Tips on 4yo defiant behaviour

[Monstermoomin]

I'm aware this will be (hopefully) a phase and she's just figuring out boundaries etc. But I'm finding my 4yo behaviour really challenging.

Pretty much everything you ask her to do is met with a tantrum if it's not what she wants, like getting her up for nursery which she does actually love, having to wear certain shoes (cos she's outgrown some), wearing a coat or jumper when it's freezing and raining, mealtimes are a nightmare as is bedtime.

She even hit and kicked her teacher yesterday when they were trying to apply her creams which she has never done and I was horrified and upset when they told me this. We've calmly spoken about the behaviour and how upsetting this was for the teacher and us, and explained the real consequences of this behaviour if she continued it (i.e school could suspend her).

Just looking for tips really from others in this situation.

I have a ‘strong willed’ 3.5 year olds. This is what I do to manage his behaviour

1. Restrict choices and let him choose. Eg I will show him two t-shirts (even if they are the same) and ask him to pick one. The plan for pre-school (where he will wear a uniform) is to remove all his normal clothes out of his wardrobe, replace it with uniform, and get him to take out what he wants to wear
2. All shoes / clothes he’s grown out of, he is encouraged to either throw away or donate himself.
3. We recently moved bedtime 30mins earlier in preperation for pre-school when we’ll move it another 30mins earlier.
4. Teaching him how to dress himself, wipe his own poo. To be honest this is the big one for us as 99% of his tantrums were during toileting and dressing.
5. I also tell him made up stories a lot to prevent tantrums - eg the tale of the girl whose t-shirt was too small, the tale of the boy who screamed at his teacher etc etc. They all end horribly (he loves Roald Dahl books lol) and it seems to prevent tantrums we can plan for.
6. During a tantrum I hug him tightly. It seems to make them pass a lot quicker.

I think DS has ADHD though. So a lot of the stuff I’m doing is stuff my DD (who has ASD) was recommended to do - she also had tantrumns but silent, scary ones where she hurt herself. Compared to hers I prefer DS’!

Thanks for these tips @Wenfy

The shoes is a new thing as she seems to have outgrown a few pairs at once and is sad about this, however we did stick some Pokémon stickers in her other shoes and she was very pleased with this (I let her chose a sticker for each foot).
But it would be good if she either decides to keep them (for her younger sibling) or if she would like to donate them to other children. Then choice isn't fully taken away.

I might look at the stories (I'm not great at imagining them so I might have to pre plan a bit of a script ha) as she loves some of the roald dahl ones I've read to her (particularly enjoys the enormous crocodile).

Yes I can only imagine it's hard with the self injuring behaviour, she's done a few things out of frustration like scratch herself on her arms (she's usually itching anyways with her eczema) and she's pulled her hair but this has been few and far between so I've tried to not make a thing over it as I don't want it to persist.

I did try and ignore behaviour (obviously nothing dangerous) such as this morning when she refused to get up and started for the day I explained this was fine and I'd carry on with getting the rest of us up, but explained she may be late for nursery. She then came downstairs and again said she wasn't going to listen, so I carried on and made breakfast for me and LO and explained we couldn't join in playing as we were eating breakfast. And it worked as about 15 minutes later she was bored of not having any reactions and asked to get up and apologised (unprompted) for not listening which was a big thing for her, so I thanked her and didn't make a big deal out of it and carried on with getting her up. There are things she can do herself but she can't do her creams on her own and they need doing before she gets dressed so it limits what she can do initially.