Does your 4 yo still scream?

[slightly crunchy]

Like, regularly scream when he can't do exactly what he wants? Not every day, but some days, several times a day. Nothing like when he was 3.5 : but still, he screams an awful lot.

After letting it push my buttons more at age 3, I tried to be more accepting and let him express hiimself, while explaining how to take deep breaths, talk to me about why he was angry.

Now, 6 months later, we are going through the same thing again. It is hard to be accepting of screaming when it disrupts what the rest of us are doing and hurts our ears. I think we are handling it okay from a GD perspective, but is it normal??

[Bartock]

Originally Posted by slightly crunchy

Like, regularly scream when he can't do exactly what he wants? Not every day, but some days, several times a day. Nothing like when he was 3.5 : but still, he screams an awful lot.

After letting it push my buttons more at age 3, I tried to be more accepting and let him express hiimself, while explaining how to take deep breaths, talk to me about why he was angry.

Now, 6 months later, we are going through the same thing again. It is hard to be accepting of screaming when it disrupts what the rest of us are doing and hurts our ears. I think we are handling it okay from a GD perspective, but is it normal??

Yes, but mine is 5.

[Hatteras Gal]

My 4 year old screams and bursts into tears sometimes when she doesn't get to do exactly what she wants. She never did this until she turned 4. I thought 1,2, even 3 was a breeze but I think so even more now compared to what 4 is.

[shoefairy3]

my 3.5 yr old and my almost 5 yr old both do this
I'd love some suggestions on getting it to stop :

[OakBerry]

Mine is just 4 and he doesn't do it too much anymore.
I have a low tolerance for screeching and screaming, I mean, it puts me over the edge, and I think ds learned this by age 3. I was pretty tolerant up until then, when he was nonverbal. I don't mean if he hurts himself or is very upset he can't scream, he just can't screech at me because he wants the blue cup instead of the red one, things like that.

[slightly crunchy]

At least I am not the only one. Thanks for responding.

I don't have a high tolerance for it, either, in that I won't let his screaming just take over the whole house anymore. I expect that eventually, he wil stop screaming. If it is all out screaming and he keeps it up even after I ask him to lower his voice and talk with me, then I do different things. Generally offer a hug (usually not accepted!) and start breathing deeply and ask him to do it with me, work on lowering his voice. If he is just not accepting of help and it keeps up then I ask him to scream in his room if he needs to do that. Crying is fine, upset is fine, talking about it is fine, but the earsplitting stuff that goes on and on when I am trying to talk and play with ds2, is crossing a big personal boundary for me. He IS getting better and better at taking it down a notch when I ask him to.

So, I've got another year or so?

[MamaDimstam]

Oh yeah.

I found age 4 to be particularly difficult for screaming. My son, that is- dd is more of a whiner. He'll go from 0 to 100 in seconds when he doesn't get his way. What I find difficult is getting him to calm down enough to tell me what the problem is.