4 year old behaviour

[Anonyx2]

I am not here to be judged please.
For the past year we have had behaviour helpers for my child however NOTHING is helping and I am so exhausted I have 2 younger children as well and I just don’t know what to do anymore, he makes every day a struggle waking up knowing he’s going to lash out hitting us smashing things screaming, I now refuse to take him anywhere because I can’t deal with the stares off everyone. I am a single parent and he only sees his dad once a week for a few hours so I don’t really get a “break”. It’s like I’m walking on egg shells around my 4 year old I give him the wrong food he throws it across the living room the wrong cup it gets thrown at me. Where do I go from here.

I'm sorry OP, this must be difficult and I'm not surprised you are feeling frustrated. have you tried a behaviour chart system? you could try sticking this up on the wall, and when he is calm, take him over to it and explain the concept of it to him. tell him that when he throws or hits or does something naughty, his name will move down a colour, and if he gets on yellow he has to go and be calm in the corner for 5 minutes, and red means he goes to bed early, but he can move back up the chart by being good.

if you can see him getting annoyed or wound up, you can try telling him to 'go and breathe', and set up a quiet corner with him. do this by picking a select corner of the house and placing a box there full of 'calming objects', such as a sensory book like this or a squeezy ball like this. if he refuses, then say 'ok, that's fine. we will move down to yellow now, but you can get back up to green if we go and calm down, or eat up our dinner now.' stay calm whilst you are saying it, and then wait for him to make his choice. If he doesn't move, say 'what does yellow mean? timeout. go and sit in the corner for 4 minutes and then we can talk about why you are feeling annoyed ok?'

all the best and i hope this helps a little x

Yep I’ve tried that all we made him a calming box so when he got angry he could choose out of the box an item to calm him down but instead he destroyed the box and it’s contents within 2 minutes, the colour chart didn’t work, star charts worked for 1 week then stopped working, naughty step does not work, I just feel like I’m at a dead end

Mine can be a horror - I do deep breathing with him - worth a try maybe?