7 year old with independence issues?

[Mattie]

Originally Posted by Oleg Bach

Let him be who he is and stop trying to form the human being in your own image- He is not you- respect him.

As long as he isn't a "pretend girl"? How does this viewpoint mesh with your response on the scouting thread?

[LPDAL]

Sounds like he is growing up. If he can do things respectfully and the right way then there is no sense in holding him back. Young men to seem to want to separate and form their own pack sooner () so letting him take charge of his life in age appropriate ways would do a lot for him. Who knows, he may very well want mom's help again.

[LovelySummer]

I think you need to shut down the bossiness of your daughter completely. Bossing around her brother has nothing to do with being a leader. You are characterizing it as a positive thing but it's not. Point blank. If you want her to hone her leadership skills, put her in Girl Scouts. Tell her in no uncertain terms, she is not the boss of her brother and to stop bossing him around. She is his sister not his mother. End of story. I'd be sick of somebody always telling me what to do also. That can breed contempt between the two of them and you are doing nothing but helping the demise of the relationship by characterizing her bossiness as some sort of personality strength. It's really not a personality strength to be bossy and it has nothing to do with being a leader.

Originally Posted by Tinawina

I have a 7 year old son and a 9 year old daughter.

I grew up with only sisters so I don't know much about little boys. Lately, my son is getting really, really angry at being told what to do... by ANYBODY. His need to do what he wants to do is getting bigger and bigger. He links it to wanting to be "a man" (??? did not get that from us). Of course I am not going for that. He has to listen to me and hubby because we are the parents, period. Still, he keeps trying to aggressively assert his independence constantly.

Some of this is about his take-charge sister. She is always trying to ordering her brother around, nagging him, etc. We've done a lot to curb her overbearing tendencies (without trying to undermine her need to lead, which I think is good) and she has gotten better. But we haven't done it fast enough apparently. He is now oversensitive to direction. It actually makes him angry. Today I had to stop an argument because he got mad that one of his friends was trying to give him directions to play a game. He felt like he was being told what to do. When he gets angry, he tends to be very intense about it, to the point he yells or cries loudly because he can't (or won't) calm himself down.

He gets great grades in school and I have never had a note home for behavior or anything like that. He has lots of friends and get invited to many birthday parties and repeat playdates. But he does seem to be getting angrier lately. When he's starting to blow up at his friends I start to worry about it.

Other background info: he's an emotional kid all around and has always experienced pretty intense feelings, but never before at this level. He does listen to me even when he doesn't want to, but lately I've had to repeat myself to get him to listen, which I am now cracking down on. The only other time he was like this (not listening) was around the time we moved. He's also the type of kid who has pessimist tendencies and always thinks the worst is gong to happen. After he gets angry, he blames himself and thinks he ruined everything. He's been known to call himself stupid or say he thinks he's a bad person. Usually have to talk him down from the ledge when he gets like that.

Is it normal boys around his age to really, really want to be more independent, to be a "man"? Maybe its just a gender neutral thing? Does anyone else have an intensely emotional kid? How do you deal with it? I feel like constantly punishing him won't help anything.