Anyone's school starter come September just angry angry angry?

[justanotherneighinparadise]

Honestly my four year old is just constantly angry. It’s one tantrum after another. If I dont capitulate to any and every whim immediately he will fly into a rage where he will scream, shout, throw things, hit me repeatedly over and over again. He’ll also dig his nails into you and pinch you.

He’s always been like it and it’s worsened throughout lockdown. Never shown any of these behaviours at preschool so if I ever tried to discuss it with them they’d act like I was nuts. He was quite quiet at preschool, very passive, would relinquish his toys straight away whereas at home he would rather fight to the death with his brother over stuff if I didn’t intervene.

I can just about handle it although it makes me very sad. I’ve tried all sorts of techniques and nowadays have settled on ignoring it, then trying to discuss it. Getting angry makes him worse so I tend to do the opposite and go steely cold.

Anyone else have similar and did you come out the other end eventually?

I have no experience of this but I think you are reacting perfectly by not reacting then engaging with him when he's calmer

Thanks for your reply @Wherethereshope ♥️

We had a better day yesterday. He will take his brothers stuff, start a fight, then get hurt but won’t back down. So my house is very volatile. I’ve noticed so much literature at the moment discussing how to cope with siblings fighting, so I’m sure it’s not just be struggling.

Yesterday when it started I just walked away and said I wouldn’t return until they stopped. However that feels wrong too as the adult has basically left the room. I always try and view my parenting from an outside perspective as if people were watching me. I second guess myself all the time as I’m never sure if I’m handling things properly.

All I know is siblings have a completely different relationship to friends. Boundaries are blurred and hurting each other seems so much more acceptable. It’s crazy they’ve been stuck with each other for three months and now it looks like it will be another three months!

Yes my 4 yo (tomorrow) is exactly like this. It's driving me potty and I'm struggling to stay calm tbh.

I really struggle too. I said to DP this evening that if any other living bring was so incredibly vile to me so regularly I’d scream FUCK OFF at them and disappear out of their vicinity. But instead I have to act like Mary Poppins and say ‘oooh never mind. Try not to hit mummy too hard darling’ etc etc.

I know it’s not their fault and I know this is hard core adulting but my god it’s such hard work. I have no idea how I’m going to cope till September.

Yes, my 4 year old is downright rude to be honest. She's never been an easy child but was getting more compliant before the lockdown, now she is a loose cannon and basically tells me what to do all day. Can't wait for September

In normal times, it's very common for children who are due to start school in September to behave badly. Nursery becomes too babyish but sometimes the adults around them do things like talk about school with the prefix Big which creates anxiety. I'm not suggesting that they can't handle talk about school (or that you're doing this) but school is a long time away in their short lives and ime some people need to tone it down.

Lockdown is just going to exacerbate the fight or flight uncertainty imo. You are doing the right thing by letting it go and wishing for September when you can all hopefully get back to the way things were.

@Flamingochill I never thought about it like that, makes sense actually! I'm not talking about big school that much but probably seems like a big change for my DD with everything that's going on!

I too haven’t mentioned ‘big’ school but he knows he will hopefully be going in September and he also knows they would like him much more independent than he currently is.

This morning turned into another massive tantrum because my partner had asked him to say please when he demanded pancakes. He screamed and shouted, threw all his toys around the room, hit my partner, hit my older DC, came upstairs and hit me! It’s like watching a small tornado crash around the house. I think it must have lasted 20 minutes until the TV took his attention.