Oh Squirt, I have had just a wee bit of experience in the joys of parenting, as you describe them. <heavy sigh>. I don't remember the age of your DS, but I can share a story with you. One day I dropped DS off for school. I was bleary-eyed and frazzled to the core by his defiant behavior. He was seven and had skipped to third grade in mid-year. Another mom, who looked equally tired and frazzled came up and started talking about her 7 yrs old son who was suddenly on a terror. We had a good laugh about how something must have been in the air, since one after another, other moms of seven yrs olds started to come over and voice the same complaints. It was if they were all going through the same phase, at the same time. <God pity the poor teachers, to have a room full of them!>
All I can say is that DS seems to go through one of these phases whenever he is passing some form of cognitive/learning/growth milestone. I read somewhere that when a child learns something big (learning to walk, learning to read, etc), then the entire brain get rewired. It is almost as if the brain has to adapt to learning something so fundamental, that it has to reorganize and link this new information to all of its previous data. I wish I remember where I read this (it was at least 5 years ago, so hopefully it is not out-of-date). But I remember going "Ahhha!" when DS was 4 or 5. It seemed like anytime he was on the cusp of learning something or even just a hugh growth spurt, he got emotionally all out of sorts, as well as needing extra sleep to process it all.
Give it a month or two, which I know is hard when you are close to tears and pulling your hair out. Do all of the things that others have suggested; the extra hugs, the exercise, the talking through it all, the setting of boundaries and discipline. All of this is important for learning how to deal with anger and frustration. But also just try to ride the storm out. This too shall pass. <hopefully>
FWIW, my DS8 has grown 2 inches in the last two weeks. He has been an absolute pickle to be around for all of this time. I keep asking him if he has been bitten by the snarling spider that I have seen hiding around.
I have been feeding him mountains of food, putting him to bed early at night, and taking him out to play in the creek beds (catching crawfish, building dams, and finding fossils) for long hours on the weekend. He seems to need extra time outside in the peaceful outdoors to just be with his thoughts. (plus DH loves to build dams and I love to collect fossils, so it is an activity that the whole family loves!)
