Help!

I know I joke around about Tanner and his awesome powers of destruction, but it really is a huge problem. He's out of control.

He's almost 5, yet we have to lock every door, childproof every cabinet, hide anything that might be the slightest bit of a temptation for him. Despite all of our precautions he still manages to do the naughtiest things.

It's not just innocent curiosity. He'll get into trouble for something and go out and do the same thing the next hour, the next day, all week long. I feel like we've tried everything: time-outs, sending him to bed, sending him to his room, grounding, spanking, Love and Logic, 1,2,3, Magic.....nothing works! Nothing!

Does he need counseling? Medication? I'm to the point where I can hardly stand him.

Don't get me wrong, I love him. I love him to pieces, but I dread when he wakes up in the morning. I get so angry at him that I'll be literally shaking. And it seems to happen on a daily basis.....some days an hourly basis.

I've tried spending lots of time with him so he gets plenty of attention, I've tried keeping him busy and occupied with activities, I've tried being positive and making a huge deal out of every good thing I see him do. No change.

It's not just destruction, although that is a huge problem, he's also very defiant. I tell him not to do something and he'll yell back, hit, throw things at me. A couple of days ago he got into trouble for turning on the water in the backyard (again, and again, and again) and I sent him to bed early that night. We've been having him sleep on the futon in our storage room because we can't put him with the other boys (he keeps them up all night and last time we tried to let him sleep in his room he pulled everything off the walls......even made a picture fall down on Weston). I have some canning jars in there. He was furious at being sent to bed so he started throwing glass jars. I ran in there as fast as I could once I heard glass shattering, but he's already broke some and we had to clean up the mess.

He got into the child-proofed fridge downstairs and pulled out all the cubes of butter. I came downstairs and had butter everywhere. I cleaned it up spanked him and sent him to bed, but I guess he'd stashed a couple where I didn't see because the next afternoon he got them out and stuffed butter in every nook and cranny he could find....8 cubes of greasy butter all over the basement. Mike cleaned that one up and it took hours. Did it matter that he'd got in trouble for the same thing the night before? Nope. It never does.

I had a neighbor from around the corner come to my door last week and tell me that he'd almost hit Tanner with his truck because he was out playing in the street. He KNOWS he's not supposed to do that. He just doesn't care. He's so impulsive, he never thinks before he does anything. He doesn't consider consequences of any kind and it scares me.

This morning it's already begun. He shoved a bunch of dry cereal into a full carton of milk. After I tried, in vain, to remove it I finally just gave up and told him he wasn't getting breakfast this morning. He screamed and tried to hit me so I sent him to his room.....where he proceeded to tear everything up because he was mad. What should I have done differently? It would be one thing if he was two, or three, but he's almost five!

What do I do? I'm at the end of my rope. I'm so frustrated with him on an almost constant basis. It doesn't matter how "strict" I am, nothing seems to change. I worry that I'm crushing his self-esteem by being constantly mad at him, but I don't know what else to do. He doesn't follow the rules. He doesn't care about punishments or even awards for good behaviour.

Help! Any suggestions?