Lovely 2 year old has morphed into terrible 3 year old....

[Raggydoll]

I used to have a 2 year old toddler, he had lovely manners and was very laid back compliant type of child. I don't think he ever had a real tantrum and was generally adoreable and lovely.

Now he is 3.5 and I really do wonder what happened... he still is the above on and off throughout the day but inbetween being his usual self he is aggressive, angry & whiny. He is deliberatley defiant (refusing to say please etc), he hits (even though there is zero tolerance on hitting) and he even recently went through a biting phase (which thankfully was short due to lots of effort from me).

I guess I want to know two things... is this normal and how do I deal with the constant barrage of 'pushing his luck' type behavior??

HI this is normal, and your lovely child does return . Slowly in my dd's fourth year she has almost returned to the angelic girl with occasional hiccups.

The stage you are describing for your son is the stage he is discovering himself, his independance and working out important facts such as - he is not the only person in the whole entire world, and he is discovering cause and effect.

It is totally normal, and with appropriate balance between freedom to express, alongside guidance and boundaries he shall grow into that handsome polite little chap you always dreamed of. .

With regard to dealing with the behaviour, i believe the best thing is to try your hardest to praise the good and ignore the bad. Avoid and prevent as much as possible once you work out triggers. And consider something like a sticker chart to help reward the good times and demonstrate the bad times aren't particularly worth it.

Speaking from personal experience try your absolute hardest to not lose your rag and scream high pitched at him, as that voice and words you use will also get morphed into your beautiful child and your will find him shouting them right back at you some day .

Normal.

1. distraction
2. a firm, calm 'No' for hitting/biting and immediate consequences (into the hall for 1 min in our house)
3. Pick your battles wisely
4. he's learning and testing and he's not deliberately setting out to annoy you

Toddler Taming is good imho.

Thanks -

Hattie "try your absolute hardest to not lose your rag and scream high pitched at him".

This seems to be my most used parenting technique at the moment - thanks for reminding me that it's not particulary effective. I know it doesn't work, yet I still find myself doing it several times a day at the moment.

WWW - Thanks I have TT, I will dig it out. Also is it worth buying the 'how to talk' one, there has been lots of debate on the book recently on mn and I was thinking it might be worth a read?

Raggydoll, we all use that technique frequently,

I have to stifle my chuckles when 41/2yr old dd storms of in tantrum using one of my lines, or says it to the cat or her baby sister.

To give you insight into how these tantrums change, my dd now recognises when shes done something wrong and she stomps upstairs to sulk in her bedroom for a couple of minutes and then comes back down back to normal! It only takes a look from me and shes up there .

It definitely does get easier, and i don't think theres any magic ways to deal with it, just survive through it and they come out of that stage eventually.

I did reward charts, had been doing time out on the bottom step and that got to the point that i just had to give a warning about it and she would stop the unwanted behaviour.