To be horrible to my four year old?

[appleandcat]

My four year old is a complete pain at the moment.He argues with everything I say and I mean everything. It’s literally being argumentative for the sake of it. It’s very draining and to be honest a bit depressing having everything you say disagreed with (I’ll say something like ‘I’m just nipping up the stairs!’ and he’ll say hourchily ‘you’re NOT going up the stairs.’)

So - I lost it a few days ago and I’m not proud of it but I screamed my head off at him, told him he was making me miserable and that I hated spending time with him, no one would want to be his friend. Horrible words and I did apologise for them but the thing is that it worked and he stopped arguing with me and whining at me.

Now we’re back to ‘normal.’ I have read the books and I’ve tried the techniques and all go ignored. And I’m actually wondering if I need to be a hell of a lot harsher and maybe that roaring out is what he needs. It’s certainly what my parents would have done: but I grew up with no confidence and I obviously don’t want that!

He is fine at nursery. So no idea what’s going on with him.

Has everybody lost all nuance and reading skills?

If you read OP's posts it is EXTREMELY clear that she is not an abusive parent who is constantly criticising and belittling her LO. So there is no need to project.

It is also really bloody clear if you have ever interacted with another human ever that the question in the OP is not "Look at this great disciplinary approach I have discovered! Should I employ it from now on?" but "Help please I am at the end of my tether, am I [normally not on a bad day] being too soft?"

I mean, come on.

My DS is just leaving this stage - argumentative, cheeky to the point of rudeness. It is a phase. You need to be firm, eg “do not speak to me like that, if you do there’ll be no TV tomorrow/no pudding” etc - but please don’t ever, ever say you hate him or he won’t have friends etc - such comments can destroy a child’s self esteem - forever.

Please apologise to him, explain you lost your temper and show how you can both behave better by both speaking more kindly to each other and remembering to be respectful.

@appleandcat I haven't read the full thread, but has anyone suggested oppositional defiant disorder? It can be limited to just one setting ie you get the worst at home but he's fine at school.

It may not be, but read up and ask the GP for a referral to a psychologist if you think it could be.

Just jumping on before bed to say a big thanks to @outofbattery for the solidarity and to @BertieBotts for understanding what I mean.

I don’t think he has ADHD; it’s hard to know, he can be lovely but the arguing … Saying to ignore it kind of doesn’t really explain how it’s everything, a passing comment. You can literally do this.

’Let’s go back to the car - but first, let’s get an ice cream!’
‘I don’t WANT an ice cream!’
’OK.’
’I want an ice cream!’
’OK.’
’I WANT one! I WANT an ice cream! I want …’

Ad infinitum. This was what drew me to the yelling the other day; it doesn’t seem to matter what you actually say as per how to talk and Janet Lansbury (who I do actually like) and big little feelings - he isn’t listening, it’s just this whine on loop. Ignoring it just isn’t possible which I can’t really do - I’m not sure putting headphones on is a great technique and also I have another child. If I say to him I am not responding to a whinge - nothing. It’s like I haven’t even spoken.

I guess this is the root of the problem because if they aren’t listening to what you say it doesn’t matter how good or effective it is. Even in a ‘firm’ tone.

I tend to think terrible twos OK and threenager yeees … but I thought by four some of this behaviour might have stopped some of the time. Although a PP is right, when I think about it it does come and go. It’s just that when I think back to the last twelve months we seem to have had so much attitude and problems.

How old is your other child? Is your son behaving this way because he perceives his sibling receiving more attention? I'm not saying his perception is accurate, but could that partly explain his actions?

Reading your update, sometimes children are just like this, they all have different personalities. My youngest was like this, it used to get me down, then when he was around 2 I decided to accept this is how he is and just laughed at it. He is 5 now and a lot less difficult but he does have his moments. I know it’s hard but just try and accept him for the way he is.

Sounds very similar though my child.

He zones out or looks away when being asked to do something. Or argues back, he either ignores or is defiant.

It’s really hard, and I have lost the plot before. DH shouts every time, but I haven’t seen that working much TBH.

It’s frustrating, not sure of the answer!

I think there are times when you need to tell a child that a particular behaviour will alienate other people. Let's be honest there are behaviours that are almost universally disliked especially when done constantly.

Ideally this will be done in a sensitive and age appropriate way. I also think some kids are more literal than others or need a more explicit explanation than others.

Yes it’s worth a listen @Brinkley22 - I know lots of people find Emily Oster a bit problematic as she works for a baby formula company and people say she’s not as data driven as she claims. But like you, I appreciate many perspectives. The episode is called ‘have we forgotten how to discipline?’

My parenting has definitely been informed by Dr Becky, Big Little Feelings etc. I’m always saying ‘I can’t let you do that’ haha. The podcast made me realise that there are lots of ways of parenting but if you’re a mum in 2025 on any kind of social media, these gentle parenting approaches are are pushed so heavily by algorithms that you kind of forget there are other ways to parent. So every parent ends up unquestioningly adhering to Dr Becky etc since she’s the Dr Spock or whatever or our generation. I did anyway.

Like OP, I find Janet Lansbury the most relatable of the ‘gurus’ for some reason. But take bits from everything.

I think things are more challenging nearing 4.

My DD after a day of disagreeing and saying everything I was doing was “wrong”; said to me at bedtime… “everyone else is in charge, I’m never in charge.” And I think this is the heart of it; she’s told (by me; her dad; preschool) what to do and she needs to feel some sense of being in charge herself. Her attempts to be in charge come out with me as I’m safe for her I think - and I’m pleased she’s on her best behaviour at preschool!

It is super hard work though and sometimes I lose my rag! I try to do the following -

• regulate myself! (Swear in my head if necessary)
• give her times when she can be in charge herself- she is in charge of what she wears etc.
• choose my battles
• name it (a la Dr Becky) - “you really want to be in charge today!” (She’ll reply, “No I don’t!!” ha ha)
• have boundaries. So about the ice cream thing I’d say, “I’m having an ice cream and your brother is having an ice cream. You need to decide by the time the seller asks us for our orders.” Then if she decides she doesn’t want one, that is fine.
• If then she says (when she sees us eat ours) that she is desperate for one, I’d say that she can have one only if she has a calm body and asks me in a calm (aka non whiny!) way. In fact I’d probably give her the money and say she can get it herself from the seller. Any more shouting or whining or changing her mind and I’d say “no ice creams for you today as we need to have calm bodies to have any extra sugar”.
• If that leads to a big meltdown, so be it. I’d let her ride it out and we’d have a chat about it later.
• I don’t try to avoid a meltdown, I think sometimes these feelings really need to come out because it’s so hard and frustrating being 4!

Ha ha I also say, “I’m not going to let you…” on repeat! 😂

Ignore some of the apparent saints in this thread, OP. Every single person has lost their cool at some point and has said something mean to someone else, be it adult or child. You apologised. It is not bullying unless it's a consistent pattern of behaviour. We can't regulate and ignore perfectly all the time in front of our children. It's normal in life to have an occasional outburst of emotion.

Every single child has at some point received a bollocking as a kid. Again, unless it happens all the time, you're not going to have lasting effects. You've already recognized your words were harmful. The shock of shouting sometimes is the only thing that works and imo it's fine on rare occasions (providing the words aren't cruel). Some kids just don't respond to gentle methods.

Four is too young to differentiate ADHD from the challenging end of normal, anyway. It could also be some other root, like anxiety (meaning he's trying to control his environment to make the anxiety go away) or just something completely developmentally normal, like the Lawyer Phase, or the thing where they are sort of aware they have two conflicting emotions but they don't know how to explain it, so they say something completely confusing.

Or the ice cream example makes me think maybe he's starting to be able to hold sequential ideas in mind but finding processing this a bit tricky (go to car, but first, ice cream - if you think about it, this is a bit confusing if you are a small child, as the events will happen the other way around so they need to order it in their head to understand the full meaning.) For a younger child this wouldn't matter, because they're not doing it at all - the car is totally pushed out of their mind as soon as they hear ice cream.

Or it could be related to development of cognitive flexibility which is being able to quickly switch tracks mentally. In car mode - no, ice cream mode!! But then he's stuck on the car so says no ice cream, but then he actually DOES want ice cream so he says that. Or it could be when he says no ice cream he knows that signals the end of the day and is trying to say "I don't want to go home" but it comes out wrong.

I think with any developmental phase, some children seem to go through it in a very intense way whereas others seem to breeze through it and you barely notice at all.

I mentioned ADHD because it's my experience, but I don't actually think it's helpful to get too caught up in whether or not someone is within that bucket or not. I just mentioned it because sometimes people go "Aha!! Yes! The validation I've been looking for!" but equally some people can go "No, that's definitely not relevant to me" - labels are tricky.

Also - the other thing it makes me think when a child is just being contrary seemingly for no reason is that you're just seeing their brain getting a bit frazzled, especially if it's happening at the end of a long day or in relation to something associated with a strong emotion (I would call this "brain frazzle" dysregulated, but that's a whole can of worms because I see people use regulation/dysregulation language all over the place with meanings that I don't think are quite my meaning, but they use it as though it's a well-known term anybody would understand, and I know there was a point where I didn't know it, because it was so revelatory to me when I first did.)

In that scenario if the ice cream stand is fairly close I think I probably would ignore a bit or just sort of mentally note that, of course, he DOES want an ice cream and not necessarily take his words totally literally, but perhaps sort of mentally note that we may want to leave a bit earlier next time before he gets into the totally frazzled state. Or accept the frazzled state as part of the cost (right now) of a longer day out - which it might well be. Or look to manage it next time by bringing snacks and drinks and looking for a toilet break halfway through for example.

If you have the energy and brain space you could be silly with it like joking that he wants an ice cream but no ice cream, hmm shall we get you an invisible one? Or empathetic guessing at what the no-ice-cream part means e.g. not wanting the day to end "You've had a lovely day and you wish you could stay playing instead of getting an ice cream. But you do like ice cream, don't you?" (How To Talk give wishes in fantasy is AMAZING for this BTW) "I wish we could stay here ALL NIGHT and install a magic ice cream machine on this slide here so we didn't have to leave the park."

I have to run so can't round the post off nicely but also these are really more best case examples. I do think the internet gives the impression you're meant to deal with every scenario perfectly all the time and that's just not realistic, nor is it a normal human relationship.

He is four years old. It is extremely damaging to say what you did to him.

You should be ashamed of yourself that’s horrible, your poor child

The trouble is, whilst it may work now, losing it wont shock him into behaving as much as he gets older. Parenting is really hard and its no judgement at all but look into parenting programs/courses. The solihull approach (I love) or Triple P Positive parenting look into why children may behave the way do and what certain behaviours happen at certain ages etc.
When a child is constantly doing something Annoying for example, try to remember that the behaviour is whats annoying, not the child. Long term issues will happen for your childs mental health if we dont seperate the behaviour from the child. Sending hugs x

This is true OP. I'm not saying he's not being bloody annoying and it's frustrating as hell. But what it sounds like is you need a strategy that you can use automatically when you feel calm so it doesn't escalate into the awful personal comments that you can't ever say to him again. Remember he's a tiny kid who has t learned to deal with his emotions yet and this is oar of the process he needs to go through.

I'm a fan of the sticker charts, maybe rewards for a happy word not a grumpy word, just not engaging, and so on. If you have those boundaries up there from the start, whatever you use, when you're really calm things can't escalate to where they did before.

Agree, the adult can't become so unregulated that they resort to an incredibly personal confidence destroying attack.

Even as an adult, if you hear that diatribe shouted at you it would destroy you, and that's when you can rationalise that the person must be unhinged.

I wish you had put this in your OP, because it honestly doesn’t sound remotely as bad as you made it out and most people won’t see it.

As a one-off thing I hardly think this is going to scar him. Most people here will have similar or much worse moments throughout their parenting lives, though they won’t own up to it.

It’s disgusting to scream abuse at a four year old. Get a grip!

Some of these replies now makes me understand how children’s behaviour has got so bad in the world! Maybe some of you should think about the play dates you’ve had with some kids where you just wish the parents would actually say something to their child about their behaviour and not just choose to “gentle parent”. Sometime children actually need to get told off - it’s why they push us. Like a baby dropping things off the high chair to see how many times you’ll pick it up and when you’ll stop.
Other children wouldn’t respond to this behaviour gently - it’s a life lesson that a parent should give. Sounds like the OP is a hands on parent so it all balances out.

My DD went through this phase and I found the best way to deal with it was to simply do it back.
"Can I watch TV?"
"Sorry no, the TV isn't working."

"Can I have some of the red juice?"
"Aww I'm sorry, you can't - it's all empty."

The TV was currently switched on and she could see the juice on the counter, and when she kicked off that I was saying "wrong" things, I explained why. It didn't last much longer because I did it back each time.

He is a child and it's not going to have a good result for his well being if you let fly with angry stuff.
Find another way. Send him to his room to play. Invite another child and parent for a play date. Take him for a long refreshing walk along with DH.
Saying the things you described is cruel and he is the child, you are the adult.

This. But also if there is family history of oppositional behaviours or similar talk with your GP about assessment.

OP, don't make the mistake of thinking he won't remember this later. I can still remember my mum screaming at me that she wished I'd never been born when I was about 4. I was probably being a total brat, but a small child can't process this kind of reaction from a parent.