Can't control my almost 4 year old DS

[StressedGrapevine]

Posting for advice. I had a horrible situation yesterday, which has now made me feel really freaked out about looking after my DS by myself.

DS will be 4 in a few months. He's a lovely boy most of the time. However, he's currently going through a weird phase which I assume is some sort of development stage hell. He'll be a lovely, helpful and chatty little boy for most of the time but then suddenly, there will be this switch out of nowhere, where the bad behaviour gets ramped up to the max.

Yesterday, my DH (DS's father) was away for the afternoon (DH and I give each other afternoons off now and then to get a break, and it was DH's turn for one of these so he had gone, via public transport to a daytime classical music concert he really wanted to see).
I had planned a nice afternoon for me and DS, we first went to a new cafe for lunch and then on to swimming at our local outdoor pool. However, when it came to leaving the pool, DS suddenly switched to the worst behaviour I have ever experienced from him.

The pool has closed changing cubicles with doors, and while I was trying to get DS and myself dressed DS started throwing things at me while laughing (my trainers, his bag) and trying to escape under the small gap under the door. After 15 minutes of dodging missiles and wrestling to get him and myself dressed we finally got out of the pool.

However, the outdoor pool is in a park 2 km from our house (we had cycled there as DS can use a non stabiliser bike, and there are largely car free paths to get there). DS was ridiculous and running away from me and towards the lake. Nothing would calm him down and I can't carry him home as he's 18kg now and I am only 57kg (9 stone) and 5'5 myself.

When I caught DS and tried to stop him running away he just kept punching me in the arm or biting me. This behaviour was nuts and he's never been that violent to me previously. Maybe the very occasional single hit when extremely tired, but this was a next level hyper tantrum kick off.

I had no choice but to ring my DH between trying to keep hold of DS while he punched and bit me and asked DH to meet us in the park as soon as his bus got back. This meant I was stuck in the park for a further 40 mins with my DS hitting and biting me.

If my DH had been gone for the whole day I just don't know how the hell I would have got DS home. When DS doesn't want to move he just drops as a dead weight and there's nothing I can do because carrying him isn't possible.

I am now just really freaked out and scared by this realisation and wanted to know how other mothers manage this once kids get too big and strong to carry?

For reference, DS does face consequences at home, if he misbehaves he gets sent to his room for 5 mins, but that's not a strategy that works in a park.

Am I just confined to sticking extremely close to our house whenever my DH is away now?

@StressedGrapevine it sounds awful but small children often will attack/bite their main carer (ie their mum) because they feel safe with you to do it.
You are mummy. You're not going to wallop or bite back and you are going to still be there when the tantrum stops. You are his security.
It's hard. It really is (my girl was a biter and a pincher - god the pinching hurt). I found if I couldn't stop the tantrum/meltdown I had to let her it ride out. If possible I would hold her tight to calm her down (and also avoid the flailing arms) then when it was finished we would sit together still holding each other and she would start to relax.
Only then later could we sometimes talk about it and discuss any consequences.
Please note this took me YEARS to be able to get to this stage.
When he gets home with his dad give him a hug, tell him you are sad about yesterday because he was hurting you and that isn't nice, but you love him because you are his mummy.
💐

Mine are always on the edge by 5pm even with and hour and a half of swimming + cycling

I think that much swimming with no food and then a cycle home probably pushed him over the edge.

Sounds tough OP, my DD can also be explosive. A more effective tactic may be to focus on what the triggers could be....hunger, tiredness, transitions etc and try to manage those really well to prevent a meltdown in the first place.

Did you not take a snack or something to bribe him with after swimming? I think cycling to swimming was ambitious tbh.

That said I would be absolutely livid with Ds for that behaviour and you need some more consequences in place.

Personally I would say a complete ban for rest of the week is a bit extreme. It has to be something you will both implement and if dh isn’t on board it just won’t work. My dh was like this-he’d threaten removal of a device for a week and I was like, er are you going to implement that and deal with the fallout from it then?! I would have said a ban for rest of day and maybe the day after for one trip. Otherwise you run the risk of not having anywhere else to go.
at four they are very much testing what they can do and the reactions it provokes. You need to try and model the behaviour you want him to see if he gets upset or angry. If you don’t speak to him for a whole day, he will learn that is how you deal with those emotions.

I think 1.5 hours in the pool late afternoon with no food after getting out was the error here. My DS is 4 next month and would not have coped with this much activity so late in the day and the bike ride home at 5 certainly would have triggered a meltdown. However, removing privileges for the next week sounds way over the top. He’s only 3 and misbehaved because he was tired and hungry which were your mistakes rather than his.

However, he’s probably too young to be riding his bike with you to and from places tbh. I always end up carrying Ds’s bike for some of the time and would not take my own bike for this reason.

My strategies for dealing with hitting and biting when out would be to find a bench, put him on it, tell him off and then repeatedly put him back on the bench until he calmed down/apologised. You may have to drag him by the wrist if he likes to play dead (or just leave him to tantrum where he is if it’s safe). Although next time, just try to distract if you sense it brewing (mine loves it if I announce we can race to the tree/lampost for example).

To clarify, this really wasn't a lot of cycling for my DS. He's been riding a bike without stabilisers since March and loves any excuse to get out on his bike. We've cycled much further than this with him several times before without incident.

The issue seems to be combining it with swimming and the length of the swimming session. The pool charge for a half day so you can stay as long as you want. DS was enjoying himself so I let him have a long time in the pool (which I now realise was a bad idea).

@Nosleepforthismum , yes I think the timing was a bad idea, as 5pm is often when DS starts to get a little bit tired and silly, so we should have left earlier.

I think you are overreacting and will need to get perspective. To be too stressed to deal with naughty 3 year old 24 hours later is a bit extreme. Parenting gets harder.

I understand this but your son has to learn there are consequences for his actions and I don’t think him going out for a fun day with dad is sending him the message. Maybe this is something to consider should your son behave like this again.