Question
Good day. My son (7.5) has come a long way on many behavioral issues. One infuriating thing we are still having trouble with is his tendency to break things. I get the impulse to "test" material limits to see how much stress it can handle before it breaks, but these examples occur far more frequently for new learnings to occur each time, especially for a boy his age. He will break off pieces of plastic from his cars and then play with the broken pieces. Or bend a sister's magic wand and watch it break. Or when he's sent to his room, he'll tear up a picture he made that's stuck on his wall, or even his class portrait, so that we find pieces of them all over the floor afterwards. Or he'll pick up a cardboard crown and just start tearing pieces off. He's been first gently and recently more harshly reprimanded and sent to his room for extended periods of time (like a go-directly-to-jail super-ticket), but I think we have to tweak our approach because it keeps happening. Thanks.
