Screaming tantrums and other things

[Poll32]

My son will be 3 next month. He has the almighty screaming tantrums and it driving me mad. It's usually because he can't get his own way. In his anger, he throws things and yesterday he broke something. Is anyone else going through this? What do you do? It's so hard to stay calm at times!

The other thing is, my son has started saying to me that "I'm not his best friend" (I can cope with this!) and when I ask why, he says that I hit him. I find this extremely upsetting and the first time he said this I cried. He has said this a couple of times, but I managed not to cry in front of him. I find it very upsetting and don't know what to do. If he ever said that to the wrong person, I'd have social services on my front door for something I don't do. Any advice?

Ignore things he says for affect. Don't even ask him by, just say ok. You're his mummy anyway, not his best friend. Don't take it personally. When ds declares he doesn't like me, I just breezily say "ok, well I love you" and leave it at that.

If he kicks off I'm guessing it's an escalation - he doesn't all of a sudden flip? Perhaps think about how these incidents happen and whether you can break the cycle.

When my ds kicks off its because he's tired or hungry. We work on teaching him what to do eg tell us he's cross (this has to be done before he kicks off otherwise he doesn't take it in). Is yours getting enough sleep?

I know he was tired this evening, but generally, yes I think so. He's always been a poor sleeper, but he is usually asleep by 8 - 8.30 and wakes up at 6am. Sometimes he wakes in the night still. He still has a nap in the day for about an hour. Tantrums are usually because I have said no to something.

I am not fussed when my son says if he likes me or not, but what I don't like is when he says I hit him and I don't. This is what gets me upset. He could easily say this to someone else who will then ring social services.