Why is my 3 yr old suddenly so rude and bossy?

[SuperBunny]

He is known for being very polite, he always says please and thank you and asks nicely if he wants something. It is something we have always worked on and I am proud that he remembers. He is often praised (by other people as well as me) for being polite.

But, this week he has turned into a rude and demanding monster.

Examples:

He plays his guitar, stops, looks and me and shouts, "Clap Mummy. CLAP. I SAID CLAP now. No, not like that, do it like this"

He demands, "Get me water." I look at him blankly or say, 'how do you ask for something?' and he'll say, "I want it in a bowl like a puppy. NOT A CUP. I SAID IN A BOWL. "

He has spent all week telling me to do things this way not that. Even his babysitter commented

Why, when I ignore his rudeness, does he continue? He spends weekends with his Dad but I can't imagine him responding to this bossiness any more than I do. Is this just him being 3?

When will I get my lovely little boy back?

It is him just being three, but you will have bouts of it forever now! I never ignored dd doing it, I used to pull her up on it every time, but it caused many arguments! If it was a picture she was drawing that I was helping with and I did it "wrong" I would apologise and ask her to show me what to do in a nice tone, as I felt it was her expression space or whatever you would call it, but water, toys etc no way, no way at all, as it just exacerbates it and they never grow out of it then. And they will only get told off for it at school if it isn't dealt with now, which I felt to be so much more humiliating for them.

Because he is three. Ds is 5 and if anything is getting worse.

School teachers won't stand for it, so he doesn't do it there (well he tried it once and it went VERY badly for him).

When he is playing if he treats me like in the guitar example I just say "you are not being nice to me and I don't feel like playing with you" and go off and do something else.

With the water example I would have said "you get what you get and you don't get upset" and gone off and done something else.

Ds was just very rude to my mum who is looking after him at the moment and I picked him up straight away with "use a nice voice and say please".

But above all you have to make sure that his "bossiness" isn't him "pretending" to be you telling him to do things. I do hear ds saying things which could only be him emulating his teacher.

DD goes through phases of behaving like this and has done since, well, she turned three

All you can do is lead by example - I make an effort to be polite to her even if she is being a pita and I am cross - and refuse to respond to her if she is being rude and insist she asks for something nicely rather than issueing demands.

The other day we were out shopping, looking for some tissue paper for her craft box, and she started being extremely rude (I forget what she said now but I was because it was quite out of character). I told her that if she continued to talk that way I would take her home with no tissue paper, she said whatever it was again so home we went. She was pissed off but I think it was a valuable lesson learnt .

Is there someone who talks to him in this way? Could he be picking it up from somewhere?

with the giving commands thing i would just state very clearly how he needs to ask
don't sound cross or bothered, just say calmly
"you need to say 'please can i have some water, and I'd like it in a bowl please'"
then get on with what you were doing until he rephrases it
i think at this age they often feel like grown ups are bumbling idiots - we rarely understand what they want or react 'properly' first time
if they have been treated with love and given a lot of free rein and understanding then this type of attitude is often going to rear its head imo!

what Franny said

oh by the way, just re-reading the other thread about your Babysitter...has your ds's behaviour started the same time as you employed that Babysitter? I am just wondering if he has realised that different people seem to have very different boundaries, and because he got away with it with your Babysitter he is trying it out more...

Thanks!

I don't always totally ignore his requests - I usually ask him how to ask properly and I refuse to do anything until he does ask politely. I will continue to remind him calmly and set a good example.

I think I probably have to make an effort to not be rude to him when I am cross - I didn't really realise I was doing it but I know that sometimes when I have asked him 3 times to put his shoes on, I end up saying "DS. Put. your. shoes. on" so perhaps he is copying that.

He really does think I am a bumbling idiot who does everything wrong

Will make sure babysitter does not stand for it. I think he is treating her quite badly

Thank you for reassuring me that he isn't the only one. TF, i have envisaged situations like that.

i think she is ALLOWING him to treat her quite badly
it's inexperience - most 3 y olds would push it given the chance, sb - it doesn't mean he's not a nice little boy
you've taken his needs seriously and he feels he is important and his needs should be met - that's good
the social skills side of things takes a bit longer