Please help! 4 year old developing spoilt / ungrateful behaviour

[kernow13]

Hello. We are grateful for any advice on how to tackle this please! Our 4 year old daughter who had previously been a model child has started to show signs of 'spoilt' behaviour. For example we took her to see a special Santa yesterday who told stories to groups of children. When she received a gift from him, she opened it & said 'I didn't want that. I don't like it' & sulked. She also told me she didn't like his story. We are unsure how to tackle this behaviour as its difficult to explain the concept of gratefulness to a 4 yr old. The other info that may be useful to know us she has recently (2 months ago) become a big sister to our baby. We successfully use the time out concept for naughty behaviour but feel this isn't appropriate here. Happy Christmas everyone & thank you for reading my post.

I don't have any advice but I'm interested to hear the replies. Going through this with my own 4 yr old Ds who yesterday declared if anyone gives him a tablet for Christmas (my mum has got him a leappad) he will say "nah don't like it, chuck it away!" We also nearly had tears when the Father Christmas at school dared to give him a book! Arggh!

I don't think it's that unusual for a 4 year old to behave like this tbh, and at this time of year they are all a bit overloaded with Christmas. All you can do is model the correct response to a present being given.

Maybe she really didn't like the present and the stories? At this age children haven't learn to not show their feelings about disappointment.

The new baby will come out in behaviour some way for the older one ime .

But I think it is just that dc get lots of presents, and get overhyped, and don't even know what they want.

We took DD1 to the panto yesterday and she declared it "boring". She then raved about it to my DP's when we went round . She doesn't mean it she's just tired and being contrary.

I just ignore it. If it's a gift then I would say that she was being unkind and someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to get it her. If it was a "free" santa present then I would take it off her and say that's a shame, your sister can have it. That at least sorts out the attention seeking bit of the behaviour.

Um - have you not had "the talk".

What do you say if someone gives you a present you like?
Answer: Thank you very much

What do you say if someone gives you a present you already have?
Answer: Thank you very much

What do you say if someone gives you a present you don't like?
Answer: Thank you very much

At just four a child is perfectly able to comprehend this - children only learn manners if taught. My pet hate is people saying "she/he's only , she/he doesn't know any better" Well, teach them then.

Explain it as 'we are doing opposites this week' and grin.

Enb- we had this talk the other day and just to test him I asked him your questions

Ds what do you say if someone gives you a present you love? Ds-" yippee I love it! Thank you I love you"

Ds what do you say if someone gives you a present you already have? Ds- "yay I love it! Thank you I love you"

Ds what do you say if someone gives you a present you don't like? Ds (long pause) "yay I love it! thank you, I love you"

Problem solved!

Enb76 brilliant! Thank you. We will try today in prep for tomorrow. She certainly finds it hard to hide her true feelings & also contradicts herself (as mentioned in other replies) & last night was raving about how good the Santa present was!! Will be interesting to see if she can grasp the concept of pretending to like something she doesn't.

I don't expect my children to necessarily be grateful for presents but they certainly have had "the talk" about acting grateful. 4 is old enough for that, certainly.

Now as they are geting older (5 and 8) we've talked more about why we are grateful even if we don't like the present - people buying because they care etc - the 8 year old gets it, the 5 year old not so much. But that's fine, he will get there and in the interim saying thank you will do.

If my son did this, even after being taught how to respond to gifts I would say 'if you don't like it, we will give it to somebody else who will like it' and take it away.

my DS (4) is exactly the same. I was always very proud of how polite he was but he seems to have changed overnight.

How honest to be is a very difficult social rule. We have different levels of honestly for different people and different occasions. Your DD is learning these rules by trial and error so explain, explain, explain.

She'll get there in the end. Even my DD2 who is, at times, incredibly outspoken, having AS, is learning this year at the age of 10