Crisis of parenting confidence after 10 consecutive days with friends and family....

[robin3]

DS1 is 4 and has always been a fairly stroppy child tbh but of course when he was younger this meant he would growl at adults when he didn't like what they were saying. Now he is becoming very verbal and using the language we use to great effect so 'Mummy I absolutely wont put up with that' or 'just ignore me' as he flounces off.

He's also great....loving, plays nicely on his own....school say he's very kind to other children and seems to get invited on lots of playdays. It's his grumpy attitude of 'I'm so bored' having just recieved loads of presents. He is also pretty intolerant of his DS2 (18 months) who's such a bundle of fun at the moment, really knocking him to the floor hard etc. I wouldn't say it's jealousy though as DS1 gets lots of individual time with all of us....again he just wants his brother to leave him alone really.

Anyway over Christmas we of course spent more time with my parents which resulted in my Mum admitting DS1 is very good but can be quite rude. She LOVES Supernanny and was begging me to use the naughty step system to disipline his tongue.

We also had old friends of his over and that was carnage. On both occasions DS1 declared he didn't like them etc etc. Stropping off in to another room then coming back to add more like 'you're never coming back here'.

He was then invited to the house of some of his school friends and had a great time...no trauma, well behaved...bit sullen to their Mum but overall great. I know he misses pre-school which is usually 5 mornings a week.

I think I'm pretty patient but I have to say that I lost it a few times over the holidays and tbh came back to work today thinking DP must be a saint and REALLY worried that we're getting it all wrong. I'm also absolutely exhausted and largely drank my way through the evenings so not much fun. We have tried to incentivise nice brotherly behaviour with stickers and that seemed ok but he still lost his temper with DS2 every day two or three times. Now I'm thinking that when he is verbally rude we should take away a toy for a day but then you read all the books and they all seem to say encourage and reward the good but ignore the bad.

HELP! I'd rather have a child that is destructive than a child that is so verbally cheeky to grown ups! Any suggestions?

Firstly, sympathies, because I think being in a confined space with people observing your parenting is pretty hard.

I've got two quite "verbal" children (6 and 4), who are both quite articulate and good at negotiating (DH and I are both lawyers, LOL). This isn't meant as anything other than empathetic criticism but I do agree with the poster earlier who said you need to make sure that ignoring it is not seen as condoning it in his eyes. We tend to say "I do not like the way you said that, can you please say it again in a nice tone". In my book its ok for DS to say he doesn't want to do things - eg the baking - but it has to be said in a nice way - "No thanks, Grandma, I'd rather carry on playing with my playmobil" etc.

I do think time out for stuff that comes across as very rude is appropriate where they know they are being rude (or don't care) and we have always been quite on their case about this. I remember someone saying on a thread I posted once about my DS that you do have to be careful as what is cute and quite funny at 4 is unacceptable at 7/8: I think the key now is to make sure that you don't start going down a route towards that now by leaving it unchecked.

I also think you have to be a bit careful about how you say things to your DCs at this age as they do mimic quite a lot of it. I noticed this the other day when Ds had asked me to get him some more juice or something and I was a bit distracted and he said "Today would be good, Mum" in exactly the same way I jolly him along. Which was funny, but its not if they can't recognise how and when speaking like that is appropriate.

I think it does also change quite quickly. I also think you should see the "verbalness" as a real plus - at 6 my DS is able to have really thoughtful considered conversations, and has a great vocabulary and turn of phrase. Of all the "problems" we have with our DCs, over-sassiness is one of the better ones .