Four year old - naughty, defiant behaviour

[Monkey]

My darling daughter has changed completely over the summer. She went from being a well-behaved little girl to a child who won't listen, shouts, won't go to sleep, tells me to "shut up"... I have tried to talk to her but to no avail. She does not seem sad or anxious. Her bad behaviour seems to be directed at me and to a lesser extent her father. She's ok with our childminders...

Anyone experienced this at that age? (she's turning 4 next week)

Any advice welcome.

[Pugwash]

Sounds familiar!! We just ignored our daughters stroppy behaviour, tried not to rise to her baits, eventually worked. She got fed up trying to attract our attention by shocking us with her behaviour. It does come back - when they are teenagers.

[Monkey]

Thank you, Pugwash. I had heard of the terrible twos but was not ready for the terrible fours! Thank you for the advice - I will try not to rise to it (which I must admit I have not been very good at!)

[alieh]

I feel like my son turned naughty, rude and defiant on his 4th birthday! He's just over 4.5 now and much better. I try to be quite strict about the bad behaviour - two warnings with consequences explained and then follow through every time. Also prevention - i.e. trying to identify the triggers (in our case bored/needs exercise or tired). At this age I find their capacity to want to try to learn new things is amazing so we try to keep him interested with talking about how things work, etc.

Could she also be outgrowing the childminder set up? My son did I felt around age 3 and we moved him to more of a pre school environment which kept him much more stimulated and he was then easier to handle on his days at home.

[Monkey]

That's very interesting, alieh. She turns four on Monday!

She's actually been at nursery full time since she was four months and most recently pre-school all day. This is the longest she's spent in a home environment since she was a baby. I am thinking the change in routine might have done it.

[Emski]

Our 4 yr old's bad behaviour seems also to have escalated recently. Altho her tantrums are short-lived, they're pretty frequent! I'm sure she's more stroppy now than when we were in the 'terrible twos'. We get lots of 'I don't like you', 'You're not my friend', 'You're not coming to my house', (which I have to try not to laugh at!)etc.

In our case it's almost certainly been triggered by the arrival of a new baby. It's also more likely when tired and bored (been stuck indoors all day).

I realised I was only saying negative things to her when trying to counter the bad behaviour (Don't speak to me like that, Don't be disobedient, You need to listen to me etc etc). The harder I tried to stamp out the naughtiness, the bigger the stand-off. So now we're trying the opposite - reward charts, loads of cuddles and attention. We had been giving loads of praise, but think maybe more physical attention/affection is more important. Of course tricky when there's a nearly newborn around! I think I remember someone saying that they don't really settle down until more like 6... Hmmm...!

[Polly D]

Bit relieved to hear we are not alone. I wonder if the fact that reception year at primary school is looming for our 4 year olds could explain some of the behaviour. My son has been so grumpy lately (4.5).

My mum told me that the summer before my brother started middle school (aged 8, so yes - older) he was a total pain in the bum. It turned out he'd been worried he'd have to make a speech at assembly on his first day in front of the whole school, which of course wasn't true. Is it possible all this talk of starting big school has created unnecessary anxieties?

[Belle]

Emski Wrote:

> I realised I was only saying negative things to

> her when trying to counter the bad behaviour

> (Don't speak to me like that, Don't be

> disobedient, You need to listen to me etc etc).

> The harder I tried to stamp out the naughtiness,

> the bigger the stand-off. So now we're trying the

> opposite - reward charts, loads of cuddles and

> attention.

I'm not always great at this, but I think you're right about it - we had a conversation with my son's preschool teacher and she said somethign along these lines - it made me realise that I tell my son off for tiny little things but don't do the reverse i.e. praise him for all the little things he does. When I remember I'm trying this approach more and think it does help.