3.5 year old ds thinks everything is my fault

[Polygon]

My 3.5 year old is really grouchy at present - particularly of course when tired or hungry. He seems to spend every moment telling me that I have done something wrong. I can be in the next room and his tower falls over, he will scream that I made it fall over. If anything goes wrong for him, he´ll say I did it. If he falls off his bike, I made him fall off. If I gently lift him up (eg. onto the child seat on my bike) he says I hurt him. If he spills his drink, I knocked it over. Obviously he is just a very tired little boy when he comes home from nursery at lunchtime. I know I need to be loving and patient and try to get him as much rest and regular, nutritious food as possible. But, I also want to teach my son that making mistakes is ok, things going wrong is ok, falling off your bike is ok (except if it hurts, obviously - but not that he somehow did something wrong and so is not perfect). He is generally a perfectionist toddler (I never thought that would be possible! - he even asks me to tidy up sometimes) and I wonder if he´s already having trouble with the idea of imperfection. Has anyone else had a toddler who was so obsessed with "whose fault" something is? Is it normal (older dd has never done it to this degree)?

[QTPie]

He blames you because he loves you so much - you are the person he trusts to "take it". Sort of a back-handed compliment!

To "set a good example" I would get your partner to "play up the praise for you" infront of your toddler: try to get you out of the negative spiral (make you feel better too!).

I agree that you do want to, very gently, try to tackle the perfectionism.... In many ways it is a positive personality trait (he will work hard and do well at school), but he does also need to learn to handle failure/problems and use them to make him stronger. I am not sure how though.

Good luck

[Polygon]

Thanks very much for such a thoughtful reply. I know what you mean that he trusts me to "take it". I probably need to be more demonstratively loving to him at these times - to show him, yes, no matter what you say to me, I love you very very much. It´s a good idea though with setting good examples.

[RosemaryandThyme]

One of mine is like this, though now six, I think of it as a strong need to see everything as black or white, right or wrong. So if he builds a tower, he does it thinking every move is correct and will result in a stable tower, he can't account for it falling down without cause, if he can not see a cause the cause must be someone else.
frustration reduces as the child comes to see a little grey, so build a tower beside him and miss align a brick yourself, point out this wobbliness and be sure to watch together as the tower falls, as he sees that cause and efect can be enviroment linked rather than people at fault he'll cope better.

[Polygon]

That is a great suggestion. Thanks. I´d better get building wobbly towers :)