Bring on the flames - I deserve them! My 3.5 y/o DS1 is a wonderful little boy, but still very prone to tantrums, which I think is normal at that age. I try to follow a gentle discipline approach, and it works very well usually, except lately he's been aggressive and I've snapped a few times. We do "time-ins" for minor things (we both go to his room and take some time to talk about the incident), and for really major things (hitting or running away onto the street, say) I usually have him sit by himself for minute or two and then we talk. Works well usually, except this week. Here's what happened: we were at the playground when the baby had a massive poop explosion in the carrier (and me!) and he was crying, so we needed to come home. DS1 refused. I started walking, knowing he's follow. He did, but screaming at the top of his lungs that he wanted to stay. By the time we made it home, he was hysterical and started kicking and hitting me, then went after DH and finally, the baby. I picked him up and brought him to his room and closed the door behind us. He picked up a heavy book and hit me, and that's where things got ugly. Normally I would have walked away and allowed him to calm down, but we started wrestling (for lack of a better word), me trying to restrain him in his fury and him still trying to hurt me. At one point, I stormed out of the room and tried to close the door with him pulling on it. I let go, and he went flying, hit his head, and got a huge bump as well as a bleeding nose from hitting the floor. I started screaming for DH, who then started flipping out at the blood, and poor DS1 is still howling on the floor. DH did a great job at calming him down (and himself), but I cannot get over it. I cried the entire evening and all through the night, holding on to him (we all co-sleep). I feel like an abuser and a bad mother because while we were fighting, I WANTED to hurt him like he had just hurt me. I did not intend to, never would, but ultimately, I did. This is also the second incident this week; on Monday he threw a glass on the floor and I yelled at him and got so mad, I came very close to throwing something at him. It turned into a two-hour screaming, threatening match. Ugly... I need to learn how to not get so worked up and defuse the situation as opposed to making it worse. I'm tired (sleepless baby) but otherwise very happy at the moment. So why am I getting so angry? Thanks for reading, mamas.