Help something is NOT RIGHT with my 4 year old

[Combinearvester]

Previously he was a fairly reasonable sunny child with some mild delay which in the past 2 years levelled out.

There are no traumas / issues in the family and nothing out of the ordinary has happened.

In recent weeks he has without saying anything:

• Occasionally wet himself
• Drawn felt tip on himself, his bed and toys
• Nicked a bottle of foundation and poured out out on the carpet in his room
• Gone into the bathroom and eaten some soap
• Damaged books in his room
• Become more physically and verbally aggressive to peers at nursery and siblings including some physical behaviour which is really out of character.
• Had the occasional massive and very physical tantrum when told asked to do time out.

All the quietly naughty sabotage things he has 'confessed' to fairly matter of factly when challenged.

Have asked him whether anything is worrying him / anyone being mean at nursery etc. etc., says no.

Any thoughts? Sorry about the lengthy post.

Thanks for all the input, he seems to have been a bit better the past few days, I have been trying to spend more time with him and there has been no more what he calls 'crazy stuff'. Hopefully just a developmental stage, having him checked for anaemia. He has previously had urine infections but there are currently no signs of this or any other illness.

It is really good to know others have been or are in the same stage and they grow out of it.

Both mine went through phases like this: sometimes I knew what the trouble was, sometimes I didn't- sometimes I didn't even know which child was responsible because they had a fine line in blaming each other.
(though when it's the 4yo claiming that the 8mo wrote the letters of the alphabet on the carpet in felt tip pen, or the 3yo adamant that the 7yo sneaked home from school to do a poo in his trousers, then you do get suspicious )

Dd who was a highly charged child would get so upset if ds ruined anything of hers that she would then carry on ripping up more of her beloved possessions so she could get him into more trouble.

They have both grown up into sensible, mature, non-destructive individuals, but it felt like hard work at the time. Loving firm calmness seemed to work best. And hanging onto the blessed word "phase".

Mayamama Sat 02-Jun-12 13:20:17

"If it works so well, how come parents who use these keep coming back and asking what to do? And what do you do with a 12-14 year old then? Or 16? When do you stop authoritarian parenting if you have set out to use it?"

Surely all parents (unless they are total loons) change their approach as their children grow older? You don't treat a baby the same way as a toddler, you don't treat an almost-adult like a toddler.

And I do think you are unfair to use the term authoritarian parenting of anyone who occasionally uses punishments or the naughty step.

I believe psychological surveys seem to show that the most efficient approach is neither authoritarian nor laissez-faire but authoritative- setting boundaries in a loving context; and I don't think anyone has proved that punishment (or consequences, if you prefer the word) cannot occasionally form part of this.

I have a very good relationship with my parents, but I was the kind of child who wants to run the show and will forcibly try to ensure everyone goes along with me. My parents could not go along with this as it would hardly have been fair to my three brothers (or even to them), so I found myself ever so often in a quiet place where I had to stay until I had stopped wanting to bash my little brother over the head. Explaining that bashing him over the head would hurt him or make him sad wasn't much good: I thought it was a jolly good thing that anyone who didn't do what I wanted should feel sad.

By the time I was 14, I had grown out of all such tendencies and my parents were treating me more or less like an adult member of the family, listening to my views, expecting me to form mature decisions. I do not recollect ever having been punished after I reached secondary school age. (though I expect if I had behaved badly enough, they would have been capable of grounding me- they wouldn't have stood silently by and let me go off the rails). It was a very gradual development-no doubt it started when I was very little, just an imperceptible shift in their response following their (very sensitive and aware) estimation of where I was at.

Isn't there something about testosterone surge and associated behavioural changes at 4ish in 'Pink Brain, Blue Brain'? It's definitely ringing bells. Sadly my own brain is too frazzled by 90-min feeds to remember clearly but it might jog someone else's memory.

i dunno about that, DD1 got pretty naughty at the end of nursery.. i thought this was..

1. heat making her tired sooner
2. being bigger than the other children at the end of the year. pushy little sod that she is, i think she is better behaved with bigger children
3. me being slacker for a bit about her behaviour as sunshine makes me sleepy too!

Is he dehydrated?
Has he enough zinc in his diet?
Is he able to run around and burn off energy?
Is there a new helper in the nursery?
Do you smile at him a lot?
Do you look him in the eye and tell him you love him.
(eye contact is not just for christmas... or giving out)

Make a picture of faces with different expressions - ask him what the expressions are and ask him to tell you the names of the other kids + adults in the nursers who have those faces. You might be surprised to hear his pal is being weird.

cory - sorry i did not mean to rudely avoid responsibility and flee the topic, just had lost the thread. i agree with you that authoritative parenting is the best, but i do think punishments within authoritative framework are best avoided. I guess everyone has their different thresholds, and that is the problem. What one parent thinks is excessive, another considers entirely normal -- most of such feelings towards punishments probably come from our own upbringing.
May I just cite parenting psychologists' definition of authoritative parenting: it includes at its core 1) parental warmth and involvement 2) reasoning/induction 3) democratic participation and 4) being good natured or easygoing. None of those core features should include punishments. I am not at all saying that as soon as we use punishments, our style becomes authoritarian. What I am saying that if we take a permissive attitude towards our own parenting style and think punishment is sometimes okay, our actual response becomes muddled. Being human, we use punishments not because out of all the options at this particular event, it is the best thing to do, but we use them then because of our own mood, the particular circumstances we find ourselves in (e.g inlaws watching etc) and other random reasons - and that is mostly confusing for the children. Of course, for parents who are able to keep their responses in check marvellously, it would probably be fine.

Would love to know how op is getting on? We're having exactly the same dramas with DD!