Hi Seeker -
I went back and read all your posts. You've mentioned your son has difficulties in school - are they mainly social or does he struggle academically too? Another question would be the family history - you say in your signature you're in recovery and have a hx of depression/anxiety - anyone else in the family tree with similar issues (diagnosed or not)? No judgement there at all - once my difficult child starting completely wigging out, I took a long hard look at myself (bipolar, untreated most my life) and our family tree (some big red flags on both sides - depression, substance abuse, etc.). It can be quite enlightening to look at family members' behaviors in hindsight. Did your son hit developmental milestones late, on time, or early? Was the pregnancy/delivery uncomplicated?
While I agree that further evaluation of your son is probably a good idea, I think you are also on the right track in looking at your consistency too. Parenting our challenging kids has to be creative and has to be a multifaceted approach - seeking help and input from professionals while also adapting our parenting strategies to our kids' needs. I found consistency to be one of the hardest things to master. I totally hear you - some days you're just so wiped out you just cannot possibly fight one more battle with your kid. But consistency is absolutely key. One of the books below talks about how oppositional/defiant kids are optimistic - they just know they are going to win. Doesn't have to be today or this week or even this year - the one time you're inconsistent, they've "won", and that just further reinforces them. Some kids have a ridiculous capacity to wait you out for that "win."
The other thing I had a hard time with was *not* reacting emotionally to my son's behaviors. I mean, c'mon - he just (insert over the top behavior of the day here) - it's normal to react emotionally to that, right? But what I learned is that when I had an emotional response (angry, sad, even happy), it just fed his behaviors. When I got being neutral down, I gained some control over the situations and he lost control over me. Does that make sense? I was also a yeller - a really bad parenting strategy when you have a kid who feeds on chaos and power and control. When I was yelling, he was in control.
Two books I'd recommend - The Defiant Child by Dr. Douglas Riley, and The Explosive Child by Dr. Ross Greene. One of them (sorry - it's been so long, I can't remember which) talks about putting behaviors in baskets. Basket A is for behaviors that you absolutely need to address right now (for us, it was always violence). Basket B is for behaviors you want to address but they're not immediately important. Basket C is for the stuff that you'd *like* to address but they're not a huge priority at this moment. The baskets really helped me identify the really important behaviors, and it also helped me get more consistent - if you're fighting every single battle (from being slow to not bathing to back-talking to being physically aggressive), you're going to wear out, fast. If you only pick 1 or 2 behaviors to immediately address, you get the chance to work on your consistency. As you get stronger and able to be more consistent, you can add another behavior to address.
I understand your son's father's attitude. My husband was the same way, as was my extended family. Nothing wrong with- my difficult child that a little discipline wouldn't fix. But you know what? My kid *loved* being in "trouble", thrived on punishments, and couldn't give a darn about parental approval, starting at about 18 months. Positive reinforcement provoked negative behaviors. In my experience, that's just not right. There was something more going on. We starting looking for help when he was 3, mainly counseling and parenting classes (not a bad idea for a parenting tune up, but I found most parenting classes were not geared towards parenting the really defiant/oppositional kind of kid). When he was 6, the violence had gotten completely unmanageable and I sought out psychiatric help for my son - against my husband's wishes, but when the professionals validated that something more was going on with our son, he finally got on board.
Hang in there!!