander in the world around them, mimicking the behaviors of parents and teachers to actually understanding their individually and differences and comparing themselves to the people around them. I didn’t equate those feelings with an age but my research tells me that it was probably somewhere between the ages of nine and ten when I myself started to compare myself to the kids around me and around the time that I started to feel insecurity and inadequacy and shame at school.
It is around age nine when they start to internalize their feelings, to question themselves and their purpose in the world and they start to believe that adults really do not know everything. Child psychologist Jean Piaget called it the “period of industry” when a child begins to identify more with groups outside the family unit, a push-pull between independence and a need for parental guidance and security.
My daughter’s version of the Nasty Nines was different – rather than lashing out and defying me at every turn, she withdrew. She spent hours in her room and I while I worried about her, I found that I could relate. It came naturally for me to reassure her because I can distinctly remember how hard it can be to be a middle schooler. It wasn’t an easy time but it wasn’t soul-sucking either.
It’s different with my son. It is the most frustrating thing I’ve gone through in a long time. Parenting this type of child does not come naturally to me but I have found that two very simple things are helping us get through this:
- I no longer try to fix it. This is a HARD one for me. I have spent the last 11 years trying to fix everything. The simple act of saying “I’m sorry you are feeling so out of control today, it will get better” is very therapeutic for both of us. He doesn’t feel shame and I don’t find myself as frustrated.
- I try to help him understand it. My first instinct is tell him to KNOCK IT OFF and go to his room but I have found that when I get down to this level and tell him that this is part of him growing up and that I understand and that I love him anyways makes a big difference in how fast he can snap out of his funk. In those moments when he’s yelling and saying extremely hurtful things, this is hard. But it really does help.
For now, I’ll focus on the mere survival of yet another stage, just as I worked to survive the days of sleepless nights and new teeth and transitioning from naps to no naps. I’ll reflect after he goes to bed and I’ll try to help him navigate his world the best that I can. I’ll forgive myself when I yell and I’ll forgive him when he yells.
And most of all, I’ll look forward to the day when I can have my sweet little boy back.
