My 4 year old son is always angry.

[ebott]

Has anyone had any experience of a very angry child? He's 4, perfectly behaved at school nursery, perfectly behaved at grandparents. It's about 50/50 at home whether he's lovely and fun or a real handful. It's like a switch and you can see in his face this anger and he lashes out at his sister (6) and us. Punishments like timeout or going to his room make him more angry. Any removal of toys/ treats make him more angry. I'm happy to push through this but I'm not sure it's the best way to work it. Only today he's hurt his sister and me. In the last few months we've cut back on screen time and increased outside play to try and keep a healthy 'mind' but we've noticed no improvement. Triggers can be anything from his sister asking him a question to me saying no to crisps. I'm worried I've got a very unhappy child and I'm not helping him. Any advice/tips/ experience?

It could be that he is exhausted from keeping it together outside the home, which is his safe place to explode.

My DD was very similar. The best book I read on the subject (and I was at my wit's end) was The Explosive Child by Ross W Greene. It really transformed our family and DD is now a delight of a teenager!

We have similar at moment. I’m reading the whole brain child at moment which is good. At 4 they go through limbic system. I would stick to routine, outline your expectations, sit down to explain consequences for hurting anyone etc and stick to your guns. We’ve been having more early bedtimes as I think it’s often linked to tiredness. Praise the good, assure him you love him but reinstate your boundaries about any big items. It’s likely a phase and he’s testing boundaries. Not easy though our 4 year old is harder work at moment than my 2 year old!!

Yes my child.
But she's 10
Am feeling very sad and despairing with it all

My eldest was the same at 4. We just made sure we were very calm ourselves, tried to be very consistent and use structured praise to encourage the behaviour we wanted.

He is now just about to turn 6 and recently he just seemed to calm down overnight - I don't know if it was a brain development thing or what. But I feel like we might be out the other side now.

Oh, and he seemed to be getting stuck in a spiral of "I'm terrible, everyone hates me, no one cares about me because I'm so bad". So we had lots of chats about the fact that no matter how he behaves, we love him just the same (lots and lots). But when he behaves well, it makes things easier for the whole family and we can do more fun things.

I agree he could be tired from holding it together outside the home. You could introduce mum and son time when he gets your full attention away from the rest of the family. I used to take dd out on her own at the weekend and it really helped. Plus plenty of praise and attention for doing the right thing.

I was talking to the HV about this with my 4yo recently. He’s gotten a lot better over the last 6 months maybe, with the blowups shorter and less explosive, but usually still around interactions with his sister (7) or being told no. He’s otherwise a very sweet and sensitive little boy. She said she sees it a lot with boy-girl siblings of our sort of age gap and not to worry too much if everything seems fine at nursery etc, he’ll be letting it out here as his safe space, and will likely grow out of it. He doesn’t have any other signs of neurodiversity or anything. I don’t know if there’s anything in the DC age gap
thing and obviously it’s anecdotal but thought I’d mention it as you’ve got similar ages.