From: lyssa@tfs.com (Lyssa Livingston)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Why is my 4YO son acting this way?
Date: 12 Aug 92 22:30:50 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: TRW Financial Systems

In article <1992Aug11.181936.5220@oakhill.sps.mot.com> stevee@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Stephen Elmendorf) writes:
>
>I'll come right to the point. My son turned 4 in June, and my wife and I had a
>baby daughter (Haleigh Elizabeth) on May 11. Since this time we have been 
>disturbed at times by the way our son behaves. Now it might be due to the new
>baby, but I did not want to jump to this conclusion.
>
>The problem generally manifests itself in the following way: He will be playing
>or doing some activity, either by himself, or with my wife or myself. Then in 
>very short order he will become quite agressive. Kicking, hitting, and saying
>mean things. When we tell him to stop, or try to send him to his room, or any
>other action, his most common response is "I don't have to", or "If you don't
>let me <fill in any appropriate statement>, I won't be your little boy any
>more", and sometimes "I'm going to kill you". Now you can imagine that this
>gets us upset, mostly because it usually comes out of the blue.

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>
>I guess what I'd be interested in are anybody elses common experiences. How 
>did you deal with the situation? How can we help our son learn to show his 
>feelings without the aggression? Any good books I should read that may give 
>me and my wife some guidance for the next few years? I know that this may still
>be sketchy, and if more information is needed, I'll gladly supply it. Thanks
>for your help.

Gee, does this sound familiar!!!  Based on what you've said, this is *very*
typical 4-year-old behavior.  Last year, I had a baby on March 24, and my
older son turned 4 on August 8, so I have just been through what you are
now entering.  In my experience, you will get this throughout most of the
5th year, ie, until he turns 5.  What worked for me is to ignore the lesser
threats, and remind him gently that we don't talk like that for the bigger
ones.  My older boy would start to threaten all sorts of violent things, and
when I would interrupt and say, "We don't talk like that", he would answer,
"Oh, yeah", and stop.  It took a while for me to arrive at that, and especially
being calm when making the comment, instead of being angry.  Kicking and 
hitting I dealt with by timeouts - it's when I really began to understand
using timeouts as a way to calm down, instead of punishment.  So, I would
let him know that I was angry at being hit, and that he needed to go to his
room, and to please let me know when he felt he was calm enough to come out.
Since it was to calm down, and not for punishment, I was not trying to cut
him off from playing with his toys or reading books, or otherwise making his
environment extremely boring.  Also, on my part, I spent time being very
watchful of when he would start to wind up and start hitting me, and tried
to head those off.  Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not.  If not
successful, I would take a hit or two, then tell him that I was not for
hitting, and he should try the sofa, or the wall, or ...  If that didn't
work, that's when I went to timeout.

This 4YO behavior seemed to intensify by having the baby, ie, sibling rivalry,
although it was not directed at the baby, but at me, as it seems to be the
case with your wife.  Having mother days was also useful in my case.  Does
your son go to pre-school?  Has he some friends to play with, that he can go
to their house?  Giving him other people to relate to other than just me was
very helpful.  It seemed for me that giving my son more and more attention
felt like I was robbing myself of my time with the baby, and so I began to
rely on other people to fill in for me, like my husband, or my son's friends,
or relatives.  He still wants my attention, but he has learned to share it
with the baby, albeit grudgingly. :-)  Certain things he always had/has a
right to say, like how he feels about things - several times after the baby
arrived, he wanted to throw the baby out with the garbage.  These comments
were different from the aggressive child comments, and these I sympathized
with.  Gee, there were times when *I* wanted to throw the kid out, too!

I bought the Gesell Institute series of books, which were very helpful in
anticipating this kind of behavior.  These books are titled "Your X Year Old",
where X is the age of the child.  The subtitle on the "Your Four Year Old",
is "Wild and Wonderful", so that should give you some idea of what to expect!
You might also get the 3YO and the 5YO books, to see what your son is
transitioning from and to.  I also had the good sense to choose an
exceptional pre-school teacher, who helped me through this time by giving
me suggestions for things to try, as well as unemotionally assessing my son's
behavior.  Your pediatrician may also have some suggestions.  Since my son
was in love with (and imitating) the Turtles at that time, she suggested
cutting down on his Turtle watching, and cutting it out completely when he
hurt me.  This did help.  But what helped the most is the misc.kids mantra,
"This, too, shall pass."  Good luck - if you want to commiserate, please
write.  You may say something that rings a bell and I can offer some more
suggestions.

				Lyssa