To think this isn’t normal 3 yo behaviour?

OP - hope you find this reassuring!!

My son (now 7) behaved rather like the way you describe... perhaps from age 2? He was certainly at it age 3. By the age of 5 it had stopped. He's the loveliest, gentlest, thoughtful kid now. We get comments about this from school too, so it isn't just our observations. We've never had reports of him lashing out at school either - they would certainly say!

I never once thought he had any issues or wasn't 'normal.' I just saw it as undesirable behaviour and it was my job as parent to teach him to behave in a more appropriate way. I saw it that I needed him to recognise what he was doing, why he did it and why it was wrong. I never did hard punishments with him. Having said that on one occasion after he whacked me, he was sent to bed without a bed time storey and sobbed himself to sleep 😩. I made it very clear I loved him, not his behaviour and how it wasn't acceptable to hit. Otherwise - It was always remove from situation very firmly tell him what he had done was unacceptable and why. We would then discuss feelings/ others feelings. I've always kept cool and calm with him in these situations (despite feeling bloody cross and wanting to yell). There were some useful age appropriate kids books we read together and discussed - sorry I can't recall the titles now. I'm sure you'll find some in your local library though. It doesn't sound like what you are doing is that dissimilar. It was just a long process, but it eventually paid off!!

Gradually over time I noticed him developing more control, we got to a point where it stopped. It was so gradual I couldn't name when, but I remembered thinking to myself "I can't remember the last time he hit."

I wish my parents had read your comments @BertieBotts - you have such a knack for explaining this.

OP - please listen to @BertieBotts and in particular the stuff about empathy. Ascribing the traits you’ve ascribed to a 3 year old can create a self-fulfilling prophecy where you see everything he does as wantonly unfeeling and/or spiteful rather than a product of his development. My parents used that kind of language (evil, spiteful, nasty, unpleasant) to describe me when I was barely 2.5 and their refusal to seek any help for it meant an extremely poor attachment and ultimately disintegration of the relationship altogether.

I’d also agree with others that you need some support yourself.

Oh god was waiting for this response!

autism is a neurological condition and is ALOT more than bad behaviour. My son is severely autistic with severe learning disabilities and until he was a teenager we barely knew we had him. Never had a tantrum/meltdown or anything.

There is the very very outside chance you are seeing a child with complex mental health issues, which can be negated if intervention is brought in early, there is the chance they have some ND and there is a chance it is a behaviour they will grow out of.

In all of the above situations you have to get into the local system to access support. I would suggest you share your concerns with nursery again and ask them document any incidents there. You can ask for them to make it available when you want and not have a daily postmortem.

And finally your dh needs to step up. I appreciate he may not have availability due to work but he needs to take the reigns of the mental load now. You are running on fumes and no matter the outcome you need to be in full fettle, oxygen first is what comes to mind.

I think the setting, as it relates to his behaviour, isn’t the main point. It is more likely what he learned there eg from the older girls and how you defend yourself/stop what you want from being taken away from you - better examples of triggers above by @BertieBotts

No, you're right, you can't attribute stuff directly to some kind of label.

But you could see it as he gets an idea in his head and he gets fixated on it so this has to happen regardless of whatever else is going on. The idea being fixated could be related to some kind of diagnosable condition.

Or it could be something like he just gets an impulse and follows it. Like the other day my 2yo was drawing on a balloon with a pencil, with predictable results. He of course had no idea that a sharp pencil would pop a balloon, because he is 2. Or when they decide to taste sand and then go "Bleugh". Young children up to about 5-7 are very physical in their interaction with the world and much less literally verbal. They do rather than think. I would never confidently say that a child under 7 understands something in the sense that they feel it viscerally, like an adult would. Adults and older children feel empathy in a very different sense, so for example hurting someone would feel very very wrong to us, if someone told you that you should hurt your son for example, and continue even if he cries, you would likely struggle to do this, even if you thought due to advice it was the right course of action. Whereas young children can sometimes see causing pain and suffering as just another experiment. If I press this button on a toy, it makes a funny noise. If I bite my baby brother's finger, he makes a funny noise. It is only different to us as the adult because we have a sense of empathy for the baby and can connect that experience to our own experiences of pain and suffering. Young children are only learning this and only do it intermittently, it is not present all the time as it is in adults and older children.

Behaviour is communication, so whatever he is doing is telling you something. It would be nice if it was easy to understand, but it is not always easy to understand.

Communication in this sense not necessarily meaning conscious choosing to do X to portray message Y. But for example, it tells you - he finds this situation difficult, or something (e.g. the toy being "his") is REALLY important to him, or he badly wants attention and he knows that there are certain things which REALLY alarm adults and will get all the attention on him, things like that.

Didn’t RTFT but you said he was in nursery and was essentially bullied by older girls. He is now behaving in a certain way towards other children. Could it be that he learned from being bullied that is how you treat children that can be bullied? That is how you defend yourself, by bullying first? @Threestepsbackwwards

I don’t care what anybody says, it isn’t ASD or ADHD or dyspraxia or anything like that causing those sorts of behaviours.

Who can say? At three years old almost any child could turn out to have one of those conditions and those behaviours might make some of these conditions a little bit more likely. We can't diagnose by Internet and that means we can't say your child definitely is "normal" either. I'm not saying your DC does have any of those conditions because a three year old could do any or all of those things with no condition at all, like the pp upthread their child just grew out of it. But mine didn't.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not the end of the world if they do have a condition or if they don't. And you wont be alone either way. Other parents have been there, done that, and we've got got the battle scars (and the children we've successfully raised!) to share with you.

My child has done this from 19 months. Hes now 4 and has strongly suspected adhd and it statemented st school.

Sorry. Its really tough.

Any sort of removal from the situation makes him more angry and it takes a long time to settle him then.

I had that too. If we couldn't avoid the situation upfront and things did kick off, there was no quick or easy solution, it would take enldess time and patience to get him out and calm him down.

One of my worst ever was waiting out more than an hour trying to calm 6 year old DC down kicking and screaming in the changing room before I could even start to get him home safely from an after-school club. And one of the loveliest kindest things another Mum ever said to me was "see you next week".

So he’s three now. Let’s say in another two years we’re still here and he’s five. Is he still just a baby then?

That was my DC. He was still doing this shit long after most kids had outgrown it. So, diagnosis, support, kindness and the long haul of us teaching him to do better and him slo-o-owly growing into it.

I do obviously follow him round and physically prevent him attacking. But it isn’t always possible especially in play areas designed for kids.

Sometimes we couldn't go to those places because it wasn't safe. Or sometimes we went to "special needs" sessions because it was OK for us to stay that close to DC.

90% of the parenting is done by me so if it’s poor parenting I definitely take responsibility for that.

It doesn't work like that though, The parent who steps back is also responsible. You and DH are a team and how you split the parenting between you or parent together makes a difference.

a lot of the behaviour isn’t as a result of over stimulation - it’s just mean.

One of the things that used to trigger my DC was that he had a very fixed idea of how things should be. So if he imagined himself playing on the climbing frame by himself and there was another kid there, well that was ALL WRONG. It wasn't even a case of the other kid being in DC's way - in DC's mind he just wasn't supposed to be there.

Violated expectation still are a kind of trigger for DC, but DC is so much older and wiser and more mature than a three year old so he manages it much better!

Nursery just say he’s fine now apart from the odd incident.

Your DC may have have learned what to expect at nursery by now, and nursery may be making sure he knows what to expect and what to do. My DC's nursery did that so DC was totally fine at nursery. Then he went to school and it was all new and that was like letting a stick of gelignite loose in the playground! We had no idea. Not an experience I'd wish on any parent.

You could ask the nursery if there have been any more incidents since the last time you talked to them - don't say anything about withdrawing him. They've told you about some specific incidents where it wasn't all fine. And that's what you raise with the doctor or whoever - "Well the nursery said DS did this and he did that. They haven't excluded him and they say he's much better now but they have told me about these things."

Also, @BertieBotts know her stuff. I've learnt a lot from her!

Another thought - in our area you can self refer to Speech and Language therapy. Maybe you can in yours?

I wouldn't be surprised if your DS doesn't properly understand what you are telling him to do/not do.

Hi OP, forget about your son for the moment. You're doing the right stuff.

Please, think about yourself. You sound so low and your husband sounds really unhelpful.

I have a child with various SEN but nothing that was picked up by nursery or school (mostly it isn't in the UK unless behaviours are extreme - as a poster earlier in the thread said, we don't have a proper paediatrician system here).

She was quite violent although to us rather than other kids. With the right help and support she did get a lot better.

If you Google "your local authority name" plus "local offer" you will find parent groups and local services.

I'm sure this has been said already but if playgrounds are a particular flash point, avoid them for a while? Go on walks, scoot to the shops or round a big park or something, kick a football? If he's finding the proximity of other DC hard, reduce the amount of it.

The Explosive Child (Greene) and 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child (Bernstein) are good books. Lots of parents go through something like this.

I am presuming that due to his age he was a lockdown baby.

Do you think that because he didn’t see interaction with other children this might have affected him

I note on a lot of occasions he appears to want to keep other children away from him. In a roundabout off the wall way do you think he has in his 3 year old mind that other people shouldn’t be around him and it is his idea of social distancing

Does he get timeout at soft play type things and get to watch other children interacting before joining in again.

I think boys especially need a lot of exercise. Ds at 3 years old was accompanying me with darling dog on 2 mile walks before spending time in the playground running around
And then back out for another walk in the afternoon

From my memory of reading Raising Boys. 3 year old boys have so many hormones flooding their body as they make the transition from baby to boy. It’s the equivalent to when they transition from being a boy to being a man

It is normal that they will first tell you the obvious advice that does not help.

They are expecting that when you find this advice does not help, you will go back and tell them so. They do not mean "try this, and if it doesn't work, you're doing it wrong and there's nothing we can help you with". They have to tell you the normal obvious advice because for some people they won't have tried this and they need to try it first because it doesn't make sense to launch into investigations and underlying causes for every parent who is having an issue managing their child's behaviour.

Also, as you know, impulsive and unempathetic behaviour at two is much more normal than it is at three. I think that it is worth returning to say "Nothing has changed; I'm still having the same problem".

Some aspects of some of your posts - the idea that there is nothing that can be done to help your son, the idea that his personality is what is driving his behaviour and it can't be changed, the fact you've had suicidal thoughts, whether you plan to act on them or not - all of this is pointing towards depression. Talking therapy may be able to be accessed through your HV for longer than the NHS offer, or through the GP if not, antidepressants may also be an option.

What I did not fit into my long post yesterday is the link that I saw about your son feeling posessive over items and also reacting when other children come on the climbing frame - I wonder if he sees the climbing frame as "his" and this is why he is acting out when other people touch it because he has an expectation that they obviously don't share and so they don't meet it.

Pouring water on a baby's face is not very nice but it is likely to be totally ordinary experimentation and curiosity.

You mentioned some struggles with DS1 taking the baby's toys and that you have to ignore DS2 while you deal with DS1 over this. This is going to sound counterproductive, but what if you did not stop him doing this? My thinking here is that this is a child who clearly struggles with the idea that other children will take his toys and that will be bad. And when he tries to protect what he sees as "his toys", he's getting told off and punished, which perhaps makes him feel even more anxiety about the idea that other people will take things from him. Remember that at three, he may not be able to make a distinction between things like "my favourite teddy that is just mine" and "my best ever toy car" and "my brother's rattle that looks interesting because it's new" and "the communal large play structure that belongs to everyone". Working on the concept of understanding personal vs communal belongings might be helpful here. You probably want to do it outside of a conflict moment and make it fun and positive.

What we did when DS3 was little and DS2 wanted to take every toy the baby had, we would suggest to him "if you want the toy DS3 has, can you find him something else to play with first?" We showed him that by offering DS3 another toy, the baby would usually take it (because babies have short attention spans and like shiny things) and drop the item that DS2 wanted. That meant DS2 was happy because he got his item, and DS3 was not screaming having had something removed. It helped teach DS2 that DS3 was a person with emotions and thoughts and expectations too.

Once DS3 got a bit older and started going after DS2's toys directly, we modified this and got DS2 to run and find a similar/alternative for DS3. Again, scaffolding a solution where DS2 gets to keep his toy and DS3 gets something too. And now that they are older and DS3 isn't so easily fobbed off, I've started pointing out to DS2 that if he just waits (usually for less than 5 minutes) DS3 will almost always give him a turn. Sometimes that waiting is enforced but often he is pretty happy to come and sit on my lap and just have some company in the fact it's hard to wait. And it seems to be paying off because it's frequently less necessary to intervene at all - they are spontaneously deciding to share or thinking about which items can be offered to the other. It's making the gap between their relative abilities quite obvious because DS3 at 2 is about at the same level of sharing as DS2 is at 5. But that in some ways makes it easier to reinforce the behaviour that we like.

OP it does sound like it could be neurodiversity.

I have a 5 year old who has always been very challenging from a year old. He would have complete meltdowns and I realised time out didn’t work at all and made everything worse.

We now praise any good behaviour - literally ‘well done, you’re sitting nicely watching tv- great playing - good eating’ it’s so easy for everything to become negative and feel like there are no good points so try to jump on anything good. That way you’ll be giving him the attention he needs in a positive way.

instead of time out we now use a behaviour chart for morning and afternoon and there’s a treat at the end of the week (younger might need a positive daily) and it works really well as he can visually see how his day/week has been and we can discuss it.
We also used an emotions thermometer when the meltdowns were very bad and talked about the colours and where he was feeling and how we could get back down to calm or happy. To help him regulate.
The colour monsters book is good to talk about feelings and colours.

I am sure DS1 has ASC (what would have been called aspergers previously).

It does mean you have to be on it all the time and support and teach and get in there with them - so at the park you can’t just be watching, you need to be on the equipment too playing with him which will be narrating the play ‘oh I wanted to go on there first but there’s someone there, that’s made me a bit cross but it’s ok I’ll wait my turn’
Validate his feelings and show him they’re normal but it’s how we then deal with those big emotions that is important.

please talk to your husband and your GP about your low mood and lack of sleep, you really need someone supporting you, its horrible trying to parent when you are struggling with things. you sound like a very caring mum but mums dont have to shoulder all the emotional burden of parenting. big hugs xxx

It isn't normal but it isn't as unusual as perhaps you might think.

My questions would be - what hours is he doing at nursery? 15hrs? Wraparound? Every day?

Has there been big changes in the household over the last year or two?

Are you/other parent there at key parts of the day such as eating together? Are routines in place for bedtime etc. Is he getting enough sleep?

"DH and I just don’t talk about it." .....why not OP ,its his child too ?