Two year old making violent threats

[Bobbinsmama]

I’m looking for advice from other parents.

Our eldest turns three this month and over the past few weeks has been making some quite violent sounding threats! It’s sometimes amusing but we are also a bit concerned and don’t know if it’s a normal developmental thing or something we should worry about. He has said things like:

‘I don’t love you mummy, I just want to hammer you/drill you.’

‘I want to burn you and put you on the rubbish tip’.

‘I want to cover you in tar and put sprinkles on you’

‘I want to take your eyes out and put them in a fan’

‘I want to chop you up and cook you and feed you to a wolf’.

We don’t know where he’s getting this stuff from. Does this sound normal to you? Has anyone else experienced this?

Do you by any chance let him play on a tablet? I ask because my cousin's eldest had horrid night terrors about zombies eating flesh and vampires biting him at 3. Turns out parental controls didnt cover youtube content and he was watching this stuff without her knowing.

Not at all. He watches TV for an hour some days whilst supervised by us (Charlie & Lola, Paw Patrol, Hey Duggee etc. on Netflix) we just don’t know where he’s getting it from?

I don't think the death/violence threats are necessarily concerning at this age as they're just starting to experiment with language and barriers and don't really know what they're saying. What's a bit puzzling and concerning is how specific his threats are and how many of them there are. He MUST be getting them from somewhere. Any older siblings that might be doing it as a windup? Nursery? Finding some inappropriate things on an ipad or something? I'd try and find out where he's getting it from and try and cut it out x

Thanks Jannt86, that makes me feel a bit better. No older siblings (one baby brother), no nursery or iPad. We are currently renovating our home though and have recently said to him that he can’t play with the drill/hammer so we’re thinking that might be where those came from. He has also been obsessed with cooking and fans for a long time and we recently watched workmen putting tarmac down. Do you think he might just have a vivid imagination? He has a lot of dreams, usually pleasant and quite funny, that he describes to us in the morning.