To ask if it’s normal for a four year old to be so argumentative and rude?

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I don’t want to be too critical of my four year old but I suppose I’m asking because you have terrible twos and everyone reassures you it’s normal and then threenager and everyone says that’s normal and then four - I’m not sure what to expect.

DS does have many nice qualities but at the moment he’s so argumentative and negative. This morning he went swimming and the conversation literally went something like
‘Let’s get your socks on so we can go swimming!’
’we’re NOT going swimming!’
‘let’s get in the car!’
’i don’t WANT to!’

these sorts of responses are fairly typical to whatever - even something he does really want or has just asked for so ‘mummy can I watch TV’ ‘yes sure’ ‘I don’t WANT to watch TV!’

I don’t know if he’s just experimenting with language and with choices but it’s pretty tiresome. Discipline is really hard as he just whines and complains and argues constantly.

He isn’t always like this but it’s a lot and it’s so frustrating and to be honest is impacting on our relationship. It has crossed my mind that he’s not a very ‘nice’ child and then I feel ashamed I had such a horrible thought. But it does feel like everything is hard work and unpleasant.

I wouldn't listen to a child whine for 45 minutes straight, I don't think that's sensible either.

If you have another child then fair enough, but I'm not suggesting you put noise cancelling ear defenders on either way. Just something to listen to that isn't whinging.

45 minutes is an unbelievably long time to keep that up, and I'm just suggesting it must work for him to some extent. I'd have a firm word with him about how unlikeable it is and that it's his choice if he doesn't want to go swimming, then I'd just get on with my day. There are always other jobs to be done. He can mope until he finds something to occupy himself. You have to mean it though.

"Don't speak to me like that" every time. When he's grasped that, "Don't speak tqo anyone like that. Ever'.

I sympathise @RobinHeartella !

The worst part of the day for us is post nursery and I do understand why but we go from being delighted to see me and so sweet hugging friends goodbye and politely thanking the staff then whining and arguments often ensue before we’ve even left the nursery drive!

We also have protests about the morning wee, insisting over and over he’s had one when he hasn’t!

My four year old is a sweet, kind boy and still will go 'I'm not going swimming' and even 'I hate you', which sounds horrible on paper but he's controlled by emotions right now. We help him control the reactions by saying that he's welcome to have a tantrum but we can't talk about it until he's calmer as we can't understand what he's saying when he's like that. When he calms down we chat and cuddle and ask if it feels better talking or getting angry.
He's been much better but it still is a natural impulse. Perfectly normal.

I often feel DS and I aren’t very good at communicating; our conversations don’t always seem to make a lot of sense!

It sounds within the bounds of normal. I think at 4 they can be a bit overwhelmed at all the growing up they are doing. Mine had similar moments. Can you jolly them out of it by being silly? Or music or stories in the car? I'd ignore the whinging as much as humanly possible.

Not weird at all, perfectly normal. I'd just be trying to teach him about expressing himself politely. Mine still do this a bit but know they get listened to/everything turns out better when they express themselves politely.

For us the worst times are when we haven't planned something. Weekday evenings are slightly less bad because we have a process/routine that we just follow ie a short amount of TV before dinner, then dinner, then bath, then (hallelujah) bedtime.

The worst times are weekend mornings, nothing opens till 9 or 10am, so there's a good 2-3h of dead time.

The absolute worst was last Wednesday, school was unexpectedly closed due to a utilities fault. We got told last minute and dd was already dressed in her uniform. She was thrown by the unexpected change of plan and played up all day, and I had my 1yo, and dh had to work slightly late. I was literally sobbing at the dinner table that evening, from emotional exhaustion.

Try the 'how to talk so little kids . ' book and 'the book you wish your parents read...' book. Yes it sounds like he is getting frustrated as he can't communicate otherwise. Those books help. He's only small so imagine as his communication improves he will stop getting as frustrated.

I read that @LilacLilias and I have to admit I didn’t find it helpful at all. I know a lot of people get on with it though.

@AlphaApple you sometimes can but other times it can just make him angry. He’s being delightful so far today! But it can change. We have whingey and unpleasant or we have purposefully loud and annoying. Or lovely. Sigh.

@RobinHeartella that sounds tough. DS isn’t too bothered by changes to routine thankfully. But it’s hard when you have a younger child as well; mine wind one another up which of course is normal but so so SO annoying!

'Son, nobody is going to like you if you're a moany wee twat'.

You're welcome 😉

Sounds pretty normal to me. Has he always been like this or do you think it’s maybe more of a current phase. Mine is 5 and sometimes gets angry objectionable when I’ve said yes to something. It’s like in her mind she expected “no” so just carries on as if I said no rather than actually listening.

Stop being so nicey nicey all the time. Say get your socks on. If he says why say we're going out. Stop the choices and be brisk and matter of fact.

I’m not, but you are rather in the habit of making up nonsense in the middle of a thread to try to cause discord and arguments. Rather like some of the four year olds we are talking about! They will hopefully grow out of it.

I have no issue being firm but firm isn’t making a difference (and actually sometimes escalates the situation) which is my ‘concern’ I suppose; it’s good it isn’t just us!

Jesus Christ not everything is a mental illness. People like you are the bane of modern society.

I do think it's fairly normal or within the range of normal behaviour for her age. We do have a lot of neurodiversity in the family on my side (including some serious psychiatric disorders) but I don't think there's anything like that coming into play.

It's just that 4yos are little shits, bless them.

I remember when dc1 was a baby and was so so so hard to look after, she barely slept by day or night, I used to read mumsnet threads "when does it get easier".

They all said 4-8 years was the "easiest" age. But my 1yo is definitely easier to look after on his own than my 4yo on her own, at the moment.

How do you respond when he’s being whiney or when he says I don’t WANT to go swimming etc….. by the way does he really not want to go swimming? I think he’s just trying to figure out his place in the world. Sounds normal to me even though it’s exhausting for you!

He definitely is just being argumentative in examples like that. He was whining about nursery the other day and when I said ‘well, you can stay home if you want to’ he immediately started whining he wanted to go to nursery. I mostly just ignore or do a sort of ‘well, that’s a shame but we’re going.’

Sounds exhausting!
Two phrases that are helping a bit with my whiney 3 year old are:
”say what you need”. ie. Instead of a winge of “I’m hungry” it prompts a “can I have a snack?” I try to respond to winges with empathy, “gosh it’s horrid when you’re hungry isn’t it” but not solve the problem unless he asks, he’s getting better at that.

Second is “we don’t speak to people we love like that” if he is yelling or rude.

My 6 year old also went through a very wingey phase at 4 and he’s now mostly pretty reasonable - so they do grow out of it!

I think it's a phase some go through. I agree testing boundaries. I think more so testing their control over situations and their behaviour on others.

For me what worked was modelling to ds how that made others feel.

So when we had the "I don't want to" for things we'd organised I'd just shrug and say "ok". Get a book and coffee and settle down. Often that confused him because he did really want to go he just got into a habit in some ways of saying "no".

I even went as far as deciding last minute I didn't want to do things we'd planned.

He was

I was able to get him to reflect on how he felt and how others might feel when he did the same.

Caveat though that my DS is ND. So he really didn't think beyond his own wants and needs at that specific time and needed to experience feelings to help him empathise.