Emotional behaviour

[Debsy123]

Hi am totally new to this. I am a single mother to one son . He is almost 12 so we are more at the 'pre' teen stage. My son makes me laugh everyday we have a great relationship. I went back to college studying full time in 2017 and life is stressful especially as a single mom. My son has a great relationship with his dad and goes to stay with him a lot i think we co-parent well.
My son is a soft kid, and extremely emotional - he cries a lot and cant seem to express how he is feeling without crying. Me and his dad have began to argue a lot on our approaches to parenting our boy in recent months with his dad being quite firm and not accepting nonsense and forcing him to do things that take my son out of his comfort zone i am a bit softer in my approach but there has been a constant balancing act of siding with dad and hoping that my son will toughen up a little and seeing how upset and frustrated my son is and just not knowing what to do. He is a very outgoing kid full of conversation and when he's happy he's super happy but when he's down he's really down and i think he is lonely as an only child. He doesnt seem to demonstrate resilience and when something happens gets extremely frustrated and last began banging his head off a wall because he spilled his tea saying he was stupid. He beats himself up a lot even though he is popular among friends and plays a lot of sport and is very good at all sports but when it comes to loosing its back to banging things and crying. Me and his dad feel we are walking on eggshells lately with him and i know 11 is a vulnerable age but is there anything more or different we could be doing.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated
Thanks

[Sophia-RO]

Hello @Debsy123 , thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like you have your hands full at times with your son! From the sounds of it, you have a great relationship with your son and his father, and have a great parenting set up arranged. I am sorry that you have recently started to disagree with your son's father about your varied approaches to parenting your son and his emotional expressions. I can imagine that there are a lot of factors involved in this situation and that there might be different perspectives on how to help your son. Have you had a chance to talk to anyone from your son's school about this, such as the school counsellor or psychologist? They may be able to support you further with this and could arrange to have a chat with your son if you would like.

I also think it would be really helpful for you to get some professional advice around this. We have a free parents support service that you can use to chat with a qualified counsellor about any parenting issues you may be having - you can check that out here if you're interested. Another service that could be helpful for you is Parentline. You can reach them on 13 22 89, from 8am to midnight, 7 days of the week and have a chat with a professional counsellor. I hope that you find this to be helpful. Please feel free to keep us updated here on the forums!

[Debsy123]

Ya sometimes it can be overwhelming i just dont know where this volcano of emotions comes from with him im wondering am i paying too much attention to it and it something that he'llgrow out of post puberty or should i address this now . But thanks il go check that out now much appreciated

[Bre-RO]

Hey @Debsy123 it's so tough in those pre-teen years, so many emotions and changes happening. It would be hard coming from different perspectives in regards to the crying. It does sound like you both care a lot for your boy and I'm sure he knows that. 

It sounds like with all the emotions he is going through, seeing a counselor could be helpful. How do you think he would feel about that?