3 year old with an attitude and getting worse. HELP!!

[CrapBag]

I am pretty firm with my DS. I don't like it when you see children who have an attitude and the parents laugh or do nothing.

DS seems to have become a teenager at 3 years old! He has this 'attitude' and it is getting worse. He doesn't seem to be able to talk to us in a civilised manner at all and he is particularly bad with my nan who I am very close to and we see a lot of. He always asks to go there but as soon as we do he is very 'off' with her the whole time and she doesn't even seem to be able to say anything to him without him being rude.

He does it when he is playing with his toys too. He also won't listen when he is asked to do something and will just look at us and carry on with whatever he is doing. If we say time out or we will take away something, his answer is "fine, go on then" (although he hates time out and this seems to be pretty effective). A couple of times I have told him I don't want to be near him when he is like it and have walked out of the room. When I have done that, he has instantly done what I have asked, but I really hate talking to him like that, but after many many times of me calmly/firmly/explaining why I am asking him to do something, I get to the end of my tether with him.

It is frustrating as he is generally a very good and well mannered child but it just seems to be this one issue and I have noticed that it is getting worse.

Any ideas?! Please!!

My dd is 4.5 and this sounds exactly the same as she did! Unfortunately I think it's another phase (don't you hate that word?!), although a very normal one.

Sounds like he's testing his boundaries, big times. I think you need to be clear and consistent. Do you take the things away/ do time-out? Dd has two warnings of what will happen and then it happens. Now I count to 3, and rarely get past 2 although obviously she has her off days and then we end up in time out.

Dd has also started to be rude with my parents for some reason, she's also very close to them, so a couple of times I've told her no she can't go as she's rude and not nice. I think they're less inclined to enforce boundaries, so they think they can get away with it. My parents are under strict instructions not to take it if I'm not there, and if I am she does timeout there too!

"...after many many times of me calmly/firmly/explaining why I am asking him to do something..."

This may or may not apply to you, but perhaps you are using too many words with him? Kids respond very well to short but direct instructions. If you use multiple sentence instructions they will hear the first sentence and the rest of it will sound like blah blah blah blah blah. So while your explanations sound good and logical to you, he's not really hearing them. Keep your instructions short. Like: Please put your shoes on DS. Time for bed now DS.

Another thought, and again this may or may not apply to you, but perhaps your 'firmness' is giving him a lot of negative feedback and not enough positive feedback? Kids respond very well to praise (when it is deserved). So make sure that when he does something good you notice it and praise him. Like, 'good boy for kissing Nan hello. She loves it when you give her a kiss'.

Thanks for your replies.

It is a relief to hear that it is another phase (how many of these do they have!)

I do time out or take away something if he is particularly attached to it at that time.

I do short, clear instructions as I know you can overload them with too much information.

I do feel that I am on at him a bit too much sometimes and I try to let the little things go but I also so praise him a lot as I try to focus on the positive behaviour. DH thinks he is trying to get attention, but he does get attention and we do praise him and play with him as well as letting him get on and play on his own too.

I know what you mean about less inclined to force boundaries. My nan is very soft and just wants to feed him chocolate and crap all the time (although she does ask me first) so maybe DS senses that she is a bit of a soft touch. I do agree that he is definitely testing though!!