To feel like all I do is discipline my 3yo?

[3yohelp1]

Since my son turned 3 he has become so defiant. Absolutely everything is NO or I DONT LIKE IT.

Asking him to help tidy or do something that he's told is a no go, he will just refuse and refuse and refuse and refuse.

You could literally sit and paint with him and 2 minutes later ask if just painted something and he'd shout NO!!!!! at you.

If I try and do anything like picking him up and removing him from something if he's misbehaving, he will lash out and smack me, shout GO AWAY etc..

I feel like every day with him is just spent asking him to use kind hands, sitting on the step and yes shouting sometimes too because he will push and push and push etc etc..

He can also be very affectionate and ask for cuddles which is lovely but he just seems to grumpy these days, not just with me but everyone.

Is it a 3 year old thing? I feel like this is worse than the terrible two stages!!

It's a threenager thing

Are you actually disciplining him though? I don't think telling him to use kind hands is going to work.

I think it’s easy to get into a negative cycle of poor behaviour and always telling them off.

Best advice I had was “notice them being good”. Every positive thing they do, even small, notice it and comment on it.

eg, you put your socks on really quickly, thanks for doing that. Well done for sharing your toy/sitting nicely/saying please. It was really good when you xyz. Etc.

Don’t go overboard with praise or be fake, just notice the good stuff. It really changed the dynamic of my relationship with DS1 around that age.

He has to sit on the step (which will usually eventually work but can sometimes take a good 10-15 mins of putting him back on, lots of screaming and crying etc.), I remove toys, take him away from what he is doing if he's misbehaving, have left places before because he was misbehaving and I said we would and admittedly sometimes I do shout at him too because sometimes it reaches the point where I feel its the only thing that does actually work and we can then have a cuddle and move on... until the next thing.

I think this is how they can be sometimes, depending on the child. My son was like this but now at 11 (although he has his moments, for sure!) he knows what we say goes.

My belief is if you put the hard yards in now with the telling off, you'll reap the rewards later.

Best advice I had was “notice them being good”. Every positive thing they do, even small, notice it and comment on it.

Was coming on to say this.

Even go a bit ott with praise just for small things - then try ignoring the bad behaviour as much as possible.

Sounds like you're doing all the right things then! Just keep persevering OP and it will get better.

To an extent this is just normal threenager behaviour.

As pp said, it's really important to praise more than you discipline to keep things positive, so make sure you're praising all the good behaviour. If good behaviour is thin on the ground you need to look for opportunities to be positive.

Look at common trigger points and see if you can identify what sets it off. Often it can be boredom due to a lack of mental and physical challenge (often seen in kids who are being babied). Or it can be hunger/thirst, over stimulation, lack of opportunity to run free, too many screens, tiredness. More fresh air and exercise helps in almost all cases.

Yes this is our life too- the other day I told my 3yo to hurry up as we were late for her friend's party and she was dawdling in the street outside. She shouted 'I'M COMING!!!!' in a proper teenager way. Passers-by were pissing themselves. I'm afraid I don't have the magic solution but I do notice she's better when we notice good behaviour and also when she gets 121 parent time.

Also, sorry op but I don’t think 10-15 mins of battling on the naughty step is good for either of you. Send him to his room to calm down for a few minutes then explain what you expect and move on.

Save the battle of wills for the really big stuff. You need to be teaching him to self regulate, calm down and manage his behaviour.

He can’t learn from the things that you tell him he does wrong that he should be doing the opposite thing. He can only learn when you praise good behaviour, as others have suggested. Praise every tiny thing.

My daughter turned 3 a couple of months ago and I feel emotionally exhausted by the constant negotiations and disagreements between us

I wish it didn't take so long to get ready in the morning or get her to use the toilet before we leave

I've been listening to

"How to talk so little kids will listen" audiobook, it's good I recommend it

It's hard work

I also found this book hugely helpful.

There is also something to be said for the heady heights of realising at 3 yo that you have a voice, can confidently use a small catalogue of words to navigate almost any and every situation - "YES", "NO", "IT'S MINE", "I DON'T LIKE/WANT THAT" etc, found you have boundless energy and zero ability to adequately assess risks. If you remain firm and consistent your son should eventually weigh the benefits vs cost of his actions - but it's very dependent on how you go about it.

Try very hard to remain as balanced as possible, praising the positive and correcting the negative with redirection and explanations as obvious as they may seem to you. Even if it is your first time at the rodeo don't get lost in the fog of frustration. It will mean constantly repeating yourself and feeling frazzled at times but consistency is the only way through.

I say this knowing a 3yo who cried most of the drive back from Scotland because she feared she'd left her sock under a bed - a very nondescript yellow sock that you could purchase anywhere, even if by some marvel all the other yellow socks in her drawer at home had vanished overnight.

Totally agree. Behavioural approaches have a place but naughty step is one that should go in the bin in my view. Think about it op, you’re asking a 3 yr old to emotionally regulate himself and sit and have a wee think about his actions, after battling with you for 10-15 min. He just doesn’t have the skills to do that. Absolutely he needs boundaries and consequences to his actions but I just don’t think this has a place. He needs to regulate with you. That’s so much easier said that done though I know, trying to help them calm when we feel anything but!

I also have How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen

It's incredibly hard in the moment to manage a threenager (have one myself currently and it's draining).

I've worked in social work, special education, early years and children's mental health/family systemic teams and the most useful things I've learnt, seen or heard in action are:

• Not accepting the invitation to an argument (not always easy but every time I manage to hold strong it pays off)

• staying firm to boundaries and rules even when it's inconvenient to you - with the exception of major things for example if on holiday you aren't exactly going to cancel the holiday but you may well stop all sweet treats etc if that makes sense.

• knowing which hill to die on. Aka is it worth it and does it really matter? Principles and values versus ego and personal preference.

• If you are a two parent household, you need to be unified but also learn to use each others strengths and function like a strong team. One person deals with noise better - great! One person is a quiet play/drawing person - great! You can't be everything at all times.

• Fed, clothed, clean, loved and safe. Basic and can seem twee but I have to remind myself of this on days where work has spilled into life and I'm feeling a bit flat and like I'm not doing my best.

• As someone earlier said, lots of positive praise and reinforcement. It's hard when it's amongst a sea of tantrums and

• Co regulation - teaching feelings and language around feelings from a young age. Google emotion coaching and interoception to understand this more. Sometimes a hug in the middle of a big strop makes everyone feel better. Yes you can address the poor behaviour still and put (logical) consequences in place but connect before correct - easier said than done I know.

Distraction! My DH is great at this because it takes willpower to not lean into the drama.

And breathe! Loop earplugs help me when I can't bear the noise anymore and need to turn the level down a bit.

Also- be mindful of screen time and TV choices - it seems to impact children more than others, and we have found that some programmes for our DD make her hyper - chilled tempo, colours and storylines rather than crazy and chaotic tv.

My DD 16 was like that at that age.
Much better at 4. 3-4 was full off rebellion.
A little sneak peek at thr teen years!! Beware.

I'd agree. Praise the good stuff.

The naughty step is wildly old school and widely proven to not work. You’re not disciplining, you’re punishing. Discipline teaches, punishment is just there to hurt. A child doesn’t learn anything from a naughty step.
3 year olds are hard work, I have one. It’s absolutely a lot. But you also need to learn a bit about child development and work with them not against them. They have no impulse control for a start, they need to move to think, they’re learning how to use their bodies. A lot of ‘misbehaving’ is normal development. So much going on. A battle to keep them sat on a step doesn’t work because it ignores development. You need to model how to behave, move them away if they’re hurting for sure but it needs to be in context. Sarah Ockwell Smiths books might help (though I know she’s not often a favourite here she’s good at condensing the evidence base)

Watching with interest. I have a DS slightly younger but some very challenging behaviour. Particularly when it's time to leave an activity or strapping him into his car seat is another flash point. he will have a total tantrum. Slapping me and biting, screaming and trying to head but me. Puts me off taking him places. It's so hard.

Naughty step never did my 2 any harm OP.

Yes to How To Talk - and if you want a good guide to positive approaches, there is a really great course on Coursera called The ABCs of Everyday Parenting.

It has a LOT more useful stuff than this but the gist of the ABCs course is:

Pick a few specific behaviours to work on
Work out what the positive behaviour expectation is (e.g. "tidy up after self/at certain time", rather than "not hitting when asked to tidy up") although with this one you can use not X.
Working this out then allows you to notice when they ARE doing it, which lets you praise them.
Also, specifically tell them what you want them to do (and it has tips about tone, wording etc which are more or less likely to be effective, which is useful)

If this isn't working there are more suggestions to target behaviours e.g. break them down into smaller steps, role play, check what you're modelling, increase rewards etc. There is also some guidance about how to use time out effectively though it points out that time out on its own won't change behaviour - you have to target the positive behaviour too.

The gist of the how to talk book (again lots more useful inside):

Look at the child's perspective/feeling behind their behaviour and help them express feelings in ways other than lashing out with behaviour, which should over time reduce lashing out tantrum type behaviour.

Try to meet them where they are at and see their point of view.

Ways to ask them to do stuff which feels less like pleading or being an angry drill sergeant. Mostly relating to playing and assuming competence and being positive about things.

Don't catastrophise e.g. if they are leaving pants on the floor at age 3 they're going to be a lazy layabout husband - it's probably not that bad and they will get there.

I also really like the Dan Siegel/Tina Payne Bryson books - I am not sure which of these are best for a 3yo - maybe No Drama Discipline or The Yes Brain? I like how they explain what is actually happening in terms of neuroscience and why they respond the way they respond to different things. I love that kind of thing and find it really helps me to have a why to do/why not to do something. But if you don't really care why he's doing it and you just want to know what to do to get him to stop, then the above 2 suggestions probably get to that point quicker!

Unrelated to these books - I do think some of the approaches which work well with toddlers start to sound annoying to 3-4 year olds. "Gentle hands" definitely falls into this category because a 3yo who is hitting is not trying to be gentle and expressing poor motor control - their aim is very much not to be gentle. Trying to soothe that away probably won't work - they need effective but acceptable ways to express frustration. It's also good to hand over some responsibility for choices to him and then let him find out what that means, rather than trying to manage every interaction that he has and then resorting to naughty step when that is failing.

People will disagree- but I think at this age it's best if you can (and it's hard) to notice the good and ignore the bad. And try to have natural consequences, rather than punishments. "Oh, what a shame. You did x, now we can't do y because...." rather than "You did x, so you have to do this incomprehensible sitting on the step thing"
I found everything went better if I was calm. Even though screaming like a banshee was often my default.

I agree. My ds was just like this and sending him to his room worked well. He was allowed to be "mad" in his room and after a bit of wailing and stomping he would calm down and be more receptive to listening. Trying to talk to them when they're in a tizzy during a neurological brainstorm is futile. Ds was a nightmare until a few months after he hit 4. He turned out quite wonderful so don't worry yours will too. It's a bit of a war zone when they're 3. Now with hitting is when my big girl voice comes out. "NO. I do not like that it is NOT ok. We don't hit now go to your room." Zero tolerance. Rinse, repeat two hundred times. They'll get the picture. He sounds quite normal just going through his boundary testing stage.