Nearly 4 year old sudden change in personality (quite long)

[kat1885]

Hi all,

I am new to mumsnet and am quite sad this is the first post I am making.

Up until a few weeks ago I had a happy, healthy, polite and intelligent little boy. I am currently pregnant (now 38 weeks) and have involved him in the preganancy as much as possible, he has not had any issues regarding this until (I think) now.

I started my maternity leave two weeks ago and the days family looked after him I of course had him at home. This was generally lovely, had a couple of tantrums but that's to be expected.

We only paid for private nursery until the end of March so as of this week he is home with me all week (where my DH and I both worked full time until my mat leave). This weekend, however, my little boy's personality just completely u-turned.

He says no to pretty much everything, has tantrums at the push of a button, kicks and screams and basically argues with all reasoning. An example was today I took him to get his feet measured and he needed new shoes. He kicked and screamed the whole time the shoes were presented to him and to cut a long story short ended up kicking the poor shop assistant in the face (at which point I apologised and dragged said kicking and screaming son out of the shop). I had to pick him up to stop him from hurting himself but couldn't carry him normally as he was kicking etc (not good for a bump) and ended up pulling the ligaments between the bottom of my bump and my foof.

Then this evening he had a full scale tantrum over dinner which resulted in my husband throwing our son's dinner in the bin (he won't starve he ate really well for breakfast and lunch).

I know it is due to all the changes he has gone through but was wondering if anyone had any pointers on how to stop this behaviour or stop a tantrum before it goes too far (my son was not one to have many of these until recently), especially as his baby brother will be here soon and I am not sure how I will deal with those and a newborn. Any suggestions welcome although as I am on SMP putting him back in nursery is not an option and there are no school nurseries with spaces (he goes to full time school in September).

We have already tried:

No treats
Taking away toys
Taking away TV privilages
Naughty Step (this is a last resort as sometimes he chooses the step over the activity he doesn't want to do)

We never give empty threats and always follow punishments through so it's not that he knows we won't do what we say we will as we always do.

Thanks in advance everyone.

sorry kat, not really much advise re change in your DS.

at 4, should he not get the 15h free childcare anyways? in my area also most private nurseries get the 15h free childcare funded. might give you some much appreciated 1:1 time with the baby...

On reading the thread title, I remembered something someone told me about little boys having a hormone surge around age 4/5 which can lead to them being more rough and tumbley.

HOwever, given what you have posted, I guess it's likely down to the chance in home circumstances and imminent baby as you say.

I think my tack would be to continue appropriate punishment but also lavish him with how special he is and all that. Spend nice one-on-one with him and explain what you'll be doing when the baby arrives. Tell him all about that stuff - it might help if he is acting out 'cause he's worried about what happens next!

Thanks for your replies both. I Chocjunkie I asked if his current (well, not current anymore) offers the free 15hrs and they don't but I will ask locally if any of the nurseries do.

Adornmewithsparkle - we have been trying that but then on the flip side maybe not as much as we should be as we have been focusing on the bad behaviour. Time for some positive parenting (if only I wasn't so damn hormanal :))

maybe wort checking with your local authority also. iirc, he is entitled to his 15h. I think this can also be at a childminder's (clicky)

behaviourwise I would go by the mantra: ignore the behaviours you don't want, reward the behaviours you want. I don't think punishment is the way to go.

oh, x-post with beer ;-)

I hope you don't mind me saying but your discipline seems quite negative. Do/could you maybe reward good behavior LOADS more than punishing bad?

I won't turn this into all about me but I am going through something similar. Ds1 was full time nursery until my mat leave with ds2 started. I think the problem (at least with us) stems from the fact that when I was working ft, every spare moment at home was spent playing with ds1. Now I am at home more, I have to do mundane house stuff (washing etc) and look after ds2. Basically the mistake I think I made was never to teach ds1 to play independently at home.

It has been a hard 6 months since ds2 came along. But only this week I noticed that ds1 has finally managed to play independently without a lot if negative attention seeking behavior.

Good luck

kat my DS was 4 when his baby brother was born and for a while he turned into the devil. He would do anything to wind me up and had his first (and last) smack at around that time. He would empty box after box of toys onto his bedroom floor and one morning had emptied glitter all over the kitchen table and was driving his tractor through it. I swore quite badly! But he is now 6 and his brother is 2 and he is back to the lovely sweet boy that he was. I think that phase lasted about 2 months.

Don't worry too much, he is no doubt upset by all the changes and making his feelings felt. And FWIW I wouldn't worry that he had no dinner tonight, he will survive and also needs to know that he can't just carry on behaving like that. At 4 he is old enough to understand.

Good luck with the new baby, your DS will be back to normal as soon as things settle down I'm sure

I have recommended it before but the 123 Magic book is a pretty easy read and has plenty of common sense ideas about improving behaviour.

One thing it does note is you can't use time out (naughty step) for 'start' behaviour only 'stop' eg as a punishment for hitting, throwing. It will not work as motivation enough for 'start' behaviour eg eat your dinner, get dressed. For that you need a combination of reward (chart. stickers, tv time), encouragement (who can do it fastest, who is a big boy, beat the timer) etc.

The counting (123) can be used to stop a tantrum before it escalates.

Also it sounds mostly like he is responding to the changes in his life right now so I am sure this is just a phase.

But if you need simple techniques you can implement now I would try reading the book. It has help us loads.

:)

We do the 123 warnings (and he had that before the tea incident - just to let you know he had weetabix before bed but he wasn't allowed his tea that I had cooked, wasn't the first time he had a tableside strop!).

Will defo try the reward charts etc, but I think everyone is right with it's a phase. Will let you all know how I get on.

We're you not already getting his 15 hours deducted from your nursery bill anyway for 38 weeks per year and just 'topping up fees'? I don't see how your nursery can't do this even if they say you have to do 3 lots of 5 hours and pay for his food (not usually much)

My DS is also 4 and we have a new baby. He was great tbh so can't advise from experience but maybe try to talk to him and just do lots of stuff with him before baby arrives and when he/she does get your DH to bring DS to hospital ASAP and bring you home as a family etc. many of our relatives and friends also bought him big brother gifts which he loved!!

No his nursery was not part of the government scheme and childcare where I live is extortionate - we were paying £546 for 3 days a week - more than my mat pay, plus I'm not paying that when I'm home anyway.

Having a quick cuppa after making easter cards and krispy cakes with him - he is a lot happier today, still quite whingy but picking my battles and that is working better so far.