If your willful 3 year old boy WEED on his older brother on purpose, how would you react?

[QuintessentialShadows]

Today has been another struggle with my very strongwilled and militant 3 year old.

He can be so loving, and caring, and generous, but he also has this very mean streak to him. Like most kids I suppose, it is just that at the moment he is really testing everybodys patience.
Running away, running away when I am trying to dress him, hang on me and flail limbs in all directions when dressing him, undressing again when he is dressed while I am locking up the house, going out to sit in a puddle so I have to change him again, throw toys on his brother, whack his brother, pull his brothers hair, break all his brothers lego constructions, tear his writing and drawins up, oh, I could go on.

Today, the end of the evening, the boys sat down for their porridge evening meal, when my three year old found lego pieces in his pocket which he flung on his brother. He then proceeded to fling spoon fulls of porridge on him. No amount of Stop it, or Be Nice, or This is naughty, dont do it worked.

Eventually, the meal was over and my oldest went down to start undressing to go to bed, little brother following suit, I stayed to clear up. Older son comes running up the stairs, he had been sitting on the toilet, when his brother came up to him and said "Do you want me to wee on you?". Older boy said "NO!". 3 year old pulls down his pants, pulls out his willy, and wees all over my older boy.

What would you do with such behaviour?

I have a just 4 year old. He was still 3 just 3 months ago and I am thinking how I would have responded if he behaved like this.

You mentioned it was towards the end of the evening. I would without a doubt have given him a very serious dressing down (think lots of major eye contact, coupled with frown and low serious voice) and I would have sent him to bed early (even if it was a couple of hours prior to his bed time).

Ds is a spirited little boy full of mischief - but he wouldn't behave like this (it would certainly occur to him but he would know it would not be " a good idea" ) because of zero tolerance approach

I find MN 'received wisdom' re parenting approaches a little too soft (and ineffectual) for me

And I am with maidamess and her post of 22.09.

That i am the three bears? Right....

I was rather grizzly with him.

Hi Quint
I'm loving your description of life in Norway and the porridge
I still have Norway envy

Mine havn't done this yet but I'm waiting with trepidation now. How much of ds2 behaviour do you think is linked with the move? I agree with all the disclipine going on on here but was wondering whether it might be worth looking into helping him deal with the change a bit more? eg Is he struggling with the language a bit? The food?

Can I hijack to ask about the evening meal? How do Norwegian working mothers manage to get something hot and savory on the table at 5ish? Do they tend to just have one big meal later then?

3 is old enough to know not to throw food. I would have given a warning and if he did it again I would have removed boy from food and probably put him to bed. And I'd be furious at the weeing, especially on the part of poor DS1. I'm almost certain that I would have bellowed so loud that everyone would think the reindeer were rutting in the house.

At 3yo my DDs didn't respond well to star charts or confiscating toys/cancelling trips but DS did. So with the girls, I just had to wait for them to move on.

Keep disciplining, always carry out your threats, reward the good, reward DS1 for tolerance as well, give them a good chunk of attention everyday and repeat after me "this too shall pass". And it will.

and arf @ 'three bears'!

Some behaviour needs to be punished, and I think it is unfair on your older son if you don't come down pretty hard on this sort of behaviour. My ds at this sort of age used to throw himself on the floor and completely lose it when being told off (and when he was otherwise angry at life) and I can remember picking him up, putting him in his room and physically holding the door shut until he finally calmed down and was able to come out and say sorry. It was pretty horrible to do, but I don't think you can let this sort of behaviour pass by. Can you think of something your ds really likes that would upset him to be deprived of? Some treat that matters to him that he could have withheld maybe?

Oh, I bellowed so hard I am sure the moose thought it was a mating cry!

I agree I cant let this go unpunished, as it gives the wrong messages to DS1 - he should not be treated this way. DS2 should not be allowed to continue this.

The other thing is that life here is very different to life in London. I was working part time, we had au pairs, and DS2 was going to nursery. The au pair would take him, and pick him up for 12.30 and play with him till 3 or 4pm when DS1 came home from school. 2 days per week I would pick him up myself and do things with him.

Here, we have no nursery place. DS2 has spent all his time with me, or the creche at the gym, since we came here in April. No nursery, hardly any little friends to play with. It has been nice to have so much time with him, but there has been little structure, and he has been used to going to nursery.

He has a nursery place from 18th august, and I am concerned how he will settle. He understands Norwegian but doesnt speak it that much. Me, my dh and ds1 speaks english to him most of the time, other people speak norwegian.

(1Dilemma. How do working mums manage to put tea on the table for 5 pm?
Standard working week is 35 hours. People work 9-4. Children are dropped off to nursery or school for 8.30, and picked up around 4.15 (distances not so far) Then you go home, cook, and still have some time together before it is time to bed.)

QS I think you just need more decisive action, more quickly. Throwing food = one warning, then food taken away. If you'd done that you wouldn't have had all the clearing up to do, thus leaving them unsupervised for 'weegate' to occur

Basically with kids these ages I would say they need supervision pretty much constantly. forget cleaning the car and stuff like that in the day. Leave the dishes till they are in bed.

And that's not forever, just while they're this age and this 'disrupted'. It makes life a bit more exhausting to fit chores into the evening but that's where your DH can kick in I would think.

Honoria, due to the 24 hour daylight, I cant get them to sleep till 22.30.....
My dh is in India.... Luckily he will be back next week.

But I agree. Action needs to be taken.
Today we went to the shopping centre, ds1 was having a hair cut, we looked at the sales, and we were going to look in the toyshop after. That is where they sell plastic bottles for lunches, etc. I had two boys running around screaming and refusing to come with me further into the shop, as the started chasing after a little tikes slide by the entrance.

I took ds2s hand, led him out of the shop, asked ds1 to follow, sat down to eye level by the lifts and explained that because they were running around screaming rather than coming with mummy, they did not get to check out the toyshop, and there was no treat. And they could forget about asking for icecream after dinner, there would be none. I hope I did well?

You did well it sounds like the root problem is that you are all exhausted. Can you get blackout curtains to help the children go to sleep? Without a good 10 hours my children are pretty horrible, as am I. Love the 9-4 working hours though. We have just moved to the US, and standard working hours are 8-5 - I really resent that extra hour!

Just popped on to say thanks QeS for the porridge recipe! Just made some for Ds and myself who have been feeling a bit bleurgh for a day and off food! Yum, not a classic Summer recipe I grant you -

Glad you like it Legolia, it is a real pick-me up, but you are right, not exactly summery. However, you can eat it chilled, pour some youghurt over it, or jam, or sugar and cinnamon (no butter....) and raisins...

DS2 has been a bit better today. I think I somehow got through to him with my bellowing.

This evening, ds1 came running up the stairs shouting "He is gonna wee on me", ds2 came running after shouting "i am not, i am not!"
...

This sounds very much like my 3 about to be 4 year old. He seems to go particulalry mad at bedtime and the object of his behaviour seems to be his older brother. I do think it's just a phase. he's about to leave nursery (where he's been for nearly 4 years), start 'big school' and his birthday is tomorrow so life's all a big change.

It depends what he has done as to how I dela with it. Alot of it is just silliness which I either ignore or threaten to cancel his birthday if he doesn't behave (obviously only has a short life span as a threat). If he does something really deliberately nasty the threat is that I will go straight to bed without a story and I will shut the door (he can't stand the door being closed). Very occasionally I have to carry out his threat and have only opened the door when he has promised to behave and said sorry. This really ahppens very rarely (about twic year!!!) and just the threat of it suffices. you just need to pin point something that he really likes and threaten to take it away or deprive him of it. However I do feel a lot of it is over exuberence. (unfortunatley weeing an willis in genreal seem to cause endless fascination for boys). he deliberately stood up and weed in the bath a few weeks ago which he knows is not allowed mush to his own and brother's amusement.

Thanks.
You have reaffirmed to me that the boys should have separate rooms when we move into our new house. As it is now, in our current setup, it is hard to punish one, without also punishing the other, as everything is so shared. And ds2 mostly plays with his brothers toys. We dont even have a door to proper close... I cant wait for this to end.

Happy birthday for your little man tomorrow! I hope he enjoys his party.