Angry Child

My husband is currently sitting in a chair in our living room.  He is upset about my son's behavior.  My son is getting in trouble a lot lately for his behavior.   Some of it. a lot of it is for not following basic rules like no eating in the living room or upstairs.   He fully admits he doesn't follow the rules because he thinks they are dumb and unnecessary.  So he gets in trouble a lot, which means negative feedback from us, a lot. 

He doesn't comply with instructions regularly.   "Turn the television off, we have to go." can be said multiple times and then we get angry, take the controller and turn the television off.   And then my son gets extremely angry at us.  More negative feedback from us, but he brought it on himself.   We keep our voices calm, he loses it. 

Then there is the aggressive behavior.   Today we were going to the symphony with my mother-in-law.  My son had been behaving badly before we left and had lost his mind at us because we requested he do something outrageously unfair: put on clothes and turn off the television.   In the car he wouldn't leave his sister alone.  He poked and prodded her.  He pestered her.  My mother-in-law told him multiple times to stop.  She was nice, she tried different options, she used distraction techniques.   It didn't work on him, he just wanted to be mean. 

He's getting lots of negative feedback, which we don't like giving. He's intentionally breaking rules because he doesn't think he needs to follow them.   And when he gets in trouble, he lashes out at whatever he can, which many times is his sister.   What are we doing wrong?   We're worried about the person he's becoming.  Is this a phase?  Is this normal?  He's not nice.   I know he's trying to be independent from us, and that's good, but he's going about it in the complete wrong way.  We would give him more autonomy if he showed he deserved it.  Unfortunately, he's losing it instead of gaining it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Our builder came over today and brought his young daughter over.   They came to see the 3D printing things and we gave her lots of models to take home.   My daughter really liked meeting Vivi.   My daughter is such a good host and loves to make new friends.