Anger management for a nearly 4 year old boy

[tiredandgrumpy]

My son has suddenly started to get incredibly angry about things. If he gets frustrated he works himself up into a frenzy & will throw it around & generally try to break everything he can reach. He frequently hits & pinches me. He has always been prone to frustration and we're teaching him to pause, take a deep breath etc. This current behaviour is well past that & has come on pretty suddenly. Does anyone have any ideas? I can calm him down from these rages, but I'm just concerned about why he gets them in the first place, and why his behaviour has changed so suddenly.

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Maybe the way he shows his frustration now is linked to testerone surge.

Does he get into a frenzy every time he gets frustrated? Or is it just when he is overtired?

Well I had wondered whether he was fighting off a cold bug, or was tired, but he seems to be sleeping fairly well at the mo and isn't always tired when it happens. I had wondered about the testosterone surge. When does that usually happen?

Mine too. He is 3. I thought perhaps it was the food colouring or e numbers or something so am at the moment eliminating them

MY DS actually throws his table and little chair etc... I try to bring him out of it sometimes by making silly faces etc.

He and absolute angle at nursery

My now 4 year old DS2 was a real tempestous 3 year old. Sometimes it was like walking on eggshells..

What he needed was:

• regular snacks as he tended to graze and was always more fragile when his blood sugar dropped
• lots of exercise
• loads of physical contact / cuddles even if just watching TV
• loads of warning ie: we are going to do this and then this etc..., after this we will do this IFYSWIM

On the positive side now he is 4 he has calmed down a lot and school is mellowing him even more. Think partly his communication skills were not particularly well developed.

Oh yes and they are meant to get a testerone surge when they turn 4ish so that could be it.

angel, angle

I had this with DS (as did friends with similar age DS's) throughout his 4th year. He has just turned 5 and suddenly I am seeing a change (as are friends in their sons)...suspect it's just an age thing....

....and agree with Kaz33 about loads of exercise, snacks and particularly pre-warning eg bed in 5 mins, we are going out in 10 mins etc.

Yes, I think it is developmental. DS is 4.6 and I have noticed differences in what makes him angry and how he expresses it recently.

Eg He has started to be able to control his anger with little sister over the last few months. You can see him struggling with himself to not push or hit her and going off to his room to cool down.

But when he gets cross because his picture didn't turn out right, he tears up his picture, throws his pens on the floor and lies down and beats the floor with his fists in frustration. He didn't do that a few months ago.

DS is 3.6 and recently I posted similar concerns. he had always had tantrums but never been aggressive towards anyone else.

Suddenly we started having headbutting, hitting, pinching and all sorts. It has mostly subsided now, several weeks later.

It seemed to be huge frustration about being asked to do things he didn;t want to, or being told he couldn;t do something.

The only tips I have really are don;t rise to it, stay as absolutely calm as you possibly can. If DS made a swipe at me for e.g. I would just tell him firmly that we don;t hit otehr people, then perhaps try & distract him.

If it seems to be really kicking off, I usually ask him to go and sit somewhere to calm down. I do get cross but I try not to get aggressive iyswim.

With DS it did seem to co-incide with a chnage to routine (going on holiday) and he was a bit under the weather too.