His behaviour isn't that bad, and generally he's a sunny-natured little thing. But the problem is when he does something unacceptable (push friends/brothers/endanger own or brother's life in various ways/throwing cutlery and bowls on the floor etc) and I try to punish/reprimand/persuade him not to do it again, he's just not contrite at all. I can try naughty step, screaming blue murder at him, giving him the silent treatment, persuasion, begging whatever I'm trying this week and he'll just breeze off blithely saying "Why?" and looking at me cheekily.

He just doesn't understand that it's not okay to hurt people or break things. He's SO insolent. Nursery have remarked on it, friends are offering me "helpful hints" and I'm at my wits end. Only thing that has worked is the couple of times I have smacked him.

I do not want to do it again as I realise I have lost when I do that. Plus I don't think it can help on the "teaching him that violence is bad and doesn't work" front...

Any book recommendations, suggestions welcome.

Pick one punishment and stick to it consistently. Chopping and changing won't work, so choose the one (except smacking of course) that you feel will have the biggest impact long term and go with that. Be strong and he'll get the message that unacceptable behaviour doesn't get him anbywhere.

Best of luck, been through a similar thing with dd (3.5)

I feel your pain.

The Christopher Green book, Toddler Taming, is fab.

Ignore, and distract where you can, try to find other ways of saying no ( I say 'Steady!' a lot).

Tis a stage, but awful to live through.

Good luck.

Thanks. As I typed I realised that is what I must do.

I am basically going to have to step up to the plate and be An Enforcer.

Needs must.

Ooh ... Steady is a good one.

Can't ignore the violence though.

No, violence is distressing for everybody.

I was thinking of you learning new skills, reading the signals so that you can divert the DCs and avert crises.

Sorry I didn't phrase that very well.

It is a stage and yes, 3-year-olds basically are psychopaths. They haven't engaged with the concept that anyone apart from them is 'real', exactly and they don't have much empathy. They have to be taught it and most get it around the age of 3/4. It doesn;t mean they are wicked or wrong or monstrous, it means they are.... 3, really. Big enough to think of things to do, active enough to do them but not mentally mature enough to think about the consequences.

Book recommendation? Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. Lots of threads on it too if you want to search those. As you are discovering, punishment doesn't 'work', so rather than trying another form of punishment, why not try something instead of punsihment?

You could be describing my daughter.. she has more attitude than a teenager. Last week when she was annoyed at me she said "well mummy, you just not as pretty as cinderalla" ! wtf did that come from?

Nothing was working for us but I have found that if I sit on the naughty step with her, it does have a bit of an effect. We don't talk until the time is up and (in fact I pretend not to be there) and she's then a bit more contrite and receptive to listening (for 2 mins or so)l.. Everyone tells me it's a phase, lets hope so!

I would make my goal to get him to stop undesirable behaviour (by removing him if you have to) rather than making him feel contrite. Some 3yos are not mature enough to feel much in the way of contrition, others just get more stubborn the more you push for it.

But if you always make him stop fighting/throwing whatever, then eventually he will get the message 'it's not worth trying, Mummy always gets her way'. And that will be good enough for the time being, without worrying about whether he is feeling contrite. As Elizabeth I said re the religious question: 'I do not wish to make a window into men's souls'.

We do get a lot of posts on here, which are basically a variation on the theme 'why isn't my 3yo, 1yo, 18mo showing the signs of the feelings that I as an adult think are right and caring? Is this a sign that something is wrong?' And the answer is that they are not an adult. Start by teaching them to behave and the day will come when they've internalised the message that this is morally right. But it may not be this year.

3 year olds haven't developed a conscience yet, so are - genuinely - mini-sociopaths. As if we hadn't all guessed that anyway from experience

Consistency, calmness, talk in low stern voice when setting boundaries...they worked best with dd (now a fairly reasonable 4.5) and giving myself permission to leave the room and calm myself down as often as necessary!

ps agree with cory re feeling contrite. Its a developmental thing.

Oh - sorry, was rushing - I also did a lot of mirroring how angry/upset/tired/hungry alongside with 'that behaviour is not acceptable'.

And let the small stuff go

Mostly though, I just needed reassuring that this too woulud pass...

All good advice and I'm basically getting the message that consistency is the big thing. Which I know in my heart of hearts and must just do!

Problem is that our kitchen is tiny at the mo. So if I'm preparing/cleaning up after a meal (which, let's face it is at least 70% of the time we're at home) I'm in a different room from DCs. Cue violence, screaming etc.

I also know I ALWAYS blame the big one, but it's starting to be the little one too now. I need to be being a bit stricter with him too, to appear fairer.

We've started doing a "marble jar" for listening (good listening gets marble in the good listening jar, not listening gets marble in the bad listening jar). That seems to work as an incentive to do as he's told. Which helps.

How long do you keep doing things like this? A month? Longer?