DS is nearly 4 and his behaviour has got so challenging these last few weeks. I really don't know what to do with him any more.
He is a typical four year old boy - boisterous, doesnt keep still, inquisitive and pushing his boundaries. That I expect but its getting out of control. He seems absolutely intent on challenging everything we do and deliberately doing things that he knows he shouldn't. He has gone to bed in a rage / sobbing so many times lately that I don't know what the answer is any more. In the time he was home after nursery until bed (3 hours say) he must have pushed things 20 + times.
One main thing is that he will not listen. I don't mean things like not putting on his shoes or cleaning his teeth but such as not lying on top of his sister / throwing stones/ pulling the cats tail. We ask him once, tell him to stop, explain why and in the end end up shouting at him or threatening him with removing a toy / not going to the park etc. It takes until then for him to respond. We always follow through with the threat but he doesnt seem to connect the two and learn.
The other thing is deliberately doing things he knows he is not allowed to such as pouring water on the carpet, trampling food into the floor, ripping things up. He does it with a look in his eye that he knows what he is doing.
We do all the suggested things such as time out. We warn him not to do things, warn again then he gets sent to time out / has toy or whatever taken away. The problem is that he is so defiant - so if we follow through with the threat he gets really angry. He will refuse to sit on the naughty step and kick out if we go near him. Or he will deliberately break something or hit his sister in revenge. When I explained to him (for the upteenth time that day) not to let DD out of the stair gated room and encourage her upstairs and why (she is 21 months and not that stable on her own on the stairs and was half way up them) he reacted by pushing her down them - I was lucky to catch her.
Inevitably this ends up with him and DD sobbing, us angry. He calms down and is so remorseful and sorry. We explain to him what he had done wrong, why we did what we did etc. He is lovely for 10 minutes then starts again on something different.
I realise that this is to some extent normal behaviour of a 4 year old but it is the frequency that is exhausting. It is almost constant.
Friends have suggested to ignore the small things and to concentrate on the larger things. The problem is that most of these things are bigger things - he cant hit his sister, I dont want to condone things such as snatching or deliberately breaking her toys etc. He growls and tries to spit in response to us warning hom about things and I dont want to let him get away with that.
Others have suggested giving him more one to one time but he does get this and nothing has changed for him to start reacting like this.
We start out calm but end up shouting at him and it seems like most of my interactions with him at the moment are negative. He goes to nursery full time (although picked up 3.30/ 4 ish) and is his usual lovely self there - a 4 year old boy who is boisterous yes but nothing like at home. Weekends and evenings he gets plenty of exercise, fresh air, his favourite activities. He adores his sister when not hitting her. He gets loads of cuddles, stories etc in between these episodes. He sleeps really well (thank god!) so is not over tired.
Any ideas? Just one of those stages? I am going slightly mad and just want to enjoy being with him some of the time rather than feeling like I am constantly telling him off. We don't seem to be getting anywhere.