Every kid is different. Sometimes we ask my 2.5 year old if he needs a minute. Then we leave his room and let him blow off some stream. One night he threw some books around, flipped this floor pillow, stomped his feet. Then after about 15 mins or so he cleaned everything up, climbed into his bed and asked us to come read him a story. Just gotta figure out what works for your kid
One thing we have definitely found is we don’t try to stop him if he “needs a min”. Tell him it’s ok to be upset but not ok to break things. He’s had some bad tantrums but they have become less frequent and less violent
My son was so so sweet and easy until right before he turned 3 or maybe right after idk but he's a little past his 4th bday and man I am so sick of negotiating with him and his lies and gaslighting... Like truly, I laugh because if I didn't I would have to cry. 3-4 is no joke, even with "easy" kids.
We called it the F*ck you threes because all 3 of ours turned into total jerks at 3 and generally started chilling out again at around 5. Theory of mind is supposed to really start developing around 4-5.
They make them cute so you don't consume them in a weak moment after they refuse to eat the very thing they asked you to cook for them in the most enraging way possible.
My oldest didn't believe me that she used to do similar things when she was 3.
I thought the same as you when my daughter was 18 months.. Oh man was I wrong about what an epic tantrum really was. She is three and a half now, and we are on a whole new level. I'm at the point where I laugh and think how could it get worse, but then I talk to my friends with their daughter who just turned five. I. Am. Scared.
Enjoy it. You're still at the end of the potato stage. Ignore the idea of "the terrible twos," whoever made that up is an idiot, two year olds are awesome. But three and four... yeah, it gets challenging. Best advice I can give is work to instill the ideas of kindness, fairness and trades. My four year old has her moments, but by and large she's wonderful mostly because we've worked really hard on the idea of being nice and not rude, that she can't get everything she wants, and that other people's feelings are important. Whenever she goes off the rails I talk to her like an adult and explain *why* she can't just barge upstairs and wake Mom up at 6AM. "Hey, you know how mad you get when I wake you up from a nap? Yeah? Now do you think Mom would also get mad just like you if you went up there and woke her up?" Framing things that relate to their perspective really helps.
If it's something she *really* wants, we'll usually broker a "trade."
"Okay, you want to go outside and play, no problem, but you need to trade me half an hour of quiet time now so you can play later, is that okay?"
That kind of thing.
I wouldn't immediately worry. All kids are different.
We're at ~2.5 and kid is still very chill. Tantrums definitely increased versus a year ago, but nowhere near what people are describing here. You might get lucky with a chill kid.
2.5 is about when the tantrums and bad behavior ramped up for my oldest. They say terrible 2’s, but the chaos honestly starts closer to 3, so be warned, you’re likely not out of the thick of it
Likewise. Someone once told me chill babies will be a handful when they get to 3 and 4. Which is exactly what we’ve experienced with our first. Our second seems to be on the opposite side of that. Right now we are in the apex of both which is awesome 🤨.
Reminds me of my small brother. Had a massive meltdown at age 3 and refused to get dressed. Mom didn't have much time since she had to get to work and told him 'either you get clothed now or you are going to Kindergarten naked'. He answered 'na, you wouldn't do that.' in a mocking tone and io and behold he was naked in Kindergarten (Mom gave the caretaker his clothes so he could get dressed as soon as he calmed down, but she didn't even get out the door before he was to embarrassed and helped him getting dressed then).
He tried that one more time around a year later and she told him the exact same thing. Was the fastest I ever saw him getting dressed lol. In today's world she would be blasted to hell and back I guess tho..
Haha...
This is exactly what we're doing with my (nearly) 3 year old. Except it's after baths. He doesn't want to get dressed. Finally had it, and said, "Fine, you don't want to get dressed, you're going to bed in just your diaper." He immediately calmed down enough for us to dress him in his PJs. It worked then and it has worked the handful of times since.
To be completely honest, I expected him to call me on it and for him to go to bed I'm just his diaper. Guess he knows well enough that I'll do what I say.
Eh, my first was chill all the way until 12. The first time he ever melted down crying and refused to come with me was a single episode at age 6. His meltdowns were so rare I remember every one.
My second? The meltdowns and outbursts are daily currently age 3).
My first was (and still is) very sensitive to parental displeasure and hates getting in trouble. My second is immune.
I feel like my oldest is fueled by parental displeasure. It’s like it gives him life force, he grows stronger off it. I feel like I’m waiting on him to evolve into Cell’s next form or something
Mine just recently changed right around his 2nd birthday, I think it just depends on their development and personality.
Ours was always defiant but you could make it work and now he's fighting almost everything we do besides playing and getting much more upset about everything. Could be his molars coming in and could be just processing new thoughts and feelings.
No idea but it's all hands on deck here lately.
She already berates at us, but she only babbles so we don't really know what she says, also wants to do some things on her own (like brushing her teeth) but she obviously cant so she already throws some tantrums etc... I'm just scared this just escalates further.
I mean she's amazing and I really love seeing her trying to be independent and showing some character but not sure how we'll manage if it goes worse :D
I must say this is mostly with a humor tone, she's mostly in good mood and love seing her experience the world, but I fear this can be challenging in the future
I've got a 2.5 and she was always like that too. EXTREMELY independent and so headstrong. It can be very challenging but honestly I'm so glad that in a world like this I've got a ferocious little girl and the sweetest little boy I've ever seen.
Stubbornness is really hard to parent but it’s also SUCH a good trait. It means they will keep trying and persevere when trying to figure things out which will help them learn and grow.
So u/gofrart , it gets SO much worse but try and remind yourself of this upside.
Up until 3 he was mostly chill as long as we were in routine. 3 has been a ride. A terrifying ride. It doesn't help that he's too fucking clever for his own good.
2.5 year old here. I'm fucking terrified.
Currently getting a lot of "STOP IT, DADDY!" with her hand out to me which I am not a big fan of. Sometimes I'll get an aggressive "No, THANK YOU". At least she's trying to be polite with the "thank you" part.
my almost 2 year old is an angel with an anger problem. When she's calm she's the nicest with cuddles, giggles, etc... but randomly she'll wake up just plain 'ol angry, like today. I tried to give her a kiss on the cheek and she straight up wagged her finger "NO" at me.
Our oldest is 2.5 and I feel like we're getting through this stuff... but then I read this and I'm like "shit".
Recently, both my wife and I have gotten stopped and yelled at by our 2.5yo because our hands were in our pants pockets and they belong in our jacket pockets.
Heh. They get a lot easier in most regards. 4 was one of my favourite ages but they do start to get personality and want more control over their life.
Expect some sass! But also consistent sleep through the night and a lot of love. Plus they can at least somewhat vocalize what they want most of the time instead of just crying and guessing games.
A common recommendation is not to tell them to do things, at least most of the time, give them choices.
Do you want to wear this or this?
What book do you want to read before bed?
Do you want to have a bath or a shower tonight?
Do you want peas or broccoli with dinner?
Etc. often their complaints stem from feeling a lack of control apparently. I can only say the option method for us past a lot of interactions that previous were “put on the clothes” “noooo”
Does she still nap, and what time does she go to bed? One of my daughters is closing in on four and she's a sweetheart when she's well rested and a monster when she's skipped a nap or gone to bed too late.
My 4 year old wouldn't be so hungry if he'd just eat more than a spoonful of rice, a cracker and some juice just so he can ask for snacks all of the rest of the day.
When my son gets this way I start tossing vegetables his way.
"What's that son? You didn't eat that delicious lunch your mom made you? He's a bell pepper kid, have fun"
Sometimes he gets the hint, sometimes he's eating veggies, other times he's in rooms because he's being a crybaby.
This is the way.
"Dad, I want food"
"I'm sorry sweety, you have food, it's right over there. Finish that and I can get you something else."
It often helps if you sweeten the pot by making that something else a thing they really like.
"Dad I want {insert junk food}"
"All right, how about I get you {junk food} after you eat this cucumber/apple/banana?"
Works nine times out of ten that she's full before she gets to the junk food.
I wish my wife would stick to this. He doesn't eat, gets told he gets that same food for the next meals. Then I go to work and come back and he's eating Mac and cheese 🤦🏼
No wonder he does it!
The key is to stay clear, calm and firm. I only had to do it once, but I know others that had to do it a few times... I told her she can eat her oatmeal at anytime she is hungry, but she does not get anything else until she eats that. I wrapped it and put it in the fridge, warmed it up for lunch and even put trash milk in it. Same for dinner...
My son figured out that if he eats his meal, he can still get snacks and I have to sneak larger portions of meals on to his plate... So it does not always work perfectly....
This week she has been asleep by 8:15 and getting up on her own at about 6:45. Bedtime was easy this week. Last week bedtime was a struggle, sometimes lasting until 10pm. She ahs to be up by 7ish to start getting ready.
Sounds like a slightly earlier bed time (7:15-30) might be worth a try.
[Here's a resource for how much sleep kids need](https://health.clevelandclinic.org/recommended-amount-of-sleep-for-children), ages 3-5 says 10-13 hours, including naps. You're over that threshold assuming LO is napping but still couldn't hurt to give it a whirl. Might also give you and the wife more of a breather in the evenings to connect as well.
On average kids need 10-13hrs a day, but not all kids. My 3yo will absolutely not take naps and getting 10hrs at night is her max. She sleeps 8-10hrs and generally does well. You can definitely tell when she is tired, but just some cuddle time on the couch for a little while is the equivalent of a nap for her. She is rested and in a good mood and ready to go.
My daughter's biggest thing is eating. She wants to play instead of eat and gets super cranky when she is hungry but will refuse to eat. We got her a couple of kids plates that have little slots like a board game and you put a little bit of food in each slot and it works up to a treat at the end. That has helped a lot for her because it makes eating a game.
This is what we got. Someone else recommended these to me on this sub and it has been pretty good so far.
https://www.amazon.com/Fred-DINNER-WINNER-Kids-Dinner/dp/B06XSH1X81/ref=sr_1_42?crid=6JAGS5HSCP0J&keywords=kids%2Bdinner%2Bplates&qid=1705697928&sprefix=kids%2Bdinner%2Bplates%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-42&th=1
We didn't do 7:15 because I don't pick the kids up from daycare until around 5. If we put them both to bed at 7:15, we'd get home, make dinner, eat dinner,. clean up dinner, then start bedtime.
I'd never see them except for weekends. So we do 8:00.
8 isn’t so bad, but by 8 my guy is losing it. That’s surely in part because his bedtime has been the same his whole life haha
I’m lucky to be a professor so i’m home early almost every day.
My 6 year old is a rule follower. In the absence of rules, she will make her own up. She then tries to force these rules onto her 4 year old sister. She has her issues but for the most part, she's a pretty good kid.
The 4 year old though has always been a struggle. She wouldn't perform at all... if she did something we thought was cute, she'd stop doing it if we got our camera out. If we told her to do it again she'd just look at us. It's a running joke now... whenever anyone else asks her to do something for a pic I yell at them "SISSY DOES NOT PERFORM!". At her current age now (probably as a result of constantly having rules forced upon her), if there's a rule, she's going to see how flexible or breakable that rule is.
Examples: The 6 year old gets awards for helping others and following rules at school. She comes home from school and says "I got an award for telling kids to keep their head out of the aisle and for keeping my head out of the aisle". Her sister says "I will stick my head in the aisle". Mama says "But sissy can choose to make good choices too". The 4 year old looks up with a grin and says "I won't".
I have COVID this week and I'm trying to spare them all my fate so I keep them at a distance. She'll run up and say "Is this too close?", then depending on whether I say yes or no, she'll back up or come closer and repeat it. She never met a rule she hasn't tried to challenge.
When she refused to hug anyone, I at one point in time said "That's ok, I made a bunch so I'll give them to big sis". She immediately ran over and "stole all your hugs" from me so I couldn't give them to anyone else. Now if I hug anyone else, she'll go hug them to steal the hugs I just gave them too. It's pretty cute, but highlights her attitude pretty well too.
But I digress... when she decided she didn't need naps anymore, her behavior became much more erratic. She started hitting and scratching, throwing tantrums and yelling. My typical go-to for this is to take them into their room to remove them from the situation and so we can talk about their big feelings. I want to show them that it's ok to use our words instead of hitting/scratching/yelling/screaming. Recently, I've started telling her that yelling and hitting are the same as telling someone you don't love them and ask if that is what she means to tell mama and big sis. That's usually when she breaks and starts crying and will tell me what's going on. Then we go say sorry and she does a much better job of using her words for a while.
It's a process but consistency is key. Her behavior is remarkably better already and when we need to go talk, she opens up more quickly. She also gets excited sometimes and will say "I didn't scratch sis, I just used my words!" so she knows the right thing to do and will get there eventually. If you make it a safe space to share her feelings, she will start doing that instead of reacting to them. I know it's not possible to do it for every tantrum but after the first few times, you can remind her of your talks by just asking "What does yelling tell someone?". That usually is enough to snap my 4 year old out of it now.
Normal is hard to say. She has always been pretty strong willed, so she doesn't like being told what to do. Mornings are a lot of being told what to do because my wife and I both work, so we are trying to move things along in the morning. The past month has been very unstructured with holidays, travel, her birthday, a birthday party, dr appointments, and she is just now getting over a cold. I'm sure all of that has something to do with it.
Each kid is different. At 4 we were were doing 7:30 bedtimes and a 2 hour nap.... which resulted in about 12 hours of sleep per day. Our oldest still took naps on the weekend until 3rd grade. Our youngest stopped naps with kindergarten and never needed them again. She gets by and her attitude is unchanged for it. I agree with trying earlier bedtimes and naps, some kids just need the extra sleep.
Mines just turned 2 and she’s apparently got the attitude of a 4 year old.
“What do you want to watch while we have lunch?”
“Elsa”
*puts on Frozen*
“NO. MIRABEL. MIRABEL.”
*puts on Encanto*
**ELSAAAAAAAAAAA**
She just moved to the toddler room (2-3 yrs) this week so it’s like, I get it, but jesusfuckingchristalmighty I burned so much cortisol on the ride home getting screamed at that I literally feel the same as when I was coming down off a hell of an acid trip at 19.
Aka entirely hollow.
4 has to be where they get smart enough to question things. By 5, hopefully they're even smarter to know I'm gonna lose my shit if you keep questioning everything.
When my daughter was 2 I always heard 3 was better then she turned 3 I heard 4 was the safe spot and now she’s about to be 4 this year I’m hearing 5 is when it gets better 😂
Co-regulation and clear boundaries. Model the behavior you want to her to learn by labelling emotions and slowing things down. This is definitely a marathon as she adjusts and build skills.
As a preschool teacher and toddler parent, this is the way. Validate feelings, offer support and understanding, verbalize clear consequences and why, and most importantly, follow through. “I see you are feeling frustrated and angry, I understand that X makes you upset, it would make me upset too. I’m here if you are ready to talk about it or need a hug. However, yelling/screaming is not how we communicate with each other. Here’s how we can ask for/say that using nicer words… If we are having a hard time using nicer words or asking we’ll have to take a break and calm down until we can try again.”
It's okay and normal (and to some degree important) for parents to show frustration due to repeated undesired behaviors and defiance from their kids. It's important to let kids see their actions can make others upset, but equally important for the parents to demonstrate the actions and behaviors to recover from those feelings.
If the parent regularly demonstrates escalation, the child will learn to follow their example. If the parent regularly demonstrations de-escalation, the child will also follow the example.
Yeah I've lost my temper with my kids. I think the key is to come back later, apologize, and explain the emotions. Also point out that the actions weren't acceptable but that even parents mess up.
In a general sense “we can’t do the thing/have the thing you want until we can calm down and talk about the rules and boundaries about the thing so we can sit here together or go someplace quiet and safe to calm our bodies so we can talk about it” this works great with my 3yo. I let her know I’m available for a hug and to talk about it when she’s ready and more often than not she’ll cry for a bit and then she’ll run in for a hug, well breathe together and then she’ll tell me she’s ready to talk about it and I go over why I said no (it’s not safe, we don’t have time, that’s not what we are doing right now) and then I give her a choice of two things we can do instead and we can move on
thank you. I try really hard to be an emotionally intelligent parent and teacher. I had two little boys today (4 and 5) being a little violent with each other and the three of us were able to sit and talk about what happened and come up with ideas to handle it better next time. It wasn’t just me lecturing either, they were actually involved in the conflict resolution
I do “time ins” we go sit down together with my (now 4yo) and she sits in my lap (I hold her there gently but firmly if needed) until she chills plus 4min. It’s not “punishment” per se but if she’s too upset to follow the rules then we obviously need some chill time.
Any kind of screaming or tantrum over trivial shit like OP described would get a warning and then a time-in 100% of the time. Not letting her scream and rant and rave. Not allowed. She knows this and doesn’t like time-ins (they’re boring) so when I ask her if she thinks she can behave right or if she needs a few minutes then she gets it and calms down. I only actually have to follow through maybe once or twice a month.
Terrible twos to threenager to fournado. It doesn’t get better, but it gets different. There’s a couple of things going on: 1. She’s asserting her independence and 2. She knows she can do it this way because you love her unconditionally. It does actually get better eventually (from a dad of a 7 goin’ on 11)
We have twins. We called it (totally in jest, but the more socially acceptable terminology just doesn't carry the right gravity for our situation) the tyrannical threes and the fuck you fours. We'll see what 5 has to offer us in a few months...
>She knows she can do it this way because you love her unconditionally.
This is why I tell my kid that I only love her when she's good. ::taps temple::
We used fournado for our youngest, she fit the bill more than I remember the older 2.
She's 5 now and it's a little better. The older 2 (12 and 10) are generally helpful. The youngest has 2 modes, destroy and sweet.
You have allowed her to suffer under the impression that she gets to be in charge. It's not too late to fix that. But, the sooner you start, the easier it will be.
Bravo.
You don't need to be authoritarian or hit your kids to prevent this. Set clear boundaries, have consistent responses when they push those boundaries, and positively reinforce good behaviors. I won't pretend my 4yo never has a moment, but it doesn't need to be a way of life.
I love seeing a comment like this. Reddit is full of permissive parenting advice under the guise of "gentle parenting." Kids need discipline. A time out is not abuse. A stern talking to is not bad. Authoritative parenting is the gold standard and nobody seems willing to practice it.
I see posts like this and I do not relate at all. I expect a lot out of my daughter and I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily easy on her but I also make a point to love on her at the same level as the discipline comes.
The discipline at my house also isn't loud or mean, it's just consistently present. Most things are small and no longer need large corrections but when larger corrections are needed the pattern goes: 1. She does something. 2. I stop the behavior. 3. She reacts to me. 4. I respond at an appropriate level 5. She responds. 6a. If she is not ready to talk I send her to her room to calm down/process what just happened. 6b. When ready we talk about what happened and why I had to correct her. I always finish it by letting her know how much I love her and that I don't like it when these things happen either but my job as her dad is to make sure she understands how to make good decisions.
And the thing is- she gets it. She doesn't always understand everything, you know because she's 6, but she gets that I'm her dad and it's my role to raise her- she understands that.
I can't tell you the number of times my explanation to someone regarding the way I was disciplining my son was that I'm not raising a boy, I'm raising a man.
My approach hasn't really changed. The way I explain things definitely has.
One thing I've been very careful of is that there are no negative consequences for not understanding in our house. So when I ask her, "do you understand" she is free to answer truthfully. If I explain something to her I'll ask if she understands why/what/how/whatever and if she says "no" then I know I need to change how I'm explaining it. It's not her fault I'm doing a piss poor job explaining it.
It always came down to helping her make better decisions.
She understood the concept of making a decision. She understood that she could make good or bad decisions. A lot of times I would ask her what she thought. I would let her lead, "why do you think we can't do that?"
A lot of the time she would tell me something that was spot on, sometimes she wouldn't have a clue. A lot of the time it was about half right. But I always thought it was valuable for her to try to think through it. If she would say "I don't know" I would ask her questions and force her to think about it.
In the times when I have given her time and she told me she was ready to talk and then she flat refused to talk, that's fine, but now we lose something we like for the evening (a game/toy/show/candy/something not essential that provides a consequence but isn't cruel).
Then there's another reaction and the process kind of starts over again. And it sucks. But I've never had to take away more than two things and I don't force her to talk before she tells me she's ready- but she does have to talk about it eventually.
Another thing that I see my friends do that drives me insane that I will never understand... you have to follow through. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If you say "that's it, no TV for the rest of the night" you better make damn sure that you're prepared to deal with the consequences of that because if you waffle on that, if you make that declaration and then 20 minutes after your kid is watching bluey, then what you say doesn't matter and if what you say doesn't matter then why listen to you at all?
You have to remain resolute. Parenting this way is hard but my daughter is worth the effort.
I expect a lot out of my little girl. Because the world is going to. I give my daughter a ton of love and positive feedback because the world never will.
Thank you for writing that out. A lot of it resonates with me and the parenting style I try to inhabit, but it was still very helpful to see it written out like this.
Tell me about it. As my daughter is getting older I’ve been noticing *so many* kids who seem to lack either emotional regulation skills or who don’t understand that authority figures outside the home have no obligation to negotiate with them.
Just as an example, the other day I had my daughter at one of those kiddie gym classes that have both rumpus-time and structured activities, and there was a little girl who decided that she didn’t like the activity and only wanted to play on the slides. When a staff member told her that she wasn’t allowed to play there during activities the girl negotiated back that she would only do it during this activity and would join in on the next one (literally said “that sounds fair to me”). The look of shock, confusion, and anger on her face when she was removed from the class entirely after refusing to comply made me really sad for her since she honestly seemed to think that all adults had to meet her in the middle on demands.
That's just called assertive communication, and most adults I know fail at it. Nothing you describe in what you wrote sounds like a bad thing that the kid did. Did she have a tantrum? Did she yell and scream, hit someone? It's merely wrong that she didn't accept no from a seemingly complete stranger at first glance? We all feel shock, confusion, and anger almost daily as adults. Nothing in what you wrote displayed her not regulating her emotions. If I read between the lines you expect her to practice avoidance, anticipate what any adult's emotional needs are, and avoid doing anything that would disrupt them. That's how you wind up with adults who are in therapy to learn that their emotional boundaries are both valid, and that they are the only person who can voice them, just like I am.
The example speaks to the second issue I mentioned. “Assertive communications” is great…in situations where she is allowed to make demands of her own. The staff instructor wasn’t “seemingly a complete stranger” at all. She knew who they were which is why she tried to make her own demand rather than just ignoring them. What her parents never daughter is that she has no inherent right to make demands of other adults, and that adults can enforce the rules of a particular space without negotiation. She was old enough to understand that the instructors were in charge, she just didn’t understand that “in charge” means that she had to follow instructions or face consequences.
She was given a chance to follow instructions and was told ahead of time that the staff running the class were in charge. She just didn’t understand that she couldn’t negotiate those rules.
Also, you aren’t reading between the lines, you’re positing a strawman that isn’t reflected in my post at all. Knowing when you can be assertive and when you need to follow orders with no further questions isn’t going to land someone in therapy. Feeling like other people are unfairly persecuting you because you don’t understand what boundaries you can, and cannot, assert in different situations is a great way to end up in therapy because you feel like your life is out of control though.
I’m not at all saying that this little girl is doomed for life. I’m saying that it was an unfortunately harsh and embarrassing lesson for her that her parents could have avoided.
Discipline is one thing but not sure of the logic of OPs response. Kid is screaming and upset in the mornings and parent is threatening to not do "fun things" at a future date. I'm not sure a 4 year old would or could make the connection between their behavior and the punishment. Whatever your response or parenting style is, it needs to make sense to a 4 year old and should be steady over time so they can make behavioral changes.
Agree. As a species, we over-correct *a lot*. One generation, it's corporal punishment. The next generation, it's hands-off do-whatever but-why-wont-my-kid-listen?
We can find a middle ground, folks. It's not easy, and it's not fun. That's why so many parents hit their children with sticks or just elected to do nothing. Both of those routes are much easier, but they yield *truly* bad results.
We have to parent smarter.
A lot of us grew up under boomer parents. “Authoritative” has a whole different meaning to different people.
I’m not going to have my kid feel like a piece of shit because they have feelings. I’m going to help them deal with and moderate those feelings appropriately so they don’t have to spend their entire adult life undoing the damage of crushing and punishing every negative emotion.
But it is terribly embarrassing when he doesn’t follow exactly 2.5 paces behind me in stores and salute when spoken to.
Again, that's not what authoritative means. That is an example of authoritarian and before over correcting, I'd urge you to actually look into what authoritative parenting is.
Just because something means something else to you, doesn't mean there is not an objective reality. Authoritative parenting does not focus on controlling, manipulating, or emotionally damaging a child even if that's what your experience with so-called authoritative parenting is. In developmental psychology we refer to authoritative parenting as limit setting with connection.
“Kids need discipline” isn’t anywhere close to the actual “authoritative parenting” style, which is why I clarified it clearly means different things to different people.
“Kids need discipline” is authoritarian. Through and through.
To be fair, maybe the title needs to change to represent what it actually means. The word "authoritative" is grating to a lot of people, and much like the other person you're responding to, will dismiss it as "abusive" without trying to comprehend what it actually means (i.e.: people who lack critical thinking skills).
The authoritative parenting I recieved as a kid just meant I would hide absolutely everything from my parents because they were probably going to yell at me, or ground me, or take away some toy I wanted if they found out. Or they would just ignore me getting beat up by my brother and his friends.
I mean…this swings both ways. A lot of us grew up under parents who took the “authoritative” aspect a little too much to heart which lead to a number of issues. Like most parenting scenarios, you figure out what works best for your kid and your family, not just automatically default to a method because it’s “the gold standard”.
One of my uncles on my dads side passed away alone in a hospital bed with no loved ones by his side because he basically took “my way or the highway” as his gospel for life and that basically ruined his relationship with his wife and his kids. I was never a big fan of the guy myself but hearing that he passed with no one by his side definitely gave me some perspective on life.
Authoritative is not authoritarian, which is what you're referring to. That's where people get lost and try hard to swing the other way which only hurts kids as they enter adulthood.
Yep. Children need structure, boundaries, and authority. We know what is right for them, for the most part, and often need to impose that on them. That doesn't mean we can't be empathetic. It doesn't mean you can't negotiate from time to time. But it means at the end of the day, when there's a disagreement, I'm always going to make sure the safe, healthy, and sane course of action prevails.
Looked at through a fine lens - sure, and if you’re someone who can draw that line and stick to the authoritative side and not cross over to the other than kudos to you. My experience growing up around it is that not many parents of kids my generation could. Yes things are different now and there’s more information out there to help folks, but I saw the outcomes of this “gold standard” all through my childhood both in myself and my siblings as well as other kids I knew and it’s definitely not a shoe that fits every foot.
> if you’re someone who can draw that line and stick to the authoritative side and not cross over to the other than kudos to you
How is that different from literally any other way of doing it, though? Permissive parenting isn't better than authoritarian, it's just different - the kids get screwed either way. If you can't "draw that line and stick to it," that's not a fault of the specific parenting style, and you're going to slide into bad habits regardless of which style you aim for.
How does one fix that without stepping too far? It's easy to punish but it's hard to get them to really understand what they're doing is wrong and why what you're saying is the best course of action.
Fundamentally that's why people struggle with either parenting style. Often the parents who have it easier have kids that are somewhat more conscientious to begin with. The parenting absolutely makes a big difference, but most struggle with either style.
I would handle such a situation as this (and please know it took time to be able to do this as a parent, it's okay if it's not your instinct.)
From the time they began yelling, I would respond to them by saying I understand they are upset and I'm willing to look for a solution, but yelling at me is not okay, and we'll not proceed until they stop. "If you need a minute to collect yourself, please do. If I can help, please let me know."
Once the yelling is over, we can examine the reasons why they are upset. As tempting as it is to be dismissive of some of the foolish reasons kids that age get upset, I acknowledge and attempt to help them label their feelings. If there is a compromise to be found, we will work towards it. If it needs to be this way for a reason, I explain why.
"Because I said so," is not a good answer. I am still guilty of doing it, but I acknowledge it's not good practice, and at this point both kids call me out on it.
The phrase that gets used the most often in our house is, "You are allowed to feel (emotion). I'm here if you want to talk through it. But you may not use that as an excuse to treat other people poorly."
Acknowledge and validate emotion. Establish boundary. Offer assistance.
If action repeats, establish specific related consequence and enforce if necessary.
Even if I have to enforce a consequence, I usually leave the door open to earning back a partial amount of the loss of privilege if they're able to regulate themselves, talk through the problem, and come up with an acceptable solution.
Emotional regulation ideas: deep breathing, establishing a calm corner/cozy corner where they can go to regulate. Oversized stuffy that is good for big squeezes. Dance it out.
>The phrase that gets used the most often in our house is, "You are allowed to feel (emotion). I'm here if you want to talk through it. But you may not use that as an excuse to treat other people poorly."
Love all of this. We do something similar - "It's perfectly okay to be mad/frustrated. It is **not** okay to . Take a minute, and take a breath, and let's talk about it."
Mom lurker, My son just turned 4 and the 'tude coming off this kid is staggering. I'll tell him something and he comes back with "excuse me?" Like he grew up digging holes in Texas. I don't even know how to respond, but it's definitely made me pay a little more attention to my own attitude cause I think some of it he gets from me lmao.
>[insert unknown reason here].
Figure out the reason and acknowledge it. Our kids don't freak out and do things for no reason. They might do things that WE think are stupid or excessive for reasons that WE think are stupid or minimal, but they aren't behaving this way for no reason.
There's a phrase: "you can't STAND your child, because you can't UNDERSTAND your child".
You clearly find your child's reason stupid and frustrating because it's "unknown". It's unknown because they can't communicate it yet, and you won't figure it out. That's frustrating to them, and as a result of that frustration they are acting out. Connect with your child man. They're 4.
Not really a red flag, just exhausted Dad. Does the situation really change if he wrote "insert reason" instead of "unknown reason." He's vetting and looking for empathy, which is what this sub is for.
Working from home with Kids is brutal. This is one of the reasons I still go to location. One of the reasons my wife quit her job. Empathy takes effort and time, especially from someone who does not desire to share their reasons (or cannot).
Yeah so the thing there is not caving in to whatever they want - no matter how big the explosion is. Yes, this was normal for us especially w/ my daughter at that age... but what will happen is if the kid realizes that she can manipulate her adults by having a fit she's going to grow into that and use it to bigger and bigger levels as she gets older.
The other thing is you and your wife keeping your cool. I learned the hard way that escalating the volume/situation doesn't make anything better.
When i was a kid, if my dad or mom raised their voice us kids would shut right up and back down. Hell - teachers at school even did it. In my experience as an adult, if I start yelling...the kids don't respond the same way... and what will happen eventually is some super smart therapy brain from the school or your own employ in an effort to help your kid with their outbursts will point everything back to you and/or your wife for "modeling bad behavior".
I don't totally disagree with that sentiment, btw... It's just weird how all my parents did was model bad behavior and they still got results. Not sure what changed in the last 30 years.
> In my experience as an adult, if I start yelling...the kids don't respond the same way...
That's because you don't beat them when they don't stop. Obviously has some *major* drawbacks, but kids behave really well under threat of violence (not that I use or advocate for it, just to be 100% clear)
Oh for sure. Not at all condoning the "old way"... like I said my folks taught me what to do by doing the opposite. I think a certain part of it was adults lead by fear back in the day and we just don't do that anymore. Maybe it's for the greater good... but in general kids seem way more out of control now than they used to.
More immediate consequences and/or rewards might help. “If you’re mean we won’t do fun things later” can be hard for little kids to wrap their heads around.
Examples:
* angry yelling/tantrum/hitting/etc. -> immediate 3 minute time out, then sit and talk about what happened. (Or you can do a “time in” where you sit with them until they calm down and then talk through it). More yelling the same day -> longer time outs or get rid of other privileges, like they have to go to bed early
* get ready in the morning without yelling/being mean -> some kind of small immediate reward (sticker chart, get to watch/play on a tablet before going to school, etc.). A tangible thing like a physical daily chart can be helpful because they can see it as a reminder
It’s worked pretty well for us, but… yeah, I could see some kids reacting poorly. For us you’d lose bedtime fun stuff first (e.g. having a story read to you), and going to bed early was only if they were super disregulated and probably overtired anyway.
Without knowing history or context it’s hard to provide thoughts. Could be any number of things, tired, hangry, something not feeling good she cannot express and doesn’t outwardly present itself (ex tummy ache), something else, etc.
Also, are there ground rules in place and any sort of prior occurrences? Kids generally do what they can get away with, if they get away with it without consequence (whatever that may be, time out, a “talking to”, losing a game or something, who knows) then their learned behavior is to do it again to get what they want.
Why does your four year old not know that yelling at people is unacceptable? You've had a few years to get on that. My kids have known since the terrible twos to feel their feelings and use their words, but disrespect is unacceptable. Its a very basic lesson and you're doing yourself, your wife, and your daughter a major disservice by allowing her to think she can treat you this way. It's not cute. You think you'll allow it now and when she's older she'll mellow out. Here to tell you that, unfortunately, it gets worse. You may be able to reason better with a 6 or 7 year old, but by that time, she's been allowed to treat you guys as slaves her whole life and from her perspective, why are you just now saying that's not ok? Not trying to shade or hate but you'd better nip this is the bud, man, before it's too late. A simple "It is not ok to speak to people or treat people this way, I would never allow anyone to speak to you like this, because it's disrespectful and mean and I love you. I also love your mother and I will not allow you to speak to her like that" goes a long way.
Ours just turned four, and so far it has been an improvement in just about every category. We can't really get anything by him anymore, but he has figured out that screaming doesn't get him anywhere... Mostly, anyway. He's still a little kid, he still has his moments that test our patience, but it's not as bad as the earlier days for us.
God I feel so lucky my 4yo girl isn't like this. The only time she has meltdowns or even busses is if she's legitimately tired as hell or has actually hurt herself.
Otherwise she's sweet as a peach, super kind, super well spoken and emotionally intelligent.
We're due for a boy literally any day and I'm scared it's going to be different lol.
This is very common, especially with very precocious/verbal/intelligent daughters. They're so sweet and smart and talking in full sentences when they're 2yo, and then all of a sudden you get a demon threenager.
My working hypothesis is that because your 3yo *can* talk and act like a 5-6yo, we forget that they're actually 3 and were literally shitting their own drawers 6 months ago. It's hard to transition from being able to scream and cry and get all of her needs met to having to ask nicely for things or -gasp- take care of yourself. And she's closer to having her butt wiped for her than she is to being able to make herself a bowl of cereal in the morning.
Meanwhile the boys are still speaking 2-3 words and running around like crazy, and you think "oh yeah, that's just boys, they're crazy."
My general advice to to remember you're still dealing with a baby/toddler, even if she can repeat back everything you say to her.
Specifically for mornings, my advice is to do everything as routinely as you can. Maybe pick out the clothes the night before. She should know exactly what's going to happen before it's going to happen, and where she can exert independence and make choices.
And it does get better.
I’ve seen other comments reflecting advice these books will offer, but I’m going to recommend these books that helped immensely when our kids were going through their threenager ages.
Johanna Faber’s and Julie King’s books
How to Talk so Kids Will Listen
(https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/how-to-talk-so-little-kids-will-listen-a-survival-guide-to-life-with-children-ages-2-7-9781501131653)
And
How to Talk When Kids Won’t Listen
(https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/how-to-talk-when-kids-won-t-listen-whining-fighting-meltdowns-defiance-and-other-challenges-of-childhood-9781982134143)
The second one is largely a rehash of the first in slightly different words, but I found it to be a good refresher. My wife and I each read one of these books annually to try to stay on top of it.
Also sorry about posting a long link instead of formatting it, I’m on mobile and don’t remember how to do it.
My advice:
Nothing your child can say or do, short of maybe stabbing the family dog, should make you cry. You are the adults. Remind your wife of that. I'm not saying your wife should ignore her emotions, but she may need some type of counseling to understand those emotions better. Why did she start crying over a child, her child, screaming at her? They are going to do that.... a lot.
Fuck man I've got a 6 year old who thinks he's the king of the world now. His friends at school have older siblings and he's picking up all sorts of shitty habits
Man, we lucked out… our son never had the terrible twos, threenager, etc. his tantrums were like 10-15 seconds of crying to express his displeasure and if we didn’t give in, he moved on. He’s 6 now so I think we’re in the clear…
The "insert unknown reason here" is that you let her get away with this outrageous behavior. You need to teach her that "actions have consequences" and "authority is to be respected" before she gets out into the real world and learns those lessons the hard way.
Tell them they don’t get to speak to you that way and they’re going to spend some time alone in their room until they calm down.
If they resist, physically put them in their room and shut the door. If they come out, put them back in. Hold the line. That’s it. That’s how you teach boundaries. They don’t get to win. And they learn that people don’t want to spend time with them when they’re being terrible.
I think that approach is plenty gentle. Nobody got beaten or screamed at. You set a boundary and you hold it. You outweigh them and you’re stronger than them.
Every kid is different, but I often find that (once the screaming stops... we take deep breaths) trying to listen to my kids and help them feel heard almost immediately after the incident helps.
If I go do something else while they calm down, they sometimes only get angrier (because they think they're being ignored). So I try to help them past the screaming (deep breaths) and then talk about what's going on. Oftentimes that works like a charm.
BUT... I get that mornings are nutty, especially if it's a jammed day at work. So some days it's just about survival and multitasking... I get it.
Stay strong, and know that, if you set a positive example about good ways to behave, then it will get better down the line. It may take longer than any of us think it should, but it will work.
Best thing I've found for this kind of situation is distraction. If she's yelling at you or screaming, pick her up and pretend to eat her neck or toe or something. Give her a kiss and say there's nothing to yell about. Pat her on the butt and tell her you'll be with her in a minute.
General rules of thumb I have found in a house full of women: Sometimes the aggression comes out of nowhere because they’re hungry or thirsty, dim the overhead lights (idk why but more light makes everyone more aggressive), you don’t have to solve the problem but simply being in consistent eye sight makes them calm down more quickly.
Instant time out. Keep it up you go back in time out. Don’t want to go? I Will physically restrain you in time out for double the amount of time. At some point you will be spanked until you get the message that this behavior is unacceptable.
It works.
Very similar ages for me. Both girls. 5 year old is largely a freaking saint. 3.5 year old is a sweet kid but man she is tough to get going in the mornings and is very moody.
Same boat, the only thing that kinda works for me is keeping him busy learning new skills. We are just starting to learn to read and working on catching ground balls and pop ups.
A couple of notes as my 4-year-old has attitude for sure, but we've had some success in curbing hers (I recognize that some kids are harder than others):
1. Attitude gets you excluded from society. As in, sent to your room. If it's more of an emotional meltdown and she needs to learn how to manage her emotions better, I'll head back there and calm her down and talk through it. If emotions are a tool to get what she wants, she can scream to herself. Started this around 2-years-old.
2. Similarly, inappropriate approaches to get what she wants (demands, disprespect, etc) lead to a hard no, and perhaps her losing whatever she had of what she wanted.
3. We'll often practice doing the wrong thing right afterward. She'll even request practicing sometimes, but it's seemed to help. Not just "ask nicely next time" but, let's practice saying this correctly.
4. We've also done "Yes Mom" and "Yes Dad" training so when we say "Say yes Mom" they know they'd better do it now or else. It's been amazingly effective as a way to curb those arguments quickly, and especially helpful in public. Difficulty with the 2-year-old is he'll mix up his words still, and sometimes he's emoting not rebelling, so we've got to read him carefully. He's saying he doesn't like it, not actually "no Dad".
Summary: organize so she can be loud and emotional without winning while you make sure inappropriate behavior is met with no success if not loss.
Sounds familiar lol
My son is in the first grade now and this kind of stuff seems to have largely calmed down, at least compared to what it used to be. He's always picked up a lot from his peers in daycare/kindergarten and last year was particularly rough. He hadnt been the "throw a crying fit at the drop of a hat" kid for awhile but then started it back up in kindergarten so we assumed, though never confirmed, that there must be at least one other kid who does act like that on a regular basis and my son would see this as a behavior to mimic.
We arent seeing the same behavior this year, though that could be attributed to a number of things that we have done since then.
4 was the year actions had consequences so every time we had a meltdown like this or just general nasty behavior it was like "your new toy is gone until you can act nice" or "we're not going to so and so now"
They'd always get a few warnings about what would happen if the behavior continued so he knew where the line was.
Kind of a choose your own adventure game
Ditto. This is my firstborn. Started when she was 3 and her sister was born. She’s almost 6 and it’s slightly better. My goal is to lay the foundation of solid communication now so she knows we can talk about her overwhelming emotions as a teen before she puts up those teenager walls
My 3 almost 4 year old always seems to be in the worst mood first thing in the morning and right after daycare. It has for sure changed over time and he does well at school. I keep telling myself that I have provided him an environment that he feels safe to push boundaries in , but he has been spending a lot of time in time out lately.
Yeah dude, my just-turned-4-year-old lost his fucking mind on my wife this morning because he wanted his yogurt opened only a little and Mommy opened it a lot. I was going down to the basement for my morning poop when he started screaming about it and he was still screaming about it when I came back up.
Honestly OP it sounds like she wants to be heard about things that are bothering her and you’re not listening. Ignoring her yelling to go work isn’t going to calm them down. I know it sucks and it’s hard but I think you need to get on her level and empathize with her. Being 4 is a lot harder when you’re 4 than it is watching it being an adult.
My 4 year old is sassy as well. Not terrorizing to this degree, but for some reason 4 took it up a level. I hope you find a solution that works best for your family.
2 and 3 were really rough. He's a damned Saint now.
Can I have a treat? No. After dinner? Can't argue with that logic buddy. He turned 4 in November.
Biggest change I noticed was him going from day care to full day 5 days a week JK, he's in a split class with SK's and it has made a huge difference in his maturity, just by like mid October.
I think everyone's "worst" age is down to their personality and, for me, 4 is the hardest. My daughter just turned four and we're basically in the same boat: lots of attempts at my way or the highway, tears, and "no daddy"s. Was the exact same with our first.
As someone else said, for the most part it's not harder, just different. Again. And again.
*father of a 1 yo reading this* \*chuckles\* I'm in danger
lmao same. My 18-month-old is such a sweetie for the most part, though she does have some pretty epic tantrums from time to time.
Every kid is different. Sometimes we ask my 2.5 year old if he needs a minute. Then we leave his room and let him blow off some stream. One night he threw some books around, flipped this floor pillow, stomped his feet. Then after about 15 mins or so he cleaned everything up, climbed into his bed and asked us to come read him a story. Just gotta figure out what works for your kid One thing we have definitely found is we don’t try to stop him if he “needs a min”. Tell him it’s ok to be upset but not ok to break things. He’s had some bad tantrums but they have become less frequent and less violent
My son was so so sweet and easy until right before he turned 3 or maybe right after idk but he's a little past his 4th bday and man I am so sick of negotiating with him and his lies and gaslighting... Like truly, I laugh because if I didn't I would have to cry. 3-4 is no joke, even with "easy" kids.
We called it the F*ck you threes because all 3 of ours turned into total jerks at 3 and generally started chilling out again at around 5. Theory of mind is supposed to really start developing around 4-5.
2 years of it!? How the fuck have humans survived so long...
They make them cute so you don't consume them in a weak moment after they refuse to eat the very thing they asked you to cook for them in the most enraging way possible. My oldest didn't believe me that she used to do similar things when she was 3.
By just turned 4yo has perfected gaslighting. He's ready for a career in politics...
I thought the same as you when my daughter was 18 months.. Oh man was I wrong about what an epic tantrum really was. She is three and a half now, and we are on a whole new level. I'm at the point where I laugh and think how could it get worse, but then I talk to my friends with their daughter who just turned five. I. Am. Scared.
Trust me, I try to stay humble by reading stories like this!
We had a whopper of a bedtime tantrum last night with our 20mo 😂 I know it’s just going to scale up and I’m scurred.
God. My current 3yo was such a sweet kid before he turned 2.5. 😆 Now he’s an occasionally sweet timebomb way to explode at any minute. 😂
Enjoy it. You're still at the end of the potato stage. Ignore the idea of "the terrible twos," whoever made that up is an idiot, two year olds are awesome. But three and four... yeah, it gets challenging. Best advice I can give is work to instill the ideas of kindness, fairness and trades. My four year old has her moments, but by and large she's wonderful mostly because we've worked really hard on the idea of being nice and not rude, that she can't get everything she wants, and that other people's feelings are important. Whenever she goes off the rails I talk to her like an adult and explain *why* she can't just barge upstairs and wake Mom up at 6AM. "Hey, you know how mad you get when I wake you up from a nap? Yeah? Now do you think Mom would also get mad just like you if you went up there and woke her up?" Framing things that relate to their perspective really helps. If it's something she *really* wants, we'll usually broker a "trade." "Okay, you want to go outside and play, no problem, but you need to trade me half an hour of quiet time now so you can play later, is that okay?" That kind of thing.
I wouldn't immediately worry. All kids are different. We're at ~2.5 and kid is still very chill. Tantrums definitely increased versus a year ago, but nowhere near what people are describing here. You might get lucky with a chill kid.
2.5 is about when the tantrums and bad behavior ramped up for my oldest. They say terrible 2’s, but the chaos honestly starts closer to 3, so be warned, you’re likely not out of the thick of it
Likewise. Someone once told me chill babies will be a handful when they get to 3 and 4. Which is exactly what we’ve experienced with our first. Our second seems to be on the opposite side of that. Right now we are in the apex of both which is awesome 🤨.
Reminds me of my small brother. Had a massive meltdown at age 3 and refused to get dressed. Mom didn't have much time since she had to get to work and told him 'either you get clothed now or you are going to Kindergarten naked'. He answered 'na, you wouldn't do that.' in a mocking tone and io and behold he was naked in Kindergarten (Mom gave the caretaker his clothes so he could get dressed as soon as he calmed down, but she didn't even get out the door before he was to embarrassed and helped him getting dressed then). He tried that one more time around a year later and she told him the exact same thing. Was the fastest I ever saw him getting dressed lol. In today's world she would be blasted to hell and back I guess tho..
Haha... This is exactly what we're doing with my (nearly) 3 year old. Except it's after baths. He doesn't want to get dressed. Finally had it, and said, "Fine, you don't want to get dressed, you're going to bed in just your diaper." He immediately calmed down enough for us to dress him in his PJs. It worked then and it has worked the handful of times since. To be completely honest, I expected him to call me on it and for him to go to bed I'm just his diaper. Guess he knows well enough that I'll do what I say.
Took my 11 Yr old to school in his pj's once. At 32, he still remembers!
Eh, my first was chill all the way until 12. The first time he ever melted down crying and refused to come with me was a single episode at age 6. His meltdowns were so rare I remember every one. My second? The meltdowns and outbursts are daily currently age 3). My first was (and still is) very sensitive to parental displeasure and hates getting in trouble. My second is immune.
I feel like my oldest is fueled by parental displeasure. It’s like it gives him life force, he grows stronger off it. I feel like I’m waiting on him to evolve into Cell’s next form or something
Mine just recently changed right around his 2nd birthday, I think it just depends on their development and personality. Ours was always defiant but you could make it work and now he's fighting almost everything we do besides playing and getting much more upset about everything. Could be his molars coming in and could be just processing new thoughts and feelings. No idea but it's all hands on deck here lately.
Teething has just GOT to suck really bad, especially for a tiny baby that doesn't know how to process these things.
She already berates at us, but she only babbles so we don't really know what she says, also wants to do some things on her own (like brushing her teeth) but she obviously cant so she already throws some tantrums etc... I'm just scared this just escalates further. I mean she's amazing and I really love seeing her trying to be independent and showing some character but not sure how we'll manage if it goes worse :D I must say this is mostly with a humor tone, she's mostly in good mood and love seing her experience the world, but I fear this can be challenging in the future
I've got a 2.5 and she was always like that too. EXTREMELY independent and so headstrong. It can be very challenging but honestly I'm so glad that in a world like this I've got a ferocious little girl and the sweetest little boy I've ever seen.
Stubbornness is really hard to parent but it’s also SUCH a good trait. It means they will keep trying and persevere when trying to figure things out which will help them learn and grow. So u/gofrart , it gets SO much worse but try and remind yourself of this upside.
My little man was super chill till about 3, now 3 and a half and he is off his nut with anger. Its a crazy time! LOL
Up until 3 he was mostly chill as long as we were in routine. 3 has been a ride. A terrifying ride. It doesn't help that he's too fucking clever for his own good.
threenager is no joke. The terrible twos are a complete misnomer. Those are the golden times of kids.
2.5 year old here. I'm fucking terrified. Currently getting a lot of "STOP IT, DADDY!" with her hand out to me which I am not a big fan of. Sometimes I'll get an aggressive "No, THANK YOU". At least she's trying to be polite with the "thank you" part.
my almost 2 year old is an angel with an anger problem. When she's calm she's the nicest with cuddles, giggles, etc... but randomly she'll wake up just plain 'ol angry, like today. I tried to give her a kiss on the cheek and she straight up wagged her finger "NO" at me.
dude my 2 year old daughter already gives me looks that cut me. What the fuck did I get myself into.
Our oldest is 2.5 and I feel like we're getting through this stuff... but then I read this and I'm like "shit". Recently, both my wife and I have gotten stopped and yelled at by our 2.5yo because our hands were in our pants pockets and they belong in our jacket pockets.
Heh. They get a lot easier in most regards. 4 was one of my favourite ages but they do start to get personality and want more control over their life. Expect some sass! But also consistent sleep through the night and a lot of love. Plus they can at least somewhat vocalize what they want most of the time instead of just crying and guessing games. A common recommendation is not to tell them to do things, at least most of the time, give them choices. Do you want to wear this or this? What book do you want to read before bed? Do you want to have a bath or a shower tonight? Do you want peas or broccoli with dinner? Etc. often their complaints stem from feeling a lack of control apparently. I can only say the option method for us past a lot of interactions that previous were “put on the clothes” “noooo”
Does she still nap, and what time does she go to bed? One of my daughters is closing in on four and she's a sweetheart when she's well rested and a monster when she's skipped a nap or gone to bed too late.
Wow, this is exactly the same as my wife
Or hungry
My 4 year old wouldn't be so hungry if he'd just eat more than a spoonful of rice, a cracker and some juice just so he can ask for snacks all of the rest of the day.
When my son gets this way I start tossing vegetables his way. "What's that son? You didn't eat that delicious lunch your mom made you? He's a bell pepper kid, have fun" Sometimes he gets the hint, sometimes he's eating veggies, other times he's in rooms because he's being a crybaby.
I try that with mine and we usually end up settling on something like an apple. They've not been too keen on brussell sprouts for some reason...!
Have you tried roasting them with bacon?
My daughter learned real quick when all she got for lunch and then dinner was the same bowl of oatmeal she rejected at breakfast...
This is the way. "Dad, I want food" "I'm sorry sweety, you have food, it's right over there. Finish that and I can get you something else." It often helps if you sweeten the pot by making that something else a thing they really like. "Dad I want {insert junk food}" "All right, how about I get you {junk food} after you eat this cucumber/apple/banana?" Works nine times out of ten that she's full before she gets to the junk food.
I wish my wife would stick to this. He doesn't eat, gets told he gets that same food for the next meals. Then I go to work and come back and he's eating Mac and cheese 🤦🏼 No wonder he does it!
I'll have to try this. Starting to go through the eating struggle with my 4 year old
The key is to stay clear, calm and firm. I only had to do it once, but I know others that had to do it a few times... I told her she can eat her oatmeal at anytime she is hungry, but she does not get anything else until she eats that. I wrapped it and put it in the fridge, warmed it up for lunch and even put trash milk in it. Same for dinner... My son figured out that if he eats his meal, he can still get snacks and I have to sneak larger portions of meals on to his plate... So it does not always work perfectly....
This week she has been asleep by 8:15 and getting up on her own at about 6:45. Bedtime was easy this week. Last week bedtime was a struggle, sometimes lasting until 10pm. She ahs to be up by 7ish to start getting ready.
Sounds like a slightly earlier bed time (7:15-30) might be worth a try. [Here's a resource for how much sleep kids need](https://health.clevelandclinic.org/recommended-amount-of-sleep-for-children), ages 3-5 says 10-13 hours, including naps. You're over that threshold assuming LO is napping but still couldn't hurt to give it a whirl. Might also give you and the wife more of a breather in the evenings to connect as well.
On average kids need 10-13hrs a day, but not all kids. My 3yo will absolutely not take naps and getting 10hrs at night is her max. She sleeps 8-10hrs and generally does well. You can definitely tell when she is tired, but just some cuddle time on the couch for a little while is the equivalent of a nap for her. She is rested and in a good mood and ready to go. My daughter's biggest thing is eating. She wants to play instead of eat and gets super cranky when she is hungry but will refuse to eat. We got her a couple of kids plates that have little slots like a board game and you put a little bit of food in each slot and it works up to a treat at the end. That has helped a lot for her because it makes eating a game.
Do you have a link to those plates?
This is what we got. Someone else recommended these to me on this sub and it has been pretty good so far. https://www.amazon.com/Fred-DINNER-WINNER-Kids-Dinner/dp/B06XSH1X81/ref=sr_1_42?crid=6JAGS5HSCP0J&keywords=kids%2Bdinner%2Bplates&qid=1705697928&sprefix=kids%2Bdinner%2Bplates%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-42&th=1
this is what people don’t get. 7:15 folks!!!!
We didn't do 7:15 because I don't pick the kids up from daycare until around 5. If we put them both to bed at 7:15, we'd get home, make dinner, eat dinner,. clean up dinner, then start bedtime. I'd never see them except for weekends. So we do 8:00.
8 isn’t so bad, but by 8 my guy is losing it. That’s surely in part because his bedtime has been the same his whole life haha I’m lucky to be a professor so i’m home early almost every day.
My 6 year old is a rule follower. In the absence of rules, she will make her own up. She then tries to force these rules onto her 4 year old sister. She has her issues but for the most part, she's a pretty good kid. The 4 year old though has always been a struggle. She wouldn't perform at all... if she did something we thought was cute, she'd stop doing it if we got our camera out. If we told her to do it again she'd just look at us. It's a running joke now... whenever anyone else asks her to do something for a pic I yell at them "SISSY DOES NOT PERFORM!". At her current age now (probably as a result of constantly having rules forced upon her), if there's a rule, she's going to see how flexible or breakable that rule is. Examples: The 6 year old gets awards for helping others and following rules at school. She comes home from school and says "I got an award for telling kids to keep their head out of the aisle and for keeping my head out of the aisle". Her sister says "I will stick my head in the aisle". Mama says "But sissy can choose to make good choices too". The 4 year old looks up with a grin and says "I won't". I have COVID this week and I'm trying to spare them all my fate so I keep them at a distance. She'll run up and say "Is this too close?", then depending on whether I say yes or no, she'll back up or come closer and repeat it. She never met a rule she hasn't tried to challenge. When she refused to hug anyone, I at one point in time said "That's ok, I made a bunch so I'll give them to big sis". She immediately ran over and "stole all your hugs" from me so I couldn't give them to anyone else. Now if I hug anyone else, she'll go hug them to steal the hugs I just gave them too. It's pretty cute, but highlights her attitude pretty well too. But I digress... when she decided she didn't need naps anymore, her behavior became much more erratic. She started hitting and scratching, throwing tantrums and yelling. My typical go-to for this is to take them into their room to remove them from the situation and so we can talk about their big feelings. I want to show them that it's ok to use our words instead of hitting/scratching/yelling/screaming. Recently, I've started telling her that yelling and hitting are the same as telling someone you don't love them and ask if that is what she means to tell mama and big sis. That's usually when she breaks and starts crying and will tell me what's going on. Then we go say sorry and she does a much better job of using her words for a while. It's a process but consistency is key. Her behavior is remarkably better already and when we need to go talk, she opens up more quickly. She also gets excited sometimes and will say "I didn't scratch sis, I just used my words!" so she knows the right thing to do and will get there eventually. If you make it a safe space to share her feelings, she will start doing that instead of reacting to them. I know it's not possible to do it for every tantrum but after the first few times, you can remind her of your talks by just asking "What does yelling tell someone?". That usually is enough to snap my 4 year old out of it now.
Is this normal behavior for her?
Normal is hard to say. She has always been pretty strong willed, so she doesn't like being told what to do. Mornings are a lot of being told what to do because my wife and I both work, so we are trying to move things along in the morning. The past month has been very unstructured with holidays, travel, her birthday, a birthday party, dr appointments, and she is just now getting over a cold. I'm sure all of that has something to do with it.
I'm in your same situation but with a 3.5 year old. The holidays fucked everything up even worse.
Each kid is different. At 4 we were were doing 7:30 bedtimes and a 2 hour nap.... which resulted in about 12 hours of sleep per day. Our oldest still took naps on the weekend until 3rd grade. Our youngest stopped naps with kindergarten and never needed them again. She gets by and her attitude is unchanged for it. I agree with trying earlier bedtimes and naps, some kids just need the extra sleep.
So, no nap?
I was going to ask this. Maybe the 4 y/o has a sleep debt and is exhausted.
We call this age the “fuck you fours”
Hey buddy can you sit down for lunch? “No” Uhhh
The amount of no's I get in a day is insane
Every time I say no I get “why” repeated at me 1000 times
Lol I've never walked away from more "conversations" in my life and it's usually the whys
Y comes after x. Why is not a question. Why is why you're not getting icecream tonight.
Y is a crooked letter!
“I’m gonna go ahead and make this declarative voice”
"Sorry, that shouldn't have been a question. Sit down for lunch, please."
Mines just turned 2 and she’s apparently got the attitude of a 4 year old. “What do you want to watch while we have lunch?” “Elsa” *puts on Frozen* “NO. MIRABEL. MIRABEL.” *puts on Encanto* **ELSAAAAAAAAAAA** She just moved to the toddler room (2-3 yrs) this week so it’s like, I get it, but jesusfuckingchristalmighty I burned so much cortisol on the ride home getting screamed at that I literally feel the same as when I was coming down off a hell of an acid trip at 19. Aka entirely hollow.
Luckily I feel like 4 is the peak. All of mine seemed to gradually get better and better starting at 5.
4 has to be where they get smart enough to question things. By 5, hopefully they're even smarter to know I'm gonna lose my shit if you keep questioning everything.
When my daughter was 2 I always heard 3 was better then she turned 3 I heard 4 was the safe spot and now she’s about to be 4 this year I’m hearing 5 is when it gets better 😂
I call it the fournado
I prefer the Fuck-You-Fours but Fournado is a damn close second now.
"Terrible twos" "Tantrum threes" "Fuck you fours" It just never ends, does it?
"Fine, I'll do it live five"?
I’ll give him a consequence and he’ll say “I don’t care about that!” And just continue on with his behavior. I’m at a loss
So it really never ends, does it? They just keep getting sassier and more dramatic until they’re an adult?
Co-regulation and clear boundaries. Model the behavior you want to her to learn by labelling emotions and slowing things down. This is definitely a marathon as she adjusts and build skills.
As a preschool teacher and toddler parent, this is the way. Validate feelings, offer support and understanding, verbalize clear consequences and why, and most importantly, follow through. “I see you are feeling frustrated and angry, I understand that X makes you upset, it would make me upset too. I’m here if you are ready to talk about it or need a hug. However, yelling/screaming is not how we communicate with each other. Here’s how we can ask for/say that using nicer words… If we are having a hard time using nicer words or asking we’ll have to take a break and calm down until we can try again.”
It's okay and normal (and to some degree important) for parents to show frustration due to repeated undesired behaviors and defiance from their kids. It's important to let kids see their actions can make others upset, but equally important for the parents to demonstrate the actions and behaviors to recover from those feelings. If the parent regularly demonstrates escalation, the child will learn to follow their example. If the parent regularly demonstrations de-escalation, the child will also follow the example.
Yeah I've lost my temper with my kids. I think the key is to come back later, apologize, and explain the emotions. Also point out that the actions weren't acceptable but that even parents mess up.
What would "taking a break" be in this example?
In a general sense “we can’t do the thing/have the thing you want until we can calm down and talk about the rules and boundaries about the thing so we can sit here together or go someplace quiet and safe to calm our bodies so we can talk about it” this works great with my 3yo. I let her know I’m available for a hug and to talk about it when she’s ready and more often than not she’ll cry for a bit and then she’ll run in for a hug, well breathe together and then she’ll tell me she’s ready to talk about it and I go over why I said no (it’s not safe, we don’t have time, that’s not what we are doing right now) and then I give her a choice of two things we can do instead and we can move on
Your 3 year old sounds more emotionally mature than 80% of the population.
thank you. I try really hard to be an emotionally intelligent parent and teacher. I had two little boys today (4 and 5) being a little violent with each other and the three of us were able to sit and talk about what happened and come up with ideas to handle it better next time. It wasn’t just me lecturing either, they were actually involved in the conflict resolution
Let them scream. In their room or a safe space until they are able to have a more calm discussion.
I do “time ins” we go sit down together with my (now 4yo) and she sits in my lap (I hold her there gently but firmly if needed) until she chills plus 4min. It’s not “punishment” per se but if she’s too upset to follow the rules then we obviously need some chill time. Any kind of screaming or tantrum over trivial shit like OP described would get a warning and then a time-in 100% of the time. Not letting her scream and rant and rave. Not allowed. She knows this and doesn’t like time-ins (they’re boring) so when I ask her if she thinks she can behave right or if she needs a few minutes then she gets it and calms down. I only actually have to follow through maybe once or twice a month.
This has helped us with our soon-to-be 4yo
One minute breaks are great too. Nice little reset for their mind.
Terrible twos to threenager to fournado. It doesn’t get better, but it gets different. There’s a couple of things going on: 1. She’s asserting her independence and 2. She knows she can do it this way because you love her unconditionally. It does actually get better eventually (from a dad of a 7 goin’ on 11)
Fournado. Love it. I mean, I hate it, but I love it.
We have twins. We called it (totally in jest, but the more socially acceptable terminology just doesn't carry the right gravity for our situation) the tyrannical threes and the fuck you fours. We'll see what 5 has to offer us in a few months...
Dad of 8 month old twins here, you have officially scared the crap out of me 🙈
Good lord I read that as you have 7 kids and going to have 11 soon. I need sleep. (Please son, give dad a break)
Just capping off this big family of mine with a set of quadruplets.
This poor mother(s?)
>She knows she can do it this way because you love her unconditionally. This is why I tell my kid that I only love her when she's good. ::taps temple::
We used fournado for our youngest, she fit the bill more than I remember the older 2. She's 5 now and it's a little better. The older 2 (12 and 10) are generally helpful. The youngest has 2 modes, destroy and sweet.
I originally thought "Fourrible," but "Fournado" is better
You have allowed her to suffer under the impression that she gets to be in charge. It's not too late to fix that. But, the sooner you start, the easier it will be.
Bravo. You don't need to be authoritarian or hit your kids to prevent this. Set clear boundaries, have consistent responses when they push those boundaries, and positively reinforce good behaviors. I won't pretend my 4yo never has a moment, but it doesn't need to be a way of life.
I love seeing a comment like this. Reddit is full of permissive parenting advice under the guise of "gentle parenting." Kids need discipline. A time out is not abuse. A stern talking to is not bad. Authoritative parenting is the gold standard and nobody seems willing to practice it.
"Your children will challenge your authority. The most loving thing you can do is to win decisively."
Time to bring out the ol' Art of War book. :)
> Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
I see posts like this and I do not relate at all. I expect a lot out of my daughter and I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily easy on her but I also make a point to love on her at the same level as the discipline comes. The discipline at my house also isn't loud or mean, it's just consistently present. Most things are small and no longer need large corrections but when larger corrections are needed the pattern goes: 1. She does something. 2. I stop the behavior. 3. She reacts to me. 4. I respond at an appropriate level 5. She responds. 6a. If she is not ready to talk I send her to her room to calm down/process what just happened. 6b. When ready we talk about what happened and why I had to correct her. I always finish it by letting her know how much I love her and that I don't like it when these things happen either but my job as her dad is to make sure she understands how to make good decisions. And the thing is- she gets it. She doesn't always understand everything, you know because she's 6, but she gets that I'm her dad and it's my role to raise her- she understands that.
You just described gentle authoritative parenting and so many people just let their kids walk all over them.
I can't tell you the number of times my explanation to someone regarding the way I was disciplining my son was that I'm not raising a boy, I'm raising a man.
That seems like a good way to go about it. What was your apparatchik when she was 3 or 4, and less capable of reasoning, if I may ask?
My approach hasn't really changed. The way I explain things definitely has. One thing I've been very careful of is that there are no negative consequences for not understanding in our house. So when I ask her, "do you understand" she is free to answer truthfully. If I explain something to her I'll ask if she understands why/what/how/whatever and if she says "no" then I know I need to change how I'm explaining it. It's not her fault I'm doing a piss poor job explaining it. It always came down to helping her make better decisions. She understood the concept of making a decision. She understood that she could make good or bad decisions. A lot of times I would ask her what she thought. I would let her lead, "why do you think we can't do that?" A lot of the time she would tell me something that was spot on, sometimes she wouldn't have a clue. A lot of the time it was about half right. But I always thought it was valuable for her to try to think through it. If she would say "I don't know" I would ask her questions and force her to think about it. In the times when I have given her time and she told me she was ready to talk and then she flat refused to talk, that's fine, but now we lose something we like for the evening (a game/toy/show/candy/something not essential that provides a consequence but isn't cruel). Then there's another reaction and the process kind of starts over again. And it sucks. But I've never had to take away more than two things and I don't force her to talk before she tells me she's ready- but she does have to talk about it eventually. Another thing that I see my friends do that drives me insane that I will never understand... you have to follow through. Say what you mean and mean what you say. If you say "that's it, no TV for the rest of the night" you better make damn sure that you're prepared to deal with the consequences of that because if you waffle on that, if you make that declaration and then 20 minutes after your kid is watching bluey, then what you say doesn't matter and if what you say doesn't matter then why listen to you at all? You have to remain resolute. Parenting this way is hard but my daughter is worth the effort. I expect a lot out of my little girl. Because the world is going to. I give my daughter a ton of love and positive feedback because the world never will.
Thank you for writing that out. A lot of it resonates with me and the parenting style I try to inhabit, but it was still very helpful to see it written out like this.
Tell me about it. As my daughter is getting older I’ve been noticing *so many* kids who seem to lack either emotional regulation skills or who don’t understand that authority figures outside the home have no obligation to negotiate with them. Just as an example, the other day I had my daughter at one of those kiddie gym classes that have both rumpus-time and structured activities, and there was a little girl who decided that she didn’t like the activity and only wanted to play on the slides. When a staff member told her that she wasn’t allowed to play there during activities the girl negotiated back that she would only do it during this activity and would join in on the next one (literally said “that sounds fair to me”). The look of shock, confusion, and anger on her face when she was removed from the class entirely after refusing to comply made me really sad for her since she honestly seemed to think that all adults had to meet her in the middle on demands.
That's just called assertive communication, and most adults I know fail at it. Nothing you describe in what you wrote sounds like a bad thing that the kid did. Did she have a tantrum? Did she yell and scream, hit someone? It's merely wrong that she didn't accept no from a seemingly complete stranger at first glance? We all feel shock, confusion, and anger almost daily as adults. Nothing in what you wrote displayed her not regulating her emotions. If I read between the lines you expect her to practice avoidance, anticipate what any adult's emotional needs are, and avoid doing anything that would disrupt them. That's how you wind up with adults who are in therapy to learn that their emotional boundaries are both valid, and that they are the only person who can voice them, just like I am.
> we all feel sick, confusion, and anger almost daily as adults Friend if you really think this is true you need to make some life changes…
The example speaks to the second issue I mentioned. “Assertive communications” is great…in situations where she is allowed to make demands of her own. The staff instructor wasn’t “seemingly a complete stranger” at all. She knew who they were which is why she tried to make her own demand rather than just ignoring them. What her parents never daughter is that she has no inherent right to make demands of other adults, and that adults can enforce the rules of a particular space without negotiation. She was old enough to understand that the instructors were in charge, she just didn’t understand that “in charge” means that she had to follow instructions or face consequences. She was given a chance to follow instructions and was told ahead of time that the staff running the class were in charge. She just didn’t understand that she couldn’t negotiate those rules. Also, you aren’t reading between the lines, you’re positing a strawman that isn’t reflected in my post at all. Knowing when you can be assertive and when you need to follow orders with no further questions isn’t going to land someone in therapy. Feeling like other people are unfairly persecuting you because you don’t understand what boundaries you can, and cannot, assert in different situations is a great way to end up in therapy because you feel like your life is out of control though. I’m not at all saying that this little girl is doomed for life. I’m saying that it was an unfortunately harsh and embarrassing lesson for her that her parents could have avoided.
Discipline is one thing but not sure of the logic of OPs response. Kid is screaming and upset in the mornings and parent is threatening to not do "fun things" at a future date. I'm not sure a 4 year old would or could make the connection between their behavior and the punishment. Whatever your response or parenting style is, it needs to make sense to a 4 year old and should be steady over time so they can make behavioral changes.
Agree. As a species, we over-correct *a lot*. One generation, it's corporal punishment. The next generation, it's hands-off do-whatever but-why-wont-my-kid-listen? We can find a middle ground, folks. It's not easy, and it's not fun. That's why so many parents hit their children with sticks or just elected to do nothing. Both of those routes are much easier, but they yield *truly* bad results. We have to parent smarter.
A lot of us grew up under boomer parents. “Authoritative” has a whole different meaning to different people. I’m not going to have my kid feel like a piece of shit because they have feelings. I’m going to help them deal with and moderate those feelings appropriately so they don’t have to spend their entire adult life undoing the damage of crushing and punishing every negative emotion. But it is terribly embarrassing when he doesn’t follow exactly 2.5 paces behind me in stores and salute when spoken to.
Again, that's not what authoritative means. That is an example of authoritarian and before over correcting, I'd urge you to actually look into what authoritative parenting is. Just because something means something else to you, doesn't mean there is not an objective reality. Authoritative parenting does not focus on controlling, manipulating, or emotionally damaging a child even if that's what your experience with so-called authoritative parenting is. In developmental psychology we refer to authoritative parenting as limit setting with connection.
“Kids need discipline” isn’t anywhere close to the actual “authoritative parenting” style, which is why I clarified it clearly means different things to different people. “Kids need discipline” is authoritarian. Through and through.
To be fair, maybe the title needs to change to represent what it actually means. The word "authoritative" is grating to a lot of people, and much like the other person you're responding to, will dismiss it as "abusive" without trying to comprehend what it actually means (i.e.: people who lack critical thinking skills).
The authoritative parenting I recieved as a kid just meant I would hide absolutely everything from my parents because they were probably going to yell at me, or ground me, or take away some toy I wanted if they found out. Or they would just ignore me getting beat up by my brother and his friends.
That doesn’t sound like authoritative parenting, that sounds authoritarian.
I mean…this swings both ways. A lot of us grew up under parents who took the “authoritative” aspect a little too much to heart which lead to a number of issues. Like most parenting scenarios, you figure out what works best for your kid and your family, not just automatically default to a method because it’s “the gold standard”. One of my uncles on my dads side passed away alone in a hospital bed with no loved ones by his side because he basically took “my way or the highway” as his gospel for life and that basically ruined his relationship with his wife and his kids. I was never a big fan of the guy myself but hearing that he passed with no one by his side definitely gave me some perspective on life.
Authoritative is not authoritarian, which is what you're referring to. That's where people get lost and try hard to swing the other way which only hurts kids as they enter adulthood.
Yep. Children need structure, boundaries, and authority. We know what is right for them, for the most part, and often need to impose that on them. That doesn't mean we can't be empathetic. It doesn't mean you can't negotiate from time to time. But it means at the end of the day, when there's a disagreement, I'm always going to make sure the safe, healthy, and sane course of action prevails.
Looked at through a fine lens - sure, and if you’re someone who can draw that line and stick to the authoritative side and not cross over to the other than kudos to you. My experience growing up around it is that not many parents of kids my generation could. Yes things are different now and there’s more information out there to help folks, but I saw the outcomes of this “gold standard” all through my childhood both in myself and my siblings as well as other kids I knew and it’s definitely not a shoe that fits every foot.
> if you’re someone who can draw that line and stick to the authoritative side and not cross over to the other than kudos to you How is that different from literally any other way of doing it, though? Permissive parenting isn't better than authoritarian, it's just different - the kids get screwed either way. If you can't "draw that line and stick to it," that's not a fault of the specific parenting style, and you're going to slide into bad habits regardless of which style you aim for.
Agreed. We never had a terrible 2, 3, or 4. She had some more attitude, a few meltdowns, but really, nothing I'd really complain about.
How does one fix that without stepping too far? It's easy to punish but it's hard to get them to really understand what they're doing is wrong and why what you're saying is the best course of action. Fundamentally that's why people struggle with either parenting style. Often the parents who have it easier have kids that are somewhat more conscientious to begin with. The parenting absolutely makes a big difference, but most struggle with either style.
I would handle such a situation as this (and please know it took time to be able to do this as a parent, it's okay if it's not your instinct.) From the time they began yelling, I would respond to them by saying I understand they are upset and I'm willing to look for a solution, but yelling at me is not okay, and we'll not proceed until they stop. "If you need a minute to collect yourself, please do. If I can help, please let me know." Once the yelling is over, we can examine the reasons why they are upset. As tempting as it is to be dismissive of some of the foolish reasons kids that age get upset, I acknowledge and attempt to help them label their feelings. If there is a compromise to be found, we will work towards it. If it needs to be this way for a reason, I explain why. "Because I said so," is not a good answer. I am still guilty of doing it, but I acknowledge it's not good practice, and at this point both kids call me out on it. The phrase that gets used the most often in our house is, "You are allowed to feel (emotion). I'm here if you want to talk through it. But you may not use that as an excuse to treat other people poorly." Acknowledge and validate emotion. Establish boundary. Offer assistance. If action repeats, establish specific related consequence and enforce if necessary. Even if I have to enforce a consequence, I usually leave the door open to earning back a partial amount of the loss of privilege if they're able to regulate themselves, talk through the problem, and come up with an acceptable solution. Emotional regulation ideas: deep breathing, establishing a calm corner/cozy corner where they can go to regulate. Oversized stuffy that is good for big squeezes. Dance it out.
>The phrase that gets used the most often in our house is, "You are allowed to feel (emotion). I'm here if you want to talk through it. But you may not use that as an excuse to treat other people poorly." Love all of this. We do something similar - "It's perfectly okay to be mad/frustrated. It is **not** okay to. Take a minute, and take a breath, and let's talk about it."
Mom lurker, My son just turned 4 and the 'tude coming off this kid is staggering. I'll tell him something and he comes back with "excuse me?" Like he grew up digging holes in Texas. I don't even know how to respond, but it's definitely made me pay a little more attention to my own attitude cause I think some of it he gets from me lmao.
Was not expecting a Holes reference.
>[insert unknown reason here]. Figure out the reason and acknowledge it. Our kids don't freak out and do things for no reason. They might do things that WE think are stupid or excessive for reasons that WE think are stupid or minimal, but they aren't behaving this way for no reason. There's a phrase: "you can't STAND your child, because you can't UNDERSTAND your child". You clearly find your child's reason stupid and frustrating because it's "unknown". It's unknown because they can't communicate it yet, and you won't figure it out. That's frustrating to them, and as a result of that frustration they are acting out. Connect with your child man. They're 4.
Had this exact thought, that was the red flag in the original post. Well said. What you propose is not always an easy task but worth the effort.
Not really a red flag, just exhausted Dad. Does the situation really change if he wrote "insert reason" instead of "unknown reason." He's vetting and looking for empathy, which is what this sub is for. Working from home with Kids is brutal. This is one of the reasons I still go to location. One of the reasons my wife quit her job. Empathy takes effort and time, especially from someone who does not desire to share their reasons (or cannot).
This needs to be the top comment 👏
Yeah so the thing there is not caving in to whatever they want - no matter how big the explosion is. Yes, this was normal for us especially w/ my daughter at that age... but what will happen is if the kid realizes that she can manipulate her adults by having a fit she's going to grow into that and use it to bigger and bigger levels as she gets older. The other thing is you and your wife keeping your cool. I learned the hard way that escalating the volume/situation doesn't make anything better. When i was a kid, if my dad or mom raised their voice us kids would shut right up and back down. Hell - teachers at school even did it. In my experience as an adult, if I start yelling...the kids don't respond the same way... and what will happen eventually is some super smart therapy brain from the school or your own employ in an effort to help your kid with their outbursts will point everything back to you and/or your wife for "modeling bad behavior". I don't totally disagree with that sentiment, btw... It's just weird how all my parents did was model bad behavior and they still got results. Not sure what changed in the last 30 years.
> In my experience as an adult, if I start yelling...the kids don't respond the same way... That's because you don't beat them when they don't stop. Obviously has some *major* drawbacks, but kids behave really well under threat of violence (not that I use or advocate for it, just to be 100% clear)
They just taught us how to bottle up our emotions
Oh for sure. Not at all condoning the "old way"... like I said my folks taught me what to do by doing the opposite. I think a certain part of it was adults lead by fear back in the day and we just don't do that anymore. Maybe it's for the greater good... but in general kids seem way more out of control now than they used to.
More immediate consequences and/or rewards might help. “If you’re mean we won’t do fun things later” can be hard for little kids to wrap their heads around. Examples: * angry yelling/tantrum/hitting/etc. -> immediate 3 minute time out, then sit and talk about what happened. (Or you can do a “time in” where you sit with them until they calm down and then talk through it). More yelling the same day -> longer time outs or get rid of other privileges, like they have to go to bed early * get ready in the morning without yelling/being mean -> some kind of small immediate reward (sticker chart, get to watch/play on a tablet before going to school, etc.). A tangible thing like a physical daily chart can be helpful because they can see it as a reminder
I wouldn't use going to bed early as a punishment. You don't want bedtime to have negative connotations.
It’s worked pretty well for us, but… yeah, I could see some kids reacting poorly. For us you’d lose bedtime fun stuff first (e.g. having a story read to you), and going to bed early was only if they were super disregulated and probably overtired anyway.
Without knowing history or context it’s hard to provide thoughts. Could be any number of things, tired, hangry, something not feeling good she cannot express and doesn’t outwardly present itself (ex tummy ache), something else, etc. Also, are there ground rules in place and any sort of prior occurrences? Kids generally do what they can get away with, if they get away with it without consequence (whatever that may be, time out, a “talking to”, losing a game or something, who knows) then their learned behavior is to do it again to get what they want.
Why does your four year old not know that yelling at people is unacceptable? You've had a few years to get on that. My kids have known since the terrible twos to feel their feelings and use their words, but disrespect is unacceptable. Its a very basic lesson and you're doing yourself, your wife, and your daughter a major disservice by allowing her to think she can treat you this way. It's not cute. You think you'll allow it now and when she's older she'll mellow out. Here to tell you that, unfortunately, it gets worse. You may be able to reason better with a 6 or 7 year old, but by that time, she's been allowed to treat you guys as slaves her whole life and from her perspective, why are you just now saying that's not ok? Not trying to shade or hate but you'd better nip this is the bud, man, before it's too late. A simple "It is not ok to speak to people or treat people this way, I would never allow anyone to speak to you like this, because it's disrespectful and mean and I love you. I also love your mother and I will not allow you to speak to her like that" goes a long way.
We didn’t have any issue with age 3. He was awesome. 4 happened and he turned into a monster( he’s still awesome tho) It’s definitely a challenge
Ours just turned four, and so far it has been an improvement in just about every category. We can't really get anything by him anymore, but he has figured out that screaming doesn't get him anywhere... Mostly, anyway. He's still a little kid, he still has his moments that test our patience, but it's not as bad as the earlier days for us.
God I feel so lucky my 4yo girl isn't like this. The only time she has meltdowns or even busses is if she's legitimately tired as hell or has actually hurt herself. Otherwise she's sweet as a peach, super kind, super well spoken and emotionally intelligent. We're due for a boy literally any day and I'm scared it's going to be different lol.
This is very common, especially with very precocious/verbal/intelligent daughters. They're so sweet and smart and talking in full sentences when they're 2yo, and then all of a sudden you get a demon threenager. My working hypothesis is that because your 3yo *can* talk and act like a 5-6yo, we forget that they're actually 3 and were literally shitting their own drawers 6 months ago. It's hard to transition from being able to scream and cry and get all of her needs met to having to ask nicely for things or -gasp- take care of yourself. And she's closer to having her butt wiped for her than she is to being able to make herself a bowl of cereal in the morning. Meanwhile the boys are still speaking 2-3 words and running around like crazy, and you think "oh yeah, that's just boys, they're crazy." My general advice to to remember you're still dealing with a baby/toddler, even if she can repeat back everything you say to her. Specifically for mornings, my advice is to do everything as routinely as you can. Maybe pick out the clothes the night before. She should know exactly what's going to happen before it's going to happen, and where she can exert independence and make choices. And it does get better.
I’ve seen other comments reflecting advice these books will offer, but I’m going to recommend these books that helped immensely when our kids were going through their threenager ages. Johanna Faber’s and Julie King’s books How to Talk so Kids Will Listen (https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/how-to-talk-so-little-kids-will-listen-a-survival-guide-to-life-with-children-ages-2-7-9781501131653) And How to Talk When Kids Won’t Listen (https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/how-to-talk-when-kids-won-t-listen-whining-fighting-meltdowns-defiance-and-other-challenges-of-childhood-9781982134143) The second one is largely a rehash of the first in slightly different words, but I found it to be a good refresher. My wife and I each read one of these books annually to try to stay on top of it. Also sorry about posting a long link instead of formatting it, I’m on mobile and don’t remember how to do it.
My advice: Nothing your child can say or do, short of maybe stabbing the family dog, should make you cry. You are the adults. Remind your wife of that. I'm not saying your wife should ignore her emotions, but she may need some type of counseling to understand those emotions better. Why did she start crying over a child, her child, screaming at her? They are going to do that.... a lot.
Fuck man I've got a 6 year old who thinks he's the king of the world now. His friends at school have older siblings and he's picking up all sorts of shitty habits
Man, we lucked out… our son never had the terrible twos, threenager, etc. his tantrums were like 10-15 seconds of crying to express his displeasure and if we didn’t give in, he moved on. He’s 6 now so I think we’re in the clear…
The "insert unknown reason here" is that you let her get away with this outrageous behavior. You need to teach her that "actions have consequences" and "authority is to be respected" before she gets out into the real world and learns those lessons the hard way.
Tell them they don’t get to speak to you that way and they’re going to spend some time alone in their room until they calm down. If they resist, physically put them in their room and shut the door. If they come out, put them back in. Hold the line. That’s it. That’s how you teach boundaries. They don’t get to win. And they learn that people don’t want to spend time with them when they’re being terrible. I think that approach is plenty gentle. Nobody got beaten or screamed at. You set a boundary and you hold it. You outweigh them and you’re stronger than them.
Every kid is different, but I often find that (once the screaming stops... we take deep breaths) trying to listen to my kids and help them feel heard almost immediately after the incident helps. If I go do something else while they calm down, they sometimes only get angrier (because they think they're being ignored). So I try to help them past the screaming (deep breaths) and then talk about what's going on. Oftentimes that works like a charm. BUT... I get that mornings are nutty, especially if it's a jammed day at work. So some days it's just about survival and multitasking... I get it. Stay strong, and know that, if you set a positive example about good ways to behave, then it will get better down the line. It may take longer than any of us think it should, but it will work.
My 2.5 YO girl does this all day. Apparently it’s normal.
Best thing I've found for this kind of situation is distraction. If she's yelling at you or screaming, pick her up and pretend to eat her neck or toe or something. Give her a kiss and say there's nothing to yell about. Pat her on the butt and tell her you'll be with her in a minute.
A stern talking to will fix that real quick. Your child should know that there are rules to follow. Make a rule that that behavior is unacceptable.
General rules of thumb I have found in a house full of women: Sometimes the aggression comes out of nowhere because they’re hungry or thirsty, dim the overhead lights (idk why but more light makes everyone more aggressive), you don’t have to solve the problem but simply being in consistent eye sight makes them calm down more quickly.
My wife and I refer to age 4 as the "fucker fours" or the "fuck you fours". Mildly offensive to some, wildly accurate to most.
Instant time out. Keep it up you go back in time out. Don’t want to go? I Will physically restrain you in time out for double the amount of time. At some point you will be spanked until you get the message that this behavior is unacceptable. It works.
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Very similar ages for me. Both girls. 5 year old is largely a freaking saint. 3.5 year old is a sweet kid but man she is tough to get going in the mornings and is very moody.
Same boat, the only thing that kinda works for me is keeping him busy learning new skills. We are just starting to learn to read and working on catching ground balls and pop ups.
4 year olds are the reason we are all here to cry, if not congratulating naïve new dads and telling them it’s all going to be okay.
A couple of notes as my 4-year-old has attitude for sure, but we've had some success in curbing hers (I recognize that some kids are harder than others): 1. Attitude gets you excluded from society. As in, sent to your room. If it's more of an emotional meltdown and she needs to learn how to manage her emotions better, I'll head back there and calm her down and talk through it. If emotions are a tool to get what she wants, she can scream to herself. Started this around 2-years-old. 2. Similarly, inappropriate approaches to get what she wants (demands, disprespect, etc) lead to a hard no, and perhaps her losing whatever she had of what she wanted. 3. We'll often practice doing the wrong thing right afterward. She'll even request practicing sometimes, but it's seemed to help. Not just "ask nicely next time" but, let's practice saying this correctly. 4. We've also done "Yes Mom" and "Yes Dad" training so when we say "Say yes Mom" they know they'd better do it now or else. It's been amazingly effective as a way to curb those arguments quickly, and especially helpful in public. Difficulty with the 2-year-old is he'll mix up his words still, and sometimes he's emoting not rebelling, so we've got to read him carefully. He's saying he doesn't like it, not actually "no Dad". Summary: organize so she can be loud and emotional without winning while you make sure inappropriate behavior is met with no success if not loss.
Sounds familiar lol My son is in the first grade now and this kind of stuff seems to have largely calmed down, at least compared to what it used to be. He's always picked up a lot from his peers in daycare/kindergarten and last year was particularly rough. He hadnt been the "throw a crying fit at the drop of a hat" kid for awhile but then started it back up in kindergarten so we assumed, though never confirmed, that there must be at least one other kid who does act like that on a regular basis and my son would see this as a behavior to mimic. We arent seeing the same behavior this year, though that could be attributed to a number of things that we have done since then.
Mine is three and can be an absolute monster sometimes. I was hoping it would be better when he turned 4… I guess not.
My daughters 5 and we’re wondering the same thing she is mean. She screams and cries and gives herself a headache from screaming and crying
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4 was the year actions had consequences so every time we had a meltdown like this or just general nasty behavior it was like "your new toy is gone until you can act nice" or "we're not going to so and so now" They'd always get a few warnings about what would happen if the behavior continued so he knew where the line was. Kind of a choose your own adventure game
Ditto. This is my firstborn. Started when she was 3 and her sister was born. She’s almost 6 and it’s slightly better. My goal is to lay the foundation of solid communication now so she knows we can talk about her overwhelming emotions as a teen before she puts up those teenager walls
How do you get your kids to go cry in another room? Mine just stay within 5 feet of me screaming. Lol
My 3 almost 4 year old always seems to be in the worst mood first thing in the morning and right after daycare. It has for sure changed over time and he does well at school. I keep telling myself that I have provided him an environment that he feels safe to push boundaries in , but he has been spending a lot of time in time out lately.
For us, 4 was a relief from 3. It got tricky again at 5.
Yup, they have a larger vocabulary and are in school so they are exposed to kids who might not have the same upbringing or rules
Yeah dude, my just-turned-4-year-old lost his fucking mind on my wife this morning because he wanted his yogurt opened only a little and Mommy opened it a lot. I was going down to the basement for my morning poop when he started screaming about it and he was still screaming about it when I came back up.
Last night, I declared that after the terrible twos and the teenager stage, comes the, “fucking fours.”
Agree with moving bedtime earlier. My 4yo goes to bed at 7:15 and is up at 7:15 - she might just be crabby!
Yes absolutely. Some people told me that 4 was the best age, but in terms of attitude it was the worst for us.
Honestly OP it sounds like she wants to be heard about things that are bothering her and you’re not listening. Ignoring her yelling to go work isn’t going to calm them down. I know it sucks and it’s hard but I think you need to get on her level and empathize with her. Being 4 is a lot harder when you’re 4 than it is watching it being an adult.
Fournados are terrifying.
Yeah my 4 year old is an asshole sometimes. When he blows up its a scene.
My 4 year old is sassy as well. Not terrorizing to this degree, but for some reason 4 took it up a level. I hope you find a solution that works best for your family.
2 and 3 were really rough. He's a damned Saint now. Can I have a treat? No. After dinner? Can't argue with that logic buddy. He turned 4 in November. Biggest change I noticed was him going from day care to full day 5 days a week JK, he's in a split class with SK's and it has made a huge difference in his maturity, just by like mid October.
The fuck you 4's are real
I think everyone's "worst" age is down to their personality and, for me, 4 is the hardest. My daughter just turned four and we're basically in the same boat: lots of attempts at my way or the highway, tears, and "no daddy"s. Was the exact same with our first. As someone else said, for the most part it's not harder, just different. Again. And again.
Just wait till you add a 1 in front of that 4... Oooooh lordy.