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Even though he doesn't like ribbons and trophies, he still needs lots of verbal praise when he is doing it right. We fall in to the same trap with our son....when things are going right we don't say anything, but when something is wrong we bring it up. Even if it is said gently, he still feels like all we do is criticize. We have to make a conscious effort to praise the little things he is doing right...especially the things that were hard for him and are now easy (tying shoes, taking out the recycling without prompts). Those are minor and should they really be praised?? Probably not, but he gets a little puffed up from the praise and then a criticism doesn't hurt so bad.

I have no idea about the sibling issue, though. Nan

My DS is younger and not especially anxious, so this is not an IME, and you should feel free to disregard it... but is there scope for split the learning up into smaller steps, for example, by accepting any attempt at a new skill to begin with, without requiring him to fix his mistakes? It's not quite clear whether this was the first time he'd taken out the trash, but if so, I think I might have picked up the spill myself or done a "let's just", rather than asking him to. My reason would be that this is bound to be received as criticism and I'd rather be happy he'd made an attempt; I see "making an attempt and not getting it right" as a normal stage in between "not being ready to make an attempt" and "doing it, including fixing any mistakes".

Examples:
- this morning, as it happened, instead of getting DS6's breakfast cereal for him I asked him to do it [late, I know, but explaining why he hasn't done it before would take us OT] and supervised him doing it. He spilt the milk, of course, so I wiped it up, saying something like "ah yes, another time, you'll remember that you need to tip the milk bottle very gently so not too much comes out".
- however, yesterday he made a mess in the bathroom and did half a job of clearing it up. Clearing up his own messes in the bathroom is not a new skill, so I just told him to go and finish the job.

I don't have any advice but will definitely be watching this thread since my DD is very much like this. As for verbal praises it really depends on what we are praising her for since it can backfire on us. If we praise her effort on something she is working on but hasn't mastered as of yet she gets resentful and completely shuts down. It isn't until she herself is sure that she can do it that she not only accepts the praise but demands it. We have seen this on everything she works on: writing, potty training, reading, math, dressing, etc. I have found that if we ignore her efforts and pretend that we don't even see her doing it then she will continue working on the task. Love to hear from anyone who has been there done that and found a solution for it.

Smething that has worked extremely well for us is "Ground Hog Day". Or a Mulligan as many refer to it. Because my son is so emotionally explosive, often times the reaction comes long before any rational thought.

If he does something wrong or explodes without thought we start over, completely over. This might mean picking the spilled trash up yourself, bringing it back in the house and asking your son to take out the trash as if it didn't just happen. I've actually put my son back in bed and started over when the morning starts horribly. You have to pretend that whatever happened previously didn't! It sounds a little weird and in the beginning it seemed as if we spent a large portion of the day on Mulligans. But it works well for us and we don't have to use them to much any more. The best thing has been my son's recognition of situations quickly getting out of hand. He'll stop, ask for a "do over" on his own and the escalation stops. It has helped him to recognize that he creates situations and he, himself can correct them. Try it!

BWBShari,

I love the idea of Ground Hog Day! We definitely use "do overs" here but never started the whole day over. :-) Somedays I think we all need a re-wind and try again option!

Breakaway

Not sure if I'll be able to articulate this clearly but I'll try to offer a few ideas...

My general suggestion would be to involve him more in the advanced planning of activities. Encourage him to engage in goal setting and to define what success would look like for an activity. Ask him what sort of support he'd like you to provide him with. The goal is to get him to take more responsibility and to see you as on his team not just as his boss/critic (and to be clear I totally get that you aren't being bossy or critical, but it sounds like that's his perception).

Ask questions rather than offering advice. Instead of stating the solution, note the problem and ask what you can do to help.

Another subtle thing that helped a lot here was not directing the information at him, but talking more around it with phrases like "the most common approach..." or "many people find it works to do x...". Also, asking before offering advice with something like "I can see you've come far in getting x done, would you like a hint for the rest?"

The "sandwich method" can be good. Compliment, suggestion, compliment.

Finally, and I'm sorry this has been rambling, one thing that really helped our child was learning a bit about the brain and about anxiety. Namely, that when he's upset he's not learning. He'd got to tame the upset before the brain can flip over to learning mode.

So when you give him a warning that you see he's ramping up...
what happens next? Does he have something he can do that will work to get calmed down? Does he ever notice he's getting ramped up?

One of the most helpful things here was getting the kid to start to notice the signs he was ramping up - increased heart rate, muscles feeling tense, negative self talk. Once he got that he was much more open to learning strategies to redirect himself.

I'm wondering if your son is engaging in a lot of negative thinking (that he's not expressing) so when you come in and offer a suggestion he's hearing something much more negative because that's what he's been thinking about himself already. Does that make sense?

MON: my ds9 is very much like your son. We struggle with similar issues and then some in terms of resistance, grumpiness, sarcasm, and general crappy moods! We've decided he's an angst ridden teen in a 9 y/o body!

I definitely don't have all the answers and have appreciated the responses from others. Would like to see more input if anyone has some.

For our son, I'm finding that it works better to say and do less - much less! To leave him alone and let him come back down from the tantrum THEN use a very non-intrusive, non-blaming, non-confrontational approach to discuss the situation. Sometimes I have to wait until bedtime and then we can talk about what went wrong that day. But even when it is quiet and he is calm he still can't take much in about a situation that went bad. So I'm learning to keep my comments to a minimum, get to the point and get out, so to speak.

Using your example of the trash going out, I find that at times like that it helps to start with expressing appreciation for his effort and doing the job (because he will typically avoid the job all together!) and then approach the mess in a very non-accusatory way so he doesn't feel blamed. I know it seems like walking on eggshells, but I find that his response is sometimes to take responsibility on his own at that point. For example, if I say something like "oh, I see that the garbage bag tore on that rough spot in the driveway." He might come back with "well, I should have lifted it higher, I guess." The whole thing seems to revolve around him not being able to handle feeling accused or persecuted. His dad relates to this feeling quite well :p! Might be a genetic link

I think that PTP hit the nail on the head for my son - lots of negative thinking. MrWiggly showed a lot of perfectionistic tendencies when he was younger. They are not so obvious now. But he seems to have internalized them (again, much like his dad) and gets very angry with himself when he doesn't do things the way he thinks he should have. I think he is also, like his dad, avoiding challenging activities because he can't handle the perceived failure. MrWiggly has always been self conscious, way beyond his years. At the age of 4 he got angry at me when I laughed at something he said that was cute and precocious. He went into a full blown tantrum yelling that I was laughing AT him.

MrWiggly struggled with anxiety that was much more obvious a few years ago. These days he seems less anxious and denies feeling anxious but I wonder if the anxiety doesn't continue to lurk below the surface and contribute to so many of his behaviors.

Again, I would love to see what others have to say about behaviors like this.