9 year old making very POOR choices.

My 9 year old son has been getting into trouble at school, not listening at home, and talking us (parents) with a smart mouth. This is not our son...he is smart, always listened to his teachers, followed the rules. He has always been attracted to friends who were terrible influences. We told him to stay away from them, he doesn't. Lately he'll 'slip' and talk about a friend who did something wrong at school like it was something really funny. He regularly tells us how 'everyone else' gets to watch whatever they want or play violent video games - he does not. He has become very very good at telling us what we want to he, and continues to get into trouble. He bullies his younger and gets angry at me when he is punished. We have gotten into a cycle where he acts up - then he's grounded. Round we go...On two recent occassions where we were out with his (nice) friends and parents and both times, he acted like a punk, it was like he felt the need to look "cool" by talking back to me the whole time. His friends didn't find it asmusing either.

We were always more strict with what our children are allowed to do
than most parents. When he did act up, commonly his punishment was harsher than necessary. We can be intolerant of others (what we consider bad) bahavior - thus keeping him away from many social activities.

The back story to this is that our home has several issues going on (all at once), We have not taken a real vacation - ever (three days was the longest - when our son was 4 months old); This weekend was the first sleepover with his maternal grandmother (I finally put my foot down - my husband did not want the kids sleeping over anywhere - when I planned one with his parents - he said it would have to wait until HE could go with them).

We (parents) are not getting along. His father feels the need to 'remind' all of us all the time of our financial pressures, (we're broke), he also feels the need to remind us that HE provides our life as we know it by going to work and we do not appreciate it. My son wants to enroll in a sport (same one we have talked about for 6 years), a long time ago - his father said he wanted to enroll with him as a father/son thing rather than with his friends. (I never agreed with).. here it is this many years later - his friends are that much farther ahead and his dad says we can't afford it (we can't right now). His weekends are filled with projects his dad has planned - not fun stuff. Over Thanksgiving vacation almost the entire time on yet another project. My son was allowed to play 1 day.

Most of MY time (all of it If I allowed it) is spent taking care of the house and younger son and dealing with my older son's issues at school. I'm so mentally exhausted all the time - I end up getting more angry than necessary - it clearly is not helping.

It really DOES help to write this down. Could use some good advice.

Sounds to me like you need to inject a bit of fun into the house but by reading your post I think you already know this.

Kids need to release energy by sport/clubs/laughter/fun if they dont get what they need they will play up.

I do not put words too clearly hopefully someone else will make it clearer.

Hugs to you and all your family.

I see a connection here. I think children often do not know how to express their unhappiness with a family situation, and have to act it out, because they cannot understand or explain in words what they feel. Maybe some way could be found that your son would have the chance to explore and express his real feelings about it? It might help if he felt someone were paying attention to those feelings.