Appropriate punishment for 4 year-old's 'crimes' please.....

[Legacy]

DS2 (4.5) has suddenly become SOOOOOOO naughty in the last few weeks.

1. We've had him taking toys from school (duplo animals) on three successive occasions
   
   
2. We found that he's scribbled all over the children's wooden chairs in the playroom in permanent felt tip
   
   and just now I have found him in his bedroom cutting all the fur off his toy dog in his bedroom.
   
   In general we've had a lot of answering back/ shouting at me and slamming doors.
   
   I was v. angry over 1) & 2) and he was made to apologise to teacher, and lost some of his favourite toys for a few days.
   
   Thing is, he doesn't seem remorseful and semi-smirks at me when I tell him off. I'm at a loss of how to get through to him that this is unacceptable behaviour. Am I expecting too much? Thing is, we didn't have anything like this from DS1 at the same age, and I'm sure he knows these things are wrong.
   
   DOn't know how to punish for this latest episode (I appreciate that it's not the worst thing ever, but I want him to know that we don't consider destroying property acceptable...)
   
   What would you/ have you done in similar situations? Does it work?

[Legacy]

(Oops - repetition of 'thing is' - sorry )

[Themis]

Perhaps he is getting attention becasue of the 'naughty' things he is doing and likes the attention.

Perhaps chanelling his 'creative' efforts else where and giving attention by praise and ignoring as best you can the bad .

Easier said than done I know.

[Blu]

DS went through 'hulking out' phases at this age, being quite over the top in different ways. Is he being quite volatile?
Boys get a tremendous testosterone surge at this age - I think it is higher tha at any other times in thier lives. DS suddenly started having a few wettting accidents as well.

if this sounds familiar, I would just try to be as low key and calm about it as possible - any 'upping the ante' they seem to thrive on. Ignore as much as possible, discuss, talk, keep calm.....


I had to laugh a little bit about the fur!

[Legacy]

Blu

Yes - agree, about the dog-trimming... I have to confess that I think I probably over-reacted too (lots of angry shouting ) and then I took myself off to the study to calm down, and remembered that I used to cut my doll's hair, which is surely no different

I expect he thought he was playing 'poodle parlours' or something. Sad thing is, it was a really nice shaggy dog which I've always liked