Need advice - 3 1/2 YO DRIVING ME BATTY
By Raven7317
@Raven7317 (691)
United States
April 10, 2009 3:19pm CST
I'm at my wits end and I need some advice from the wonderful moms who have given me advise in the past!
I've always maintained that my son was very well behaved, very polite, listened well, nice sweet personality and I was being completely truthful. But something happened! For the last month, his sweet little personality has changed so drastically that I find I am at my limit. There's no other way to put it but to say he has completely turned into a brat!
Some examples: he's become extremely obsessive. He will repeat the same thing over and over and over again until he's satisified. If he asks for a drink, he will ask me, if I ask him to wait a minute, he'll run and ask his dad. Then say over and over again, "I need tea" over and over and over until he gets it. What do I do? And it seems to always be when my hands are buried in hot soapy dish water, or while I'm cooking, or while I'm cleaning the toilet...
Before, when I asked him to come here, he'd obey right away. Now, he takes the smallest little steps towards me until I get so annoyed I go to him. Before when I told him to stop (whatever he's doing), he would obey right away. Now, he does it one more time, or just continues doing it until I go over and stop him. Before, he never fought me on routine, like rest time or dinner time. Now, he panics at the thought of being put in his room for a rest and refuses to sit at the table to eat.
When he's so tired he can't focus it's the worst! He'll start to cry and won't stop and there's no reasoning with him. I'll say "do you want to pick a movie?", he'll scream at me, "NO, I don't want to, you do it", so I'll pick and start a movie and he'll scream, "NO, I have to pick a movie, not you!" And while my first response is to relent because I KNOW he's just tired and beyond reason, I HATE also knowing that I should not give in because I KNOW it's just feeding the tantrum....
Before, his tantrums were handled by letting him have them, alone, in his room. I alwasy just told him, "when you're all done, you can come see mommy." But I reserve that for the very worst times and don't want to keep throwing him in his room because it will loose effectiveness...
As I'm typing this, I can see he's just being defiant, but what do I do about it? He's driving me so crazy, I cry sometimes! I'm yelling at him all the time (again) and the other night I actually swatted his butt and told him "cut it out before I give you something to really cry about." THIS was one of the nights I cried...
PLEASE advise! Is it his age? Could something have happened to him that brought this on? The only time he's not with me is during preschool, 3 hours a day, twice a week... I've worked really hard at not being a hard a** mom, like my mom was with me and like I started be become without even knowing it... this was in part to some of you helping me when I called for it... I'm in need again!
I'm just so frustrated with him and don't know what to do...Thank you so much!
5 responses
@miamilady (4910)
• United States
17 Apr 09
Repeat the folowing words over and over again...
"This too shall pass". ;-)
@Raven7317 (691)
• United States
18 Apr 09
I'll add this to my "Gods, give me strength!" saying that I must say 1 BAZILLION times a day! Thanks! :)
@dreamjapan (409)
• Japan
11 Apr 09
I have found that kids from about your sons age to about 5 or 5and half go through a lot of emotions that they just don't understand. Your son isn't really baby anymore but he isn't really independent of you either. He wants to do so many things but he physically can't do them yet. It is a similar to teens at 13 or 14, not a child but not an adult. This is very hard. I have four kids and when my oldest went from a lovely 3 year old to a ratty 4 year old I thought I would go mad. Be consistent in your discipline, when he handles things in a better way than throwing a tantrum heap the praise on. Help to be more independent, show him how to put things away like his books or toys then praise him as "Mommys best helper". Don't give him to many choices, you gave the example of the movies. Instead of letting him choose from a large selection narrow it down to two or three.
Things will get better and believe me when he hits his teens you will long for these days. I have two teens, one preteen and a six year old. And sometimes a 4 year old tantrums seem wonderful to two teen boys yelling!!
Good luck!
@Raven7317 (691)
• United States
11 Apr 09
Thank you very much for the nice response. I am much calmer today than I have been over the last few weeks... hard to say why???
Anyway, I think you may be right. I was researching it and found alot on this age bracket; seems the general consensus is that this is a phase and I need to find better ways to handle certain things, even if in the past, I haven't had any issues.
Thanks again!
@mammamuh (582)
• Sweden
13 Apr 09
Sounds like most 3 year old to me :-)
You get stressed and he notices it and it's getting even worse.
It's hard, but it's the time when they understand that they have their own will, that they can get things they want and so on.
It's a hard time as well as a very interesting one - the children grows and learns so much new things, many starts to draw better, write letters, ride bikes there are so many things happening in them both physical an phycological - there's not strange that they acts like they do.
Good luck - it will change!
@Brandiewynne (71)
• United States
30 Apr 09
Limit his choices to two things ( make sure that you can deal with whatever he chooses). Example--would you like x movie or this movie? would you like tea or juice?
My boys at this age were really,really pushing the boundaries. They want to make sure that the limits do not change and are always the same!Also the way that you word things can be very helpful. If he asks for a drink and you have to finish something first,say - Mommy has to dry her hands first,can you hand me the dish towel? If when you call him he pokes at coming to you, make a game of it by counting to see how fast he can get to you.
Parenting never came with directions ( thank goodness as every child is different) so you have to find different things that work for you.
One of the things that I found was that there is a consequence for every action-good and bad.
If they are behaving they need to be told. We all have a tendancy to dwell on misbavior and miss the positive sometimes.
Praise him for things that he does when you ask. This does not have to be every time, but kids like to hear that they are doing good to especially when they go through these stages.
Being almost four can be a challenge with consequenses but you can always find one, depending on the behavior the consequence needs to match. If he is tantruming he goes to his room until he is done-be consistant. It may seem like he spends alot of time in his room but he will eventually understand that this is what happens with a tantrum. Or if it is possible just ignore the tantrum and walk away. You want to make sure that he is safe, but by ignoring the tantrum he is not getting attention for it.
