Yeah it's nice in theory Maz, have tried it LOL. But then he still does the same things and still gets upset and by just turning it into something fun, we're ignoring what he's feeling about something. We are just working on helping him calm down so we can talk and work out what made him so angry. Time out is working... it's not used all the time for every little thing. I don't really see anything cruel about being taught to take a moment and compose yourself. Some of the time out I'm with him. I take him into another room and cuddle him to me until he calms enough to talk. I often find out what's bothering him by doing this and then we work out a different way to handle it, and he's actually really good at trying my suggestions... even if they don't always work! LOL.

Changing blatant disrespectful speech into a game backfires too, cos then he thinks he's being funny and it comes out of his mouth every 5 seconds.

I just read Janet's reply to my angry 4yr old thread.. and yep... think I'm definitely going to be working on at least two things that I know triggers it... tiredness and hunger! LOL. Just like we've said here. I need to think ahead for more structured snack times etc and a stricter bed time. We've avoided some crankiness tonight by having the slow cooker on and dinner was ready when we walked in the door just now. Hopefully we can calmly move on to bath time and into bed between 7/7.30 tonight!