I Don't Want Him Around Anymore

[ChristianBalesMouth]

My son is 3.5. Until recently, he has been an absolute joy, but since turning 3, he has been a total nightmare. I know this is normal for his age, but I am not coping with it well. I have begun to dread spending time with him as it's just so horrible and exhausting.I feel instinctively that I need to have clear, consistent rules and to enforce them calmly and firmly, but he just keeps pushing me and pushing me until I want to scream. It's reached the point where I just have to walk away because I'm so angry and I hate feeling like that. I don't want to yell at him and I certainly don't want to hit him.

He is going to daycare full-time from September and I literally can't wait. But I feel so guilty about it, like I'm washing my hands of him and making him somebody else's problem (though of course that's not true). Has anyone else felt like that about their child?

Can anybody give me reassurance that it really is just a phase and that it gets better?!

I am hoping for kindness and understanding and constructive advice rather than attacks on my parenting or my personality please.

My step son was a little terror at 3, punching and kicking, complete screaming fits, protest weeing on his dad (I did snigger at this though haha), just outright refusal to do things, but he completely changed after doing this for about 9/12 months and is now a complete joy. He has his moments but they are rare and he does correct himself.
I think at that age they have really strong feelings but struggle to communicate what they want or his they feel, they then get frustrated and it quickly descends into a meltdown.
I think day care will be good for him having to have different authority figures, but tbh I would imagine he will grow out of it as he learns to communicate his feelings better. Stay strong 💪🏻