Does life after 3 get better?

[howifeel]

Feeling a bit down today.

Three year old is horrible. Was horrible at the start of the year then it settled down and now back to being horrible. Speaks to me and dad like shit, doesn’t listen, rude.

Not like this outside of the home.

I am just wondering if there’s any hope on the horizon or are we destined to have a mini general Franco rule the roost for the next however many years?

@Yourethebeerthief honestly I don’t want to sound horrible here and I hope you’ll take this in the nice spirit I mean it but your posts are very lecturing and to be honest a bit sanctimonious, and I’m very very tired and just sounding off a bit, I don’t need pages of advice. I know that sounds really grumpy and I don’t mean it to be, I know that you mean well

My just turned 3 year old is speech delayed but if he could talk in bigger sentences he would absolutely be like this if he thought he could get away with it. I’ve found the only thing to work is to put him in time out for three minutes (with a visual timer) if he starts to kick off. I’ll usually say “ if you can’t speak to me properly I will put you in time out to calm down” and I follow through. It works most of the time but I dread the day he rebels and I’ll have to think of something new!

Well you've written a thread asking if there's hope on the horizon and I'm saying the same as other posters too.

The answer is no, not if you continue like this.

I wouldn't tolerate it and quite frankly can't understand it. But if you want to just carry on as is and hope things get better, God speed.

I don’t think I am lazy.

I cook their meals from scratch and I take them out, plenty of fresh air, activities, we read, we go to the park, we do a lot. Screen time is a tricky one because twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) dh works from home, he gets ds from preschool at 3 then he has screen time until I get back at 4.

Tonight ds was in a stupid mood, he tried to pee on the sofa which as never happened before, it shocked and disgusted me and probably triggered me and I found it difficult to calm myself and was all annoyed and irritable at bath time and that probably didn’t help.

I wish YouTube would fuck off! But it is here to stay on those days at any rate

This. It'll only get easier if you both present a united front. Harder at first but a million times better in the long run.

3 was the worst age for us.. It's only really now at 6 has he become the sort of kid you actually enjoy hanging out with 🙈 like others have said I'd look at ways to stop the behaviour rather than wait for them to outgrow it

At that age I gave ds 3 warnings and if he was still misbehaving after 3 he'd have to sit on the step for 2 minutes of time out. At first he protested and got up a thousand times but I really persevered and it got easier. After time out he says sorry and we hug and forget about it. They have to learn. If out of the house then going home instead of time out. Yes it was annoying packing up all our stuff and saying goodbye to our friends and leaving early but if only ever reached that stage twice. He soon learnt to listen to me and that I mean what I say. You just have to persevere and be consistent. Must be hard when dh isn't on board though - you've got a whole other separate issue there.

I feel like a lot of posters are missing out a key piece of advice here. Namely: 3 year olds are shitbags.

Nothing I did worked until, one day, it started to. Now they're all quite nice.

Honestly, 3 to 4 is grit your teeth and wait it out territory. They do get better. But for a while, they're shitbags.