Born to be loved

Lately we noticed 8-yr old HG mood swing may be enhancing. He dislikes much more things than before. He refuses and resists so much. It happens to both my wife and me, but it may be happening much more to me, and often I cannot tolerate and react intensely, which ends up exacerbating things. Here are some things that happened recently: Case-1: He kept asking me to help school's homework while I was multi-tasking on household items so couldn't get to help him. At some point I saw him frustrated as I kept saying "yeah yeah, I'll come to help you once I'm done". Then my wife came back from work, and he asked her to help. She tried to redirect it to me, then he refused saying "daddy doesn't understand this homework". Case-2: I asked him about homework, he started explaining normally, but began to lose momentum, ended up stopped talking. I kept asking to continue then he switched his tone saying he doesn't like me to ask about homework. We kept pi

Almost a month ago, HG came back from his almost 2-month long stay in Japan . For the return flight, his grandma came along with him on her way to work trip in the US, so he didn't have to fly alone again. There's been a palpable change in siblings dynamics - Before HG's return, 5-yr old AK had been happy to be the interim oldest sibling over 2-yr old sister, but he's now back to a younger sibling. Our house is filled with quarrels and even more mess as it was. After a week and a half since he came back, school started. Back to normal. For almost-8-yr old child, staying away from parents in a different country for 2 months must have been such an experience. For the younger siblings, absence of the oldest brother must have also been a significant change.  For the parents, we missed him. Regarding the load of child caring, there wasn't actually much changes, as 5-yr and 2-yr old are more than handful 😅. At my wife m's side of grand parents house, m worried HG wo