Help! My four year old has turned into an insolent teenager-alike

[McDougal]

My previously loving, little delight of a girl has turned into a monster.

That just might be me being a smidge over dramatic but over the course of half term, DD seems to have had an epiphany that saying 'naughty words' is the best way to get attention. She's our only child so our attention to her is definitely not lacking but at the minute she seems to prefer negative attention.

When I say naughty words, it's nothing too bad apart from the word she heard DH saying in the car....'prick' and I could kill him for this. Mainly just 'shut up', 'stupid' and when she's asked not to say these things, she'll respond with 'you don't say shut up' etc so still managing to get said phrase in with a sneaky look on her face.

Help?!!

I've tried discussing with her why she shouldn't say these things, given alternatives (I.e. Ssshh instead of shut up, silly instead of stupid), ignored it completely and taken away treats but nothing is working.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Forgot to add, the ignoring results in massive tantrums - screaming on the stairs yesterday - which are also fun

Anyone??

Our 4yo DD is very teenager-like in the attitude she dishes out sometimes. But then she's always been high maintenance, so it's not really a sudden change in our house. She's very argumentative and can be pretty obnoxious when she wants to be. Unfortunately one of the harsh truths I found was that they reflect back a lot of the behaviour and language they see from you. Hmm, I guess we can be pretty argumentative and occasionally obnoxious too! She was using a lot of the language that we had said to her in the heat of the moment e.g. 'How dare you speak to me like that' back at us as soon as she was cross. If your DH said 'prick' in the car (not ideal!) then he might have said other things when he's cheesed off which has given her the idea it's ok. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that we have had to completely change the way we speak to her when we're cross at her or when she's within earshot. We do our level best to stay as calm as possible and not to say anything to her that we don't want to hear shouted back at us. So if she's saying something rude, I'll say that would like her to stop using those words/that language when she speaks to me, and will even top it off with a please even though it nearly chokes me! If she carries on, I repeat that it is not ok to use those words and that if she can't speak to me nicely then I will have to walk away until she can. I then go sit in another room. Took a little while but she got it in the end and things are lots better. We still get attitude sometimes but it can often be nipped in the bud and she'll even say sorry quite often!
She was also having epic meltdowns for a while, but those seem to have calmed down too. I would often send her off to her room to try to calm down with her favourite teddy, and then i'd go check on her after 5 mins which gave us both time to calm down.
Not sure if any of that helps, but you have my full sympathy!!

Thanks for the response, play. Things seemed to improve a bit when she went back to nursery this week so I'm keeping fingers firmly crossed it stays this way!