Argumentative 4 Year Old

[elliedragon]

How do you deal with it? My ds spends his whole time arguing with me at the moment. I ask him not to do something and he ends up changing it around and telling me im the naughty one. I have tried ignoring it but he just carries on and on and on and on.

He sounds really cute, and intelligent. Could you turn it into a game and say that everything he says rebounds on him, or maybe try repeating everything he says so he gets bored, or maybe shock him by just laughing like a maniac. If my 3yr ds1 gets annoying I just start doing silly things to divert him.

Thanks for that. I will give it a whirl. He is just so strong willed. He makes me laugh because at some point i have frowned at him, so when i do something he doesnt like he just stands there doing a very forced frown.

The Little Angels woman Tanya Byron says never ask your kids to do things more than twice as that just teaches them to argue with you. So you ask them once really nicely (while making sure they are looking at you, and you have eye contact etc), then if they ignore or say no, say it again in a way that says you mean business, then if they argue back, impose sanctions immediately - eg confiscate toys, time out etc etc It was in an excellent article in The Times, serialised from her new book.

hi all- my 4 yr old is a definate product of me! he will do anything to get the last word in and knows which buttons to press to get me EVERY time . We tried many things and i find he reward chart and praise the most effective. as aloha said i only repeat myself twice- I DONT ASK A THIRD TIME-.i found praising him (do it over the top each time) when does something the first time without arguing works...the next time is isnt so confrontational. sad to say though i do loose it with him and i see him revert back to the norm after that but i think alot of it is just their age. 4 year olds have an awful lot in common with teenagers!!!

I keep thinking he seems to be hitting the teens early too, although I hope he has lost his foot stamping over with by then.

Aloha - Super Nanny advises that also. I have started that with dd. I ask once nicely, again sternly then the third time she goes to naughty corner.

me too ellie- i feel like a gave birth to a teenager- by the way he can be now im hopeing he ll b bored of the attitude by the time he hits 13. maybe at that point we ll be laughing as ours will be placid and little angels -NOT-!!!! heres hoping....

When you put them in the naughty corner - where is it, as i cant decide where that should be?

mine's on the stairs as the hall is separate from the other rooms downstairs...

What im unclear on, when he comes back into the room after being on the naughty step, then a minute later starts going on about the incident again (brought up by him not me) - do i put him back on the naughty step or just ignore him? (i hope this makes sense).

you are making perfect sense and sound just like me!!!! . i do tend to put him back on there- once he went back 6 times but by the 6th got the picture that i was serious and stayed there but the add insult to ingury when i told him the time out was over he wouldn t move!aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!

So it's not just DD1 (4) who acts like she is 14?!!

Drives me up the waal with her answering back and telling me she's going to count to 3!

oh no your not the only one- sometimes i find it sooooo hard not the laugh as he just repeats what i tell him, ie "i dont repeat myself a third time". that coming out of a four years olds mouth IS funny but i do try to get some form of authority

What a relief to find others like yourself. I have been feeling that I was the only one with a 4year going on 13 year old. Does it get worse at 5 or do they grow out of this stage? Im sure the next step will be all those difficult questions that you cant answer and end up feeling an idiot!

feel like an idiot most of the time with my little chap- thats what they are here for..... i was told the 1st 18yrs are the worst-ha, ha, ha-