4 year old teenager-like behaviour

[JumpinJellyfish]

DS is 4 (April bday). Has had a year in preschool and starting school in September.

Before preschool he wasn’t in childcare and due to covid was pretty isolated. We used to have fantastic interesting conversations and play together a lot (small world mainly with his dolls house). When he first started preschool he was v shy and it took a while for him to settle in and make friends. However, he has now relaxed and has lots of friends there.

BUT he’s like a hormonal teenager! He’s not really interested in talking to me anymore, won’t tell me anything about his day or answer qs about it. He spends most of his time running around making silly noises and silly faces and shouting bum etc. if I ask him a question eg what was your story at story time he’ll say poo and do an annoying fake laugh. I find it harder to actually engage with him than I did when he was a lot younger.

I’m so happy that he’s obviously learning to interact and socialise and make friends, but the downside is that he seems to be imitating behaviours that are a bit annoying and I feel like I’ve lost him a bit. Is this normal or is it only going to get worse when he starts school?

IME totally normal - I don't know if that's going to come as good or bad news to you! Our DD is 5 and we've had loads of this, as have friends of ours with kids of similar age. It's almost like their social skills are still not that great, but they learn that if they have nothing to say/ can't remember what the answer to your question is, they can just say "bum" or "poo" or "vagina" and it will get a HYSTERICAL response from someone (not me though!)

He sounds like a perfectly normal 4 year old. I’m slightly worried about the teenagers you know though

Normal. School has increased the sass imho, it’s just part of them widening their circle of influence and trying out breaking away from you to be their own person.

it’s has made me slightly fearful of actual puberty though

apparently when their milk teeth start falling out this is driven by hormones (obvious when you think about it) so don’t be surprised when they’re a bit turbo charged around then either.

Ha ha @LittleBearPad the teenager comparison was the not being interested in talking to me part, rather than the bum chat 🤣

that’s the bit that I find hardest tbh - now that he has this life away from me I’m so interested to find out about it, and he won’t tell me anything about what goes on at preschool whatsoever!

Agreed! It’s like pulling teeth.

Let him play Minecraft and in my experience he won’t stop talking at you about it. Note ‘at’ you. Not ‘to’ you. Sigh

Does his preschool use an app or anything? We had tapestry and it was lovely getting a little mini report and photos on what dd had done with her days. They had something similar in reception too - I was quite sad that stopped in year 1.

It was a good way ‘in’ to talk about what they’d done, quite often it’s just ‘nothing’ and ‘nothing’ for lunch.

I hear you OP. DD is 5 and a complete nightmare at the moment. Everything is hard. Constant backchat, boundary pushing, tantrums. She's always been headstrong but this is really tiring. I know this too shall pass though.

Oh yes, forgot to mention the moodiness, refusal to believe that we may sometimes be right, and battles to get her up at a reasonable time. 5 going on 15.

refusal to believe that we may sometimes be right

oh yes! Myself and DP couldn’t possibly be capable of teaching dd anything. I’ve had to get her teacher to back me up on more than one occasion!