3yr old behaviour, Help Please - I can't seem to do anything that works.

[mairimac]

My DS is almost 3 years old. He was a lovely baby and child until about three months ago when things started down a slippery slope to where we are now. He has had ups and downs mostly to do with Teeth coming through or illness etc. However this is just madness. He doesn't listen to anything, he's disruptive, aggressive, angry, frustrated and showing it in the worst ways. He's very negative and answers everything with NO, so every starts off negative. I've tried saying things where there would not be a NO answer but he still says things like NOTHING or DON'T WANT ANYTHING or NONE OF THOSE, when given a choice. I've tried naughty step, time out, counting to three, the last two days we've hit an all time low where I've been screaming shouting and threatening him with everything I can. I feel terrible and I need this to stop, I need control and I'm not sure how. Any real advice from Mum's who have been here! Please!

Hmmm, I think it's possible he will be affected by his friends not being around to play with at nursery, but maybe if that was the only case, then wouldn't he be displaying this behaviour actually at nursery too?

i really do feel for you as you are obviously a fantastic mum to be searching so thoroughly for help to sort this.

If it's any help, i do think his behaviour is perfectly normal and i'm sure it will pass. Is the behaviour all day. or just in the morning?

The best way to handle this i feel, is to eliminate choices, continue to stay calm and just ignore the negative responses for now. Try not to get upset in front of him, (i know it's so hard not to), and praise, praise, praise all his good behaviour.

In answer to your question does outside events manifest in such things, i honestly don't know, it's not something i noticed with ds.

Is it possible that you could have one of the bigger boys he used to play with for the occasional play date?

If i think of anything else i will add to the post, and of course i and i'm sure the others will answer any questions as best we can.

Please keep positive, you are clearly a fantastic mummy...

I don't think he's depressed, I think he's opppositional. Great fun for him - exercising a bit of power.

I think I'd make it a game as much as poss - open curtains to a nice sunny day and say "oh, no - it's raining, you need your warm clothes" then he can have the fun of contradicting you and actually being right!

Other than that, agree - offer way less choices.

And keep calm.....I think that's the major one. Because there's no need to get het up - this is a phase and will end....keep calm

A better day was had today than the last two - thank goodness. I was calm all day, even through the constant NO's, Don't Like, Don't Want etc. Tried being consistent and offering way less choice, however have only offered two choices before. Still a constant stream of NO's to almost everything, in some form or another - a basic negative response. I find it easy to ignore some but not all. I find it harder if say after making funny suggestions, distraction he still hell bent on shouting no at me at the top of his voice to teeth brushing or having a bath. It's also so hard because this is all very new, he's been okay up until this last two months of hell.
I know it may sound odd or not quite true, but every answer that comes out is a negative. He never ever answers or gives positive responses, with or without choice. No choice he shouts no, choice he says nothing!
Today things went like this, it's a lovely sunny day today - no it's not. Is it raining, we'll have to wear our raincoats - I don't like raincoats. I want to wear jeans - I get jeans out - I don't like jeans anymore. I want my boots - get boots out - I don't like those boots. It's breakfast time I can't wait I'm starving - NO. I just feel so worried by everything being a NO answer. I made a point of just seeing if there was a glimmer of positive response and none today. Even if something he clearly likes or would like to have or play with - it's like a knee jerk response to say NO even before sentence finished.

Should I tell him I don't like NO? Or just ignore everything. Problem comes when you have limited time in AM to get to Nursery and school.

I also think they do get distracted at nursery and play with other kids. Also they never vent on those they don't know well enough. Making he just builds up till he gets home and then lets me have it all

Well done.

Reading your last post closely i do honestly think he's giving out these negative responses simply because you have reacted to them up until now. I most certainly would not tell him you don't like "no" as this will likely make him say it more! Also, and this is another story completely, but there may be occasions when it is necessary for him to say no, so best not to go down that road.

I know i seem to drone on about the ignoring/praise but i honestly believe it works. (well it did for me anyway!).
I think if you continue to stay calm and ignore all his negative comments, but then jump in and praise all simple positive responses, even if they are actions he will eventually tire of it.

I know it's incredibly hard but if you grit your teeth, count under your breath to 10, you will do it. It won't happen overnight by any means, but even a slightly better day means something is working.

Stay strong and even when you want to scream at the top of your voice remember what you are trying to achieve.

I think you said he sleeps well.. That's a huge achievement in itself. I know many mums on here would love for their kids to sleep.
At least as the day draws to an end you can look forward to some feet up and glass (or 2) of wine time!!

Your DS sounds similar to my DD1. Today we introduced a sticker chart for not shouting. We have a column each and get a sticker each when we don't shout at each other. We had to do this after a really bad week last week when I really had had enough of fighting every second of the day with her.
My husband pionted out to me at the weekend that she was deliberatly trying to wind me up so I have tried really hard today not to let her.
Amazingly we have had a really good day and we both have lots of stickers on our charts
If your DS likes stickers maybe he would go for something like this.

I think mairi's and samson's posts illustrate perfectly just how powerful it can be to remain CALM

it really is the key to sorting a huge amount of problems!

Good luck keeping it going ladies

BTW totally agree with barnsley that your ds is THIS oppositional because it has got a response in the past. Just look for other things that he does to give your response to. No response to the No's. Things like wanting jeans then not wanting them, you just have to leave him to it and say, ok, I'll come back when you have chosen what you are going to wear. Withdraw attention from it.

I agree and staying calm is a huge thing and I really must try and do it, I always was but something went wrong and things escalated to where neither of us was calm! I feel loads better being calm.

We had an episode this morning about breakfast. First he asked for cereal, then when given cereal he screams at the top of his voice I want granola. I say I will get you granola if you ask nicely? Is that wrong, should I not have said that? Because he then just started screaming "I want granola" over and over. I stayed calm and told him I was going to eat my breakfast and when he was calm he could come and ask me for his granola. I remained calm through the upset and after about 20mins he calmed down! Did I do the right thing or should I ignore the "I want" stuff and give him it?. Everything is I want in a shout! As much as I am trying to resolve this I don't want to let him away with murder! "is I want please" an okay saying from 3 year old? Or should I be trying to get him to use better words?

Thanks for all the help gals, much appreciated.

Hmm. I certainly wouldn't give him granola if he was shouting at the top of his lungs for it. he needs to know that is not how we do it!!!

Well done for staying calm through that - he is obviously a determined boy, isn't he. But you did exactly the right thing.

I think with him at the moment you DO need to be quite strong about this. I'm not saying he could NEVER have a different breakfast and change his mind, but this is all part of an on-going battle isn't it so I think it's worth you standing your ground TBH. At the moment he is enjoying saying 'jump' and watching you jump. So yes, you staying calm and making him ask properly - just right. I think alot of people would have said "no, this is what you asked for, you'll have this". I don't think it was wrong though to say he could have something else if he asked nicely; I think that's a bit of negotiation and kids need to learn that skill. It's ok to be flexible as in "ok, I like cereal, I'll have that so it's not wasted but you must ask properly if you want something".

And yes I want please is fine for a 3 yr old. It's perfectly polite enough and you don't need to waste time 'training' him to say the right words; IME they pick up how you speak without being 'coached' - if YOU say "I would like" etc etc, that is what he will say, eventually.

If you find it hard to ignore the shouting, then use a set of ear phones, ie from an MP3 they don't have to be plugged in (tho it helps if you have calm music playing ) and then get on with your thing playdoh, lego, drawing, play cooking etc chatting about it to your invisible friend, if they mess your thing, start again showing no upset or reaction, they will try harder then back off and assess as this is a new behaviour from you to them and their actions and they need to adjust to it, when they are calm and contemplating say "who would like a drink", "me please" you reply to yourself to open dialogue in a non confrontational and neutral way.

Ignoring is an effective technique in many situations and gives everyone a breather from the angst of the moment.

Encourage eveyone you are around to react in a simialr manner.

I think it was in Christopher Green's book Toddler Taming that he says you don't have to BE calm, you just have to act it

Actually have you got that book Mairi? It's really good for making you realise how normal this behaviour all is! And how annoying all toddlers can be......

I think you are doing well to stay calm. Well done.

If i'm honest at your ds age i don't think i gave ds choices for breakfast (oops!).

I told him what we were having (we had the same). So i would say " scrambled eggs on toast this morning Zak".

If he decided he didn't want it then that was kind of it til snack time. I would calmly say " well, this is your breakfast so if you don't want to eat it then ok".

I think if he had nicely said " could i please have ?? instead", then i probably would have let him, as long as it wasn't far away from what i was making anyway.

If his initial request had been made shouty in any way i would have said "I've told you what's for breakfast today Zak, maybe if you ask nicely tomorrow you can have it for breakfast then"

I do honestly think your doing very well, and until he gets past this stage i really would limit all choices so he learns to understand you are the boss!

Sorry, regarding the please and thank you, i agree with Honoria, he's not too young.

I've always been a stickler for manners, i fondly remember an incident a couple of months ago with my now 6yr old ds. I asked if he wanted a red or blue packet of crisps. He said red. I said i only have red please or blue please, but no red!! He smiled and said "sorry mum, red please".

I totally agree, they don't need training, just a little reminder and if you always use manners they will too.

I think you are all right and it is just his phase right now and trying to push me as far as he can etc. Calm is better I must say although extremely hard now. I do have Christopher Green's book which is great and funny too, makes one feel better after reading it. HOwever I've never found in all the books I've read how to deal with a child this age who answers NO to every since thing, even if he does want it, NO is his first reaction and then he might realised and say Yes, but NO is definitely the main word and so odd because we didn't use it an awful lot to him because we didn't need to! Well until now that is

This morning before I even got to speak upon entering his room was "I don't want to get up", followed by "I Don't want to get to school", "I don't want to dress", "I don't want any breafast" and so on and on we go, it's dealing with this ALL the time I find draining. I would like to just walk away and so OK it's up to you then. However when you have limited time to get out the door it's very very difficult.

I can't get onto food right now as he suffers badly from Neophobia, has a real aversion to new food, to the point of gagging, vomiting, shaking and going as white as a sheet when presented with new foods. However he doesn't do badly at the same time and slowly does it. I also know that I would like different foods for breakfast so I don't mind a very nice ask for another type of cereal, but won't take the shouting and "I want" business without niceties like "please".

I am thinking calm thoughts!

Oh dear, you are having a tough time right now. I think you do just have to breeze into his room and ignore all the negativity. Have you discussed it with your HV? Not sure if you have a good or bad one, mine's not up to much i have to say but i hear some are good.

Regarding the food issues, again, you are having it tough.... I would carry on offering only foods you know he likes until this current phase has passed.

xx