To be horrible to my four year old?

I had a bad day with my son today, said some unfair things but not remotely close to your words, to think you came away from your mean words to think you may need to use it again makes me think you have some serious issues with empathy. I’m sorry you’re struggling with your child at the moment but saying nobody would want to be his friend has brought me to tears, you’re his mother, how dare you. You’ve then made yourself feel justified into being harsh? Mind boggling, poor kid. Hope you haven’t crushed his self esteem too much.

Also..why?

Why?

You obviously missed the "or something".
Distraction is the point.
I've had several kids and one in the household now. If you react to a 4 year old like you would to a drunk goading for an argument in the pub then I fear the child will learn new abhorrent behaviours to mirror as it grows.

@appleandcat do you mind if I ask if you’re a single parent? If not, how involved is your partner with your DS? Are you doing most of the childcare?
Do you work? How often is your son in nursery? If it’s becoming relentless and you’re with your son the majority of the time, maybe it would be helpful to you to have an hour to yourself each week to do a gym class or a hobby, something that you would enjoy so you get a break. If you don’t have a partner, do you have friends or family around who could watch him? We all have a breaking point and can flip which is why it’s important to put your own life jacket on first and make sure you’re mentally in a good place and are taking time for yourself. As I think other people have mentioned, your DS id likely behaving at nursery or around other people but misbehaving around you because you are his safe space and he feels safe enough to push these boundaries with you. I wouldn’t recommend continuing the fear tactic and yelling because then your son is losing his safe space but I’d maybe try and seek some professional help or guidance. From your posts it sounds like he can become irate or angry quite quickly which does suggest a potential for neuro-divergence. If you get him tested support could be put in place to help the both of you and make your life easier without you having to result to yelling

I’m quite shocked at how many people are condoning his behaviour. It’s highly problematic to say “he’s only 4” or “it’s a phase”. That’s all well and good at the moment, but you need to start early with building respect. His behaviour is annoying and you as a fellow human being and family member were highly irritated by his obnoxious behaviour. You have every right to express your frustration and sometimes a raised voice brings it home to a child that they have pushed and pushed you. I try not to raise my voice too often as the more you use it, the less effect it has but children need to know that they can not exist as little emperors.

The reality is that if he tries that on outside the home, when he starts school, he won’t have many friends. Kids are very good at voting with their feet if another kid is constantly being annoying.

Did it work like that in your house?? I'm so jealous!

My two were/are SO much worse after a day at school/nursery. In some ways I'd had some space so had a bit more energy to deal with it, but mostly we were actually better on the days without time apart. I just thought that was normal, but guess it's all so very different in different houses.

Also OP I read we need to talk about Kevin years before having kids and it still haunts me!! Just a warning ⚠️ It's a great book though!

Read “we need to talk about Kevin” and don’t buy him a crossbow. 😱🤣

Seriously OP, have you thought of putting him in nursery? Little bugger’ll be too worn out to wind you up after a day out of the house!

Plus he’ll miss you - I’ve always thought working mums miss out more but cherish spending time with their kids more - and the kids with them.

@budlea64 you clearly haven’t had a 4 year old kid in a few years! I don’t think ‘wheels on the bus’ will help unless it’s a particularly biddable one! That would work on my baby but not my four year old and I think OP is playing on a harder setting than me!

The rest of your advice is good but I feel you’re minimising quite how infuriating a tricky four year old can be to even the most mother theresa like parents. I literally do meditation to cope with my wee hellion!

Hey OP .
You shouldn’t have said what you said , but saying something like that once is not going to damage him ….

My friend once described her relationship with her 5 year old as very stressful, how her 5 year old was very stubborn & they were always locking horns , TBH , I thought it was Mental !
We are adults, they are just kids ..
Describing your relationship as “always arguing “ ..& with a 4 year old ! !
It doesn’t make sense to me 🤷🏻‍♀️..
Obviously I realise kids can be very , very trying but they’re kids & there is always a way of making it work with them …
I think the sticker reward is a brilliant idea , a PP mentioned it above ..
Seriously you should def try that ..
Good luck with it all x

Gosh it's just a phase. He's learning language skills. He will soon learn that doesn't work if you ignore. Nothing lasts for long with small children. Just start singing The wheels on the bus, or something to distract.
I get we all get stressed but that was pretty mean. I'm finding it hard to sympathise if I'm honest because I feel a bit heartbroken for the little guy.

My nine year old GD contradicts me and answers back constantly, it drives me bananas. I'd hoped she'd grow out of it too.

. Even something like offering him an ice cream, he sullenly mutters ‘I don’t WANT an ice cream.’ So then you say ‘ok, no problem!’ ‘I WANT AN ICE CREAM.’ Obviously a few times a day fine but constantly is hard hard going. I don’t want or expect slavish gratitude or anything but a little appreciation or even neutrality would go a long way!

OP your son is four. Your expectations are completely unrealistic. Four year olds don’t do “appreciation” and “neutrality”, they do “I want an ice-cream, not I don’t”, etc.
This behaviour has nothing to do with your son’s personality, or how your son will be as a teenager, or your experience of your brother growing up etc. you are finding dealing with a four year old challenging (understandable) and projecting.

We all lose our shit sometimes, but your words were unacceptable. You did well to apologise. Don’t think for a minute that what you said was ok. Children are very literal and they take things to heart- if you say things like that your child will internalise them and feel unloved / unloveable. They might become more compliant, they will also fail to develop any sense of self worth.

I hope you can find some IRL support as how you are perceiving him right now is damaging to both of you.

If you have a view of yourself being a smiling agreeable parent, but this is how you really feel, he can also pick up on your lack of authenticity.

Possibly how he responded reflects this, as you were behaving congruently for once - but also the type of thing that can play on kids minds and cause them to shut down, with lasting damage on self esteem (you yourself alluded to that from your own upbringing). I would absolutely not want to repeat it, no matter that you got a relief from his behaviour.

How you’ve portrayed him here and compared him negatively to your brother, especially in contrast to your view of yourself, suggests there is something helpful to work through with a counsellor. As well reflecting on your own up bringing and role modelling, which could be useful to reflect on in your parenting now.

This would hopefully support a healthier view and relationship with DS and certainly make parenting him less personal and triggering for you.

A 4 year old can be annoying, but nowhere near as challenging as parenting a teenager, you can’t assume what it will be like or it will be less soul destroying. At that point they have also learned things that will most upset you and weaponise them, but even then it’s not personal. Not saying that for any other reason other than to emphasise how critical it is to get a handle on yourself as a parent while he still young.

Agree with PP who said need to find coping strategies, but that includes how you are thinking about DS, neither toxic fake positive persona nor hurtful shouted put downs.

@BertieBotts I think her first post (before she saw the responses to it) is likely to be the accurate version. She stated herself, very specifically that she screamed those comments at him.

She didn't "scream" that. She came back later and clarified that she said (in a raised voice) something about not enjoying the day, and that if her son continued to behave the way he did then he probably wouldn't make many friends.

All of that was factual information and did not attack his character. It might not be the most effective or kind way to frame it for a 4yo, but it is hardly abuse.

Anyway, I came back to add two more things which I forgot to my long post with lots of suggestions - these are things which took me much longer to learn but have been very useful.

• Not taking DC words literally - especially at 4. They can sound so articulate and certain, but being able to use words in an appropriate context doesn't mean that they fully understand the implications of every single word. Language is an extremely lossy communicator, even with adults - but especially so for children, and particularly if they are under about seven. They can mix up the meanings of words and also mix up what they want to say, they frequently miss the context that adults will put into words or phrasing. You do get fairly good at working out what your own DC mean obviously but in general, if you're finding you are getting hung up on verbal interactions - try disengaging a bit from the words they are saying and try to think what they might possibly be trying to communicate.

Two examples of this which spring randomly to mind - when I was about seven I told my mum that I had seen a scorpion on the carpet at school that day. She was surprised and asked me if I told the teacher about it. I thought this was a silly question and said no - the teacher wouldn't have been interested. When I recall the memory the picture I have in my mind is a fairly large black shiny beetle. I just liked the way the word scorpion sounded, and decided that any sufficiently large and prickly seeming insect MUST be a scorpion. In my head, that made total sense as an item category - it was much too lovely a word to be wasted on a single thing. I don't even know if I did this knowingly or not -it's possible I didn't realise that it was a wrong classification until I was older. Or perhaps I picked it up from another child. Either way, things like that happen all the time as children pick up new vocabulary. (I was very amused by my 6yo's insistence today that if you drink poison you must find the anti-goat as soon as possible).

Secondly my 3yo speaks English at home but his nursery staff and peers speak German. He doesn't like to speak German so he mostly refuses to speak to anybody, now that his brother has moved to another class and can't translate for him any more. If you mention the word English to my 3yo, he will proclaim "NO! Not English!" That is because of course, when we speak to him it's not like we announce that we are speaking English. He probably only ever hears the word English if his teacher says to him something about the difference between English and German, so he thinks that English = foreign language. But if you took him literally saying "No English" then you'd get entirely the opposite of what he means.

• Processing time. This is such an underrated tip in fact I have only really come across it recently. But for some children who seem to have this very sensitive hair trigger and everything is "No" or the opposite of whatever you say, it can be because they feel bombarded with information and they can't take it all in at once, so the automatic lash out is their sort of defence mechanism against that. It can help if you say something like "I've got an idea, would you like to hear it?" or "Would you like to know what we're doing next?" Then count 30 seconds before you respond to their response. It's interesting because I have noticed that in doing this I often get an immediate, aggressive "NO!!!" and then less than 10 seconds later, usually, a much softer, more enthusiastic "Yes, actually, yes, what are we doing?" - it will be interesting to see if doing this over time reduces the automatic arguing.

Gentle parenting is not the only alternative to screaming personal abuse of the kind that damages self esteem. It’s find to occasional shout something like “you do not speak to mummy like that, go to your room and no yoghurt after tea”. It is never acceptable to scream “I hate being with you and you will never have any friends”. I’m sure you must be able to see the difference.

Wow! So you screamed personal abuse at your child in a small enclosed space. You realise anyone walking past your car will have heard it, could have taken your registration number and reported it to Social Services.

Your follow-up post saying you are concerned that the problem is his personality, rather than a phase and that you will have a bad relationship with him when he’s older suggests this may be quite a deep problem, not simply a reaction to him being annoying. Respectfully, it may really help for you to have some counselling. It wouldn’t give you support and help you to work through any deeper issues.

She is asking if the other parent is involved 🙄

Honestly, I’m surprised by how many supportive replies you have in response to this. I am rarely judgemental and I am not one of the MN ‘pile on’ brigade, but the things you shouted at your 4-year-old are appalling to the point of emotional abuse. I understand that his current behaviour is challenging, but you are the adult here and you should be aspiring to be a loving mother, not someone tearing his self esteem to shreds. As others have said, he is going through a phase. You have to find a way to ride it out without screaming at him and certainly not screaming that he is horrible and no one will like him etc! You need to ignore him way he makes those comments and reward him with play, smiles, cuddles etc when he behaves well. As for your “I’m wondering if I should be harsher”. I can’t imagine what that would be given what you have already done, but it wouldn’t be appropriate.

My child developmental research, which I have been doing on a nearly daily basis for 7 years now, shows that just about everything about a child’s growing awareness of reality comes down to not just if they personally see something but if you see what they see, too. Human consciousness is largely collective. None of us really believe something is true unless someone also agrees that they see what we see. Five year olds are really trying to see if you see what they see and, if not, how they can rectify that situation. This might explain why they are prank-pulling punks, as well as why they might “lie” sometimes. What is real? What is not? Can they trick YOU? That they CANNOT trick you will tickle them. In their late fives, they are especially tickled that they cannot trick you not just over external objects (salt in a cup, etc.), but about who they themselves are. They cannot trick you by pretending to be sleeping, etc. This helps them develop a deeper self-awareness. Children need this. They need you to see them so that they can see them. At four, children developed self-awareness as such. They became aware that they exist and also that they can die. At five, they develop an awareness that you are aware of them.

This is part of the quote. And this reminds me as a mother to accept and show empathy that THEY ARE VERY YOUNG. So young that they sometimes really don't realise what they do is not what they really want to do. (They don't do it just to be your enemy... They don't mean it.)

Remember that. And like others said, don't take it personally and suck it up until they grow out of this phase.

Love him by standing your ground to guide, but do so compassionately with love.

OP, I've been dealing with this since DS2 was 3! And he's nearly 6 now. Only just getting slightly better, but still can gets into my nerves. I just lose it once today though (extremely proud of myself).

Don't ever say things attacking him as a person. We shall only talk about behaviour and things they do.

I do sometimes want to scream "why do you want to be so unpleasant!". But never did. The closest was "why do you want to make everyone cross?" or "people would want to stay away from you if you treat them like that".

Believe me. I broke down in tear so many times for about two years, literally didn't know what to do with him.

But he's slowly growing out from it. Very slowly...

Remember, their view of the world is not how we adults see it.

Just reading a blog a few days ago, making me more conscious that they are still learning and they are not aware what their own actions do to others.

theobservantmom.com/the-misbehavior-and-growth-of-a-five-year-old/#parenting

Hello OP. Firstly just want to say I admire you for reaching out for help on here. It’s a bit of a minefield isn’t it. Children’s anxiety can cause behavioural issues for example feeling insecure because you’re going upstairs and this may be a manifestation of feeling anxious at nursery or school and not having the communication skills to share his feelings with you. There’s many reasons why his behaviour is challenging. From being tired, hungry, worried. As someone already suggested - offer two choices. He’s growing up and wants some autonomy. You could say “would you like an ice cream?” Or, would you like to go home? He gets to choose. Once he answers, don’t change the agenda just get the ice cream or go home. Use this methodology going forward for everything for example “would you like to wear the blue trousers or the red trousers? This will enable you to feel in control and him too as you’re giving him choices. Reach out to your child’s school and local children’s centre for help and advice. Professional support will be really helpful for you and your family as well as non judgmental. Does he enjoy reading books with you, if not, encourage it, it’s calming and he will feel secure sat with you having you all to himself for 10 minutes. Incentives for you both are him looking forward to reading his favourite story at bedtime with you. Also try working on when you feel triggered, if it’s safe for the children you can walk into another room. Take a step back when you feel angry, rein yourself and refrain from thinking negatively about his behaviour. Take a deep breath and remind yourself he won’t be this young forever. This way you’re not trying to ignore it, which you’ve tried but you’re having the control over your own way of thinking. Furthermore remind yourself of how you’re feeling too. Think to yourself “I’m tired”, I’m hungry, Tune in with yourself to help you tune into your son. I am sure you’re aware that all children need and want are their basic needs met. However mums need theirs met too. The toughest job in the world is being a parent. Be kind to yourself xx

I haven't read all this thread so don't know if my idea is original, but have you tried humouring him? For example, when he says "It's not a big hill" reply with something like "yes, you're quite right, it's a tiny hill". Then maybe he will say "No, it's a big hill" and you can say "Oh yes, it is a big hill," and so on. He may actually decide you're being silly and that it is a big hill after all.