Constant battles with 3yo- please help!

[RocketSurgery]

My 3yo ds2 is driving me to despair. He argues with absolutely everything I say and whinges constantly, wherever we go. All he wants to do all day is play with his bloody wooden trains.

Today he came into me at 5am bouncing on my bed ‘mum, mum get up, I’m hungry I want breakfast.’ I tell him he has breakfast at 7 like he does everyday which results in him screaming so loudly he wakes up 6yo ds1. I refuse to get up before 6 so he alternated screaming with chasing the cat and getting all his toys out. When I get up I tell him to put his toys away and when he’s done that I’ll make breakfast. The screaming starts again - howling, rolling on the floor, saying he hates his toys, tells me to put them in the bin. I put them in a bag for him to have back tomorrow.

I make breakfast - he’s not hungry, he hates toast, he’s never eating again unless it’s a kinder egg. He ends up having half a cup of milk for breakfast. I tell him we’re going to the zoo today - he hates the zoo, the animals are smelly, the playground is stupid, he’s never getting in the car or getting dressed. He screams so much when I’m cleaning his teeth that he’s sick all over himself. I have to carry him into the zoo like a rugby ball as it’s the only way to manoeuvre him safely. He refuses to look at any animals and clamps his eyes shut at every enclosure. At lunch I manage to convince him to have a sucky jelly pouch which he tells me he thinks is disgusting and throws at me several times. He enjoys going on the swing in park at the zoo but screams until he’s sick again when he has to come off (there was a queue which I explained to him before he got on, whilst he was on and counting down until time to get off).

We come home and I make his favourite tea. Which he hates and tells me looks yucky. He does at least eat a small plateful and has some yoghurt for pudding too. Since tea we’ve been reading stories which, although he hasn’t interacted with my like he sometimes does, he is sitting quietly and outing one book back and getting another.

I feel like I’ve tried everything - star charts, naughty step, always praise when he’s good, I’ve never given in to his sulking/ screaming (except for a couple of times in shops/ cafes when I’ve just been mortified) and I just don’t know what else I can do.

He started pre school in January and his behaviour started then. They are quiet strict at his pre school so I thought maybe he was just letting out pent up energy/ frustration when he was with me. But he hasn’t been in for 10 days now and the screaming, whinging and general brattishness is getting worse each day.

I burst into tears yesterday when in the 10 seconds it took me to reach up to the top shelf in the shop he managed to knock everything off the entire bottom shelf and tried to smash some of the jars. I just can’t stand him at the moment. I’m so embarrassed by him and people constantly muttering about him when he’s just being awful. My ds1 is only 6 and wants to send him to boarding school 😂.

Please help.

Hope bump

Please someone help. I don’t know what to do.

I've no advice I'm so sorry I'm in a similar situation with a 5.5 yo DS1 and 2.5yo nightmare DS2. We are on holiday in Portugal at the moment and DS2 is so much bloody hard work I sometimes wish we'd stayed at home. I hope someone comes along with some advice soon. It's so hard and you absolutely have my sympathy. For what it's worth you should like you're handling it better than me. I turn into shouty mum a lot more often than I should and also give in a lot more than I should.

I haven't got much first hand experience of this but I've started to find my 2 year old DD's behaviour challenging. I was recommended this book. Even just reading the first chapter saw improvements in DD's behaviour.

www.bookdepository.com/How-Talk-So-Little-Kids-Will-Listen-Joanna-Faber/9781848126145

The only thing I picked up on in your post that might help is that you could get your DS involved in making his meals, choosing items for his packed lunch for days out etc. Small choices between 2 options gives them a little bit of control.

*sound like. Not should.

Maybe it's the change in his routine as he hasn't been in for 10 days that's throwing him a bit?

To be honest I would have just gotten up and made him breakfast he might have woken up very hungry. He's only 3 so it doesn't make any difference if he has breakfast slightly earlier than usual

What is he like at preschool? Have they commented on any behaviour problems there?

This age is really difficult. With DD I just focus on given her as many choices as possible and give her lots and lots of pre warnings before we do stuff. For example if we were going to the zoo I might get a book out about zoos show her the pictures ask her which bit she is most looking forward to in order to get her excited about the trip. Perhaps get a sticker book of different animals so as we go along whenever she spots one from the book she can stick the sticker on a bit of card for example and then at the end of the day discuss what we've seen heard and learned. Make everything as interactive as possible.

drogon glad to hear it’s not just him! We went on a local steam train today and the platform guard told me off because he was being such a tit. He was charging around screaming and completely ignoring me. I pick him up and he starts shouting ‘help, help, please stop hurting me.’ I wasn’t hurting him at all, he just knows exactly what he needs to say to get me to put him down again. I cried driving home because we just can’t do anything. It’s not fair on ds1.

He has no interest in food at all. He’ll occasionally help me with a bit of stirring or cake decorating if we do baking but won’t even try what we’ve made. If I give him any options at all he will say he hates them and deliberately ask for something he knows I can’t provide at the time. I’m at the point now where I tell him what he’s eating, doing, wearing as giving him any choice just gives him more things to argue with me about.

jane the lack of preschool could be confusing him. I think it might be more that ds1 is around during the day and he’s used to having me to himself. I don’t think he was hungry for breakfast as 2 hours after originally asking for it he then refused to eat it.

He’s a nightmare at preschool too. He’s already down to only doing a couple of hours twice a week as his behaviour was too challenging for them to manage. The problem is now that he knows that if he screams/ hits/ breaks stuff enough at preschool the teachers call me to immediately pick him up. It’s horrible dropping him off there when the teachers clearly don’t like him.

I’m just completely at the end of my tether with him. If someone said they would take him away from me it would just be a relief. I just don’t know where my little boy has gone. He’s always enjoyed being naughty but he used to be cuddly and funny and happy with it.

In the kindest possible way, I think that if preschool can't handle him then I would think about phoning your health visitor team. They are there for guidance and signposting until children turn 5. They are very well placed to be able to help.

Don't feel you have to do all the battling on your own.

That sounds absolutely soul destroying and you have my every sympathy. It may be that he isn’t neurotypical. I’ve had two high maintenance (aka whiney, whingey, tantrummy) children and I’m not convinced either of them are neurotypical tbh.

Having said that, three year olds can be just plain vile and there is still hope that they’ll turn into reasonable human beings. My eldest was MUCH less of an arse after her fourth birthday. My younger one... well he’s four next month so fingers crossed.

One thing I might expect your preschool to do is get their SENCO involved to do an initial assessment. That seems to be the way things are done around here. Health visitor is also an option, as someone else mentioned.

I’ve just re-read what you’ve said about the preschool and they sound crap. They phone you to collect him when he acts up? I would expect a more proactive approach to managing his behaviour, and that’s putting it mildly!

Sympathies OP that sounds absolutely horrendous. I have a 3.3 year old DS and he can be very stroppy/naughty etc and that's hard enough (as someone else said I think 3 is a very challenging age!) but your DS' behaviour really does sound extreme so I agree with PL, get your health visitor involved. My DS' pre school/play group is shite and moans to me about his behaviour when it's the littlest thing, so I have sympathies there too, but again I think it would be difficult for any pre school to manage behaviour of that level.

My ds1 is ASD so tbh I’d kind of written off any kind of LD’s/ behaviour difficulties as he’s just so different to ds1. Ds1 was late walking, talking and even now at 6 is incredibly nervous of talking to people outside of his trusted circle of 4/5 family members. Ds2 was walking at 8 months, having full conversations from about 18 months and will happily natter away to complete strangers. Then since he started preschool he’s just been possessed by a stroppy teenager. I’m really hoping it’s just a phase and trying to focus on that. There doesn’t seem to be particular triggers for his behaviour, it’s just him not getting what he wants but then not really knowing what he wants himself either.

haworthia I’m not particularly happy with the preschool either. A lot of parents have complained about the approach of kids being sent home for bad behaviour as most of them have twigged what they need to do to get to go home. A couple of the teachers are really nice and patient but the lady in charge has made it pretty clear that she simply doesn’t like ds. Which doesn’t exactly reassure me! Unfortunately I live in a small town and this is the only childcare facility which is linked to the only school. I really want him to at least get used to going to school before he starts reception I’m sept next year. I’m considering taking him out and restarting him after the summer holidays. I genuinely don’t think I could cope with his behaviour full time though. Dh works away mon-fri and is completely useless when he is here so I’m pretty much on my knees right now.

Thank you all for responding. It is good to just have a guilt free bitch about life sometimes!