4 year old making me lose the plot

[JazzHandsEmoji]

My son has just turned 4. He's funny, imaginative, very bright (I know that sounds smug, but nursery have told me he's way ahead in terms of maths etc (can do all of his times tables already) and I wonder if it's contributing to our issues) and so loving.

But he is driving me absolutely insane.

He whinges, whines, shouts and demands from the moment he wakes up. He's obsessed with me and screeches for me if I leave the room - anything he wants/needs, instead of coming to me he SCREAMS mummy over and over.

He wants me to give him attention all day long. He loves his dad but just wants to cling on to me day and night. He screams because he's hungry, he wants a drink, his feet are tired, his brother touched his toy - and I mean screams so hard the neighbours can hear. The school run for his brother is a disaster almost every day - I'm walking too fast, I'm going too slow, we need to stop, he wants to walk, he wants to scoot, he wants to be picked up (we don't do this).

We don't give in to his demands, when he's whinging and shouting I say I can't understand him when he uses that voice and try to calm down and ask me properly. He's never given anything until he asks politely and says please/thank you. We have told him over and over again that screaming and whinging isn't going to get him what he wants and we follow through with this, but nothing is changing.

Oh and he's perfectly behaved at nursery and grandparents house.

He is being looked into for some health problems (gut related) and has recently been having a behavioural issue where he feels he needs to wee every 15 minutes or so (no infection etc dr thinks he will grow out of it).

Sorry this is so long, any advice gratefully received, I dread spending time with him at the moment and I feel so guilty about it.

Who taught all his times tables before even school age?!

He likes number blocks, and numbers in general, and he’s just learned them! Hasn’t come from me, I’m awful at maths

He knows all his 1-12 times table and he’s still at nursery? And he’s self taught? He’s a prodigy!

yep. As I said, he’s got a lot of it from numberblocks but he loves numbers. Not sure why that’s the thing you’d pick out of my post that’s asking for help?

I think lots of 4 year olds have some challenging behaviours because they are simultaneously getting older and more capable whilst remaining little kids that are told what they can and can't do (it must feel frustrating, bless them!). They're also still developing the ability to rationalise and control their emotions.

Obviously they are all individuals so it can come out differently, but mine is definitely going through a stage where he thinks he's always right at the minute. Just today he has very dramatically told his little brother off for being 'dangerous' then lost his shit with me for not stopping him myself (nothing dangerous was happening, he just walked by a cleaning in progress sign). Not long after he was telling me I was mean for making his brother cry when I stopped him doing something genuinely dangerous.... I also suggested the wrong book, told him it was time to leave the park, and refused Easter egg as a valid option for tea so clearly I'm very unreasonable in his book!

I think children let out their 'worst' behaviours when they feel safest so it's not uncommon for them to be angels at nursery and let all of their frustrations out at home.

It’s very relevant- children who are very intellectually gifted but don’t have the right outlets often present a lot of challenging behaviours. PotentialPlus might offer further support and guidance with your clever little dude.

Exactly

My preschool aged child also knows his times tables and I'd say he's bright but not a genius. I put it down to a general interest in maths, and mainly Numberblocks being extremely well thought out. Anyway, I'm either completely the wrong person to comment on this, because all children are different and we don't really have this type of behaviour issue often, or completely the right person if our children are similar and it turns out that some of the things we do are working...

I suspect most of this is much easier for us as DS1 doesn't have an older sibling. But: we are extremely routine, partly by nature, and partly because our DCs seem to respond well to it. So our day to day lives are fairly predictable. We also had firm boundaries and probably come across to others as quite uptight about things like screen time and unhealthy foods - actually we're not that bothered, but DS1 would definitely whine for things if he thought they might be available. As it stands, he knows we don't watch TV in the mornings ever, and that you only get 2 episodes of Hey Duggee, so he can accept that fairly easily. If you give in and say oh all right, we'll have 3 Duggees as a special treat, he would be pleased but disconcerted and then whine the next time wanting it to be a special treat that time too, and probably have a tantrum when we said no. Similarly with food, eg he believes that you only have ketchup with burgers. Otherwise, he would want it with everything, which we obviously wouldn't allow. But he's not yet emotionally mature enough to handle the uncertainty of 'sometimes you're allowed it but sometimes mummy says no'. And he's allowed biscuits but I don't think he knows we always have them in the house. I think little children get enough opportunities to practise dealing with frustration, so we basically just avoid creating more.

Otherwise, we obvs do say no if necessary, but we try to keep things as positive as possible. So we don't say 'you can't have that unless you say please', we just 'hilariously' pretend we haven't heard till he does. I sound so tedious I just want to give myself a slap, but it does seem to be working as he's quite polite.

The other thing I think has been really useful wasn't us, but our nursery do a lot of work with the kids on expressing and dealing with emotions, eg they use the Colour Monster book and toys.