Does your 4yr old have an attitude?

[mustrunmore]

Just wonderering if I've bred a mutant, or if its fairly normal!
Just lately he flies off the handle so easily, and is very very defensive of telling off/anything he percieves as criticism.
He's into the realms of issuing ultimatums, and being vey rude in the process.

I should add, he's not like this all the time; in no way is he a 'bad child' for want of a better phrase. But these tantrums are getting more frequent

er, that would be a yes to the title
the flying off the handle at perceived criticism sounds very familiar
it does go in waves and hasn't got worse and worse as you kind of fear it might
he has angelic periods as well
I would absolutely avoid types of discipline that go "if you don't do X right now, I will do Y" because they pick up on this and mimic it
I also try to avoid getting narky when he is like this, just try to say calmly things like "ok we don't need to speak to each other rudely like that, now are you feeling cross because I said xyz?" type of thing
it hasn't worked yet but I feel will eventually pan out

yes, she definitely has attitude.
"Do not shout at me. You are too loud."

yes but I get the feeling they are now the big fish in the pond at nursery before going onto school and its just asserting their independence?

am in full agreement with franny though, it hasn't escalated to anything more than what I would consider normal and she can be particularly well behaved and helpful and almost grown up too

also believe/hope it will pan out

Glad to hear he wont be in a young offenders place by next year
We do the calm thing, but TBH, it hasnt had any effect yet. And its soooo hard to bite my tongue!!
We tried to do a discuss-rather-thsn-rant-at-me chat, which has resulted in him saying 'you're making me really angry'... in a ranty tantrum voice, followed up by all sorts of insults & threats

lol at young offenders

our dd2 is only 22months old and she has meritted the title ASBO child from dh and me already - I fear I may be posting about some issues very soon

Dizzy, its interesting you say that, as ds1 is very mature when you get him on his own and engaged in something he's interested in. Its very infrequent though, with ds2 around

my dd1 also feels the need to be telling dd2 off even though I explain time and time again it is mummy's job to make sure they're both being good, feel quite sorry for dd2 as she gets a row from dd1 and its an exact mimic of my unimpressed tone

maybe there is more of a lesson for me here

I think it is a very hard lesson to learn to express your anger in an acceptable and constructive way (which is really what we are asking them to do)
in fact I know very few adults who have learned to do this
so I would be thinking VERY LONG TERM here rather than them getting it within the year
lots of modelling of how we can deal with anger in a good way and not fly off the handle
and aceepting that we all do it sometimes so a 4 year old is BOUND to do it

Franny, you are the voice of reason always

well yes of course EXCEPT when my ruddy bad attitude 4 year old is winding me up

ds nearly 4 and dd 5.5 and LOTS of attitude in this house. It's difficult to know how to tackle it as I don't want them to be as shy and quiet as I was as a child, so I quite like a (little) bit of attitude iykwim!