My six year old son has been having extreme temper tantrums…

He is in a Montessori school and has been since he was a toddler. He started a new school this fall and the transition to first grade has been tough. He does not get his temper tantrums at school nor is he fighting. He is distracted though - in Mont schools, children are directed toward a subject to chose their lesson to work on. My son's teachers chose 3 lessons for him to work on - which he has a rough time doing. He's sometimes disruptive to other students (talking to them when they are trying to work) but nothing malicious. His reading is not up where it should be but he can read fairly well, just not at the level they believe he can (and with better reading comes the lessons he's more interested in). He has been moved from the "middle" weekly list of spelling words to the beginning list of spelling words...he loves language arts but getting him to read with me out loud is a challenge and getting him to do his homework, even when I am sitting next to him (which his teachers also say he needs in the classroom) is a major chore and can (at home) lead to temper tantrumes. He needs to be reminded constantly (like many 6 year olds) to keep his hands to himself and he's had some challenges with lying and speaking in a grand manner (I"m better, faster....). He's socialable and has made some friends in class. Overall, doing somewhat poorly but could and should be doing better. I should also mention he loves to read and has had stories read to him since he was an infant, so that subject is not a problem.

Today, he'd had a good day at work, helped me with some household chores (although needy for attention) and so as a reward he got his internet key to use his internet. As is a typical night, after the fifth repeat that it was time for stories he needed to shut his computer down now, he kept saying "just til the end of my (little cartoon) video". I pulled the internet key because he was not listening and we had an ugly ugly 35 minute tantrum where he finally fell alseep.

His counselor has taught him deep breathing (which he doesn't like to do very much yet) and a tapping / imagination release where he closes his eyes, his hands are tapped by his father or me and he describes a park and what he is doing there. When he goes in to a tantrum, at the suggestion of his counselor, we tell him to go to his room (several times) and it escalates where we physically take him and shut the door and hold it shut. He bangs and pounds on it for all its worth.

Any suggestions for me to reaserch on the internet. My family is being destroyed over this and this is also impacting my daughter, his little sister.

Please help.

Relist: Answer came too late.