Oh, three... I forgot how awful three is!!

[MacKinnon]

My DS turned 3 in January. His normally sweet, funny, lovable personality has totally changed. He is difficult, causing a tremendous amount of trouble just for, I don't know, the reaction? He torments his 6 year old sister unbelievably. Tackling her, throwing things at her, hitting her, pulling her hair, throwing her toys, etc. He is SOO very rough. We try to wrestle with him, take him out as much as we can, etc but it is Michigan in February and those opportunities can be limited. We played outside in our 10 inches of new snow for 2 hours this morning, we came in and had a good 2 hours, then he is back to the throwing, tackling, shooting, hurting... We've gone throw a slew of natural consequences, taking away toys he throws, removing him from his sister, holding him until he can calm down... Time outs worked for a while, until he learned how to climb down from the stool. Now he just gets down and runs away laughing. EVERYTHING is a trial, and I'm exhausted. I'm 10 weeks pregnant, I work out of the home 3 1/2 days a week, I've got two kids at very different ages and stages that need different things. DH is gone from 5am to 7pm most days. So I have very little to no help except for bedtime. He is OK at school, he goes to a wonderful play based developmentally appropriate program that is great about taking them outside or down to the gym at least twice a day. His behavior is better there, but still challenging. He is VERY verbal and VERY bright, which is compounding the behavior. I need help! Ideas, strategies, thoughts? ANYTHING besides selling him to the circus until he is 5? Help!

[sunnmama]

I have a 3 yo son and a 9 yo dd. My little guy is pretty laidback as 3 yos go, but he still likes to play ROUGH!

My first thought is, how does your 6 yo react? Can you work on her learning to get up and simply walk away, without any big (rewarding) reaction? My 9 yo can handle that, but I'm not sure how a 6 yo would do. If the big kid walks away and goes off to do more interesting things (without the tormenting younger), that can be an effective natural consequence. My 3 yo shapes up quickly if he thinks his sister will stop playing with him.

Is he getting enough sleep? Is he hungry? My little kids generally only acted that way when something was "off", kwim? Either they are bored, tired, hungry, or angry.

[mysticmomma]

I don't like three year old's either. No advice, just commiseration.

[Mamabeakley]

mysticmomma. Maybe I should be that honest, too.

My first thought, too, was, how does the 6 yo react? I have a 6-in-2-weeks yo and a 3.5 yo. They are BOTH rough. But the awful thing is that DS1 WON'T play w/DS2 a lot of the time & is mean besides. I understand DS2's difficult behavior b/c he feels so hurt & rejected by his brother. We are working on it in a variety of ways and I think its getting better, but . . . , OP.

[Alyantavid]

Yeah I wish I had some advice. We're just trying to struggle through at this point. I have an almost 8 year old as well who can be wonderful with his little brother, or just not want anything to do with him. It's very trying.

I did get a great report on how he's doing in preschool yesterday and I know he behaves himself there, so that's something I guess.

[sunnmama]

Speaking to the problem of older sibs not wanting to play--

We protect our 9 yo's space to play away from ds. Her room is not exclusively her room (we have a 2 bedroom apt, and ds's things are stored there, too), but she has the right to close the door and have some time alone.

But, along with that, we insist that she use that space if she wants to be/play/read, etc alone. She is not allowed to play in the living room (where ds plays) and ignore him. The living room is a social space, kwim? If you build a fort in the living room, that is an invitation for him to play with you. If you want to have a fort all to yourself--you have to do that in your room.

Those clear boundaries (for both kids) have helped keep the peace around here. Ds sometimes cries when she won't let him in her room, but then we offer to do something fun with him For the most part, they choose to play together and happily!

[Jessy1019]

Three is a terrible age. I'm convinced that the only people who yammer on about the terrible twos just haven't ever had a three year old!

Lots of sympathy . . . he'll outgrow it. My son will be four on Saturday, and in the past few months, he's been getting progressively better.

[Jenine]

Oh what a relief!! I've been feeling like a horrible mother recently because I'm not enjoying my 3yo that much! He is driving me crazy. He is also rough but with his 4 mo. old little sister and me, I feel tormented. The days seem endless.

[hopefulfaith]

I came to this thread because I'm enjoying a Mike's Hard Lemonade after a very challenging day with Sarah, and then I saw that it is you. I have no good advice, but I'm raising my bottle to you. Perhaps our three year olds would enjoy a year at the circus together. They can come back next year, when they're four and more civilized. Four is better these days, and I never thought I'd say that, considering all of my "four is terrible!" posts a few months back. Four is now a walk in the park compared to three.

Sarah not only freaked at the dentist yesterday, she actually had a tantrum while ice skating this morning, on Adam's field trip (A's teacher specifically invited her to come). She actually threw herself down on the ice, splaying her iceskate-clad feet widely apart and started screaming. I had to carry her off in front of Adam's entire class and their moms. (Why? Because she didn't like the chair she was pushing. She wanted the red one.) That was fun. She sat at the table the rest of the time, while I finished skating with A. It's not safe to scream/throw yourself down on the ice, so the natural consequence seemed to be screaming fit = no skating/come back when you're calm. However, I'm finding that sometimes Sarah could care absolutely less about natural consequences.

My girlfriend expressed amazement that I "allowed" Sarah to behave like that.

I wish I had good ideas. I don't.

I am sending you lots of and remembering how tired I was in early pregnancy - hang in there. Lots of love.

[justice'smom]

I also have no good advice, but want to say thank you for this post. My 3 yr old has been so sweet, funny, and kind and now just drives us mad. Not only is he rough, but he is whinny and demanding too. Not even an hour ago I feed him his lunch and he got down from the table and asked me for something else to eat. I was just getting ready to sit down to feed myself and the baby since we had not eaten yet. Anyway, I told him I would get him something else after I ate. He told me he was sick and tired of me not getting him something to eat and that he was going to stand on the table since I wouldn't get him something to eat. It's nice to know that this will probably all end soon. At least I hope it does.