My eldest was like this when he was that age and my youngest is behaving the same way now.
I found that they needed extra stimulation as daycare wasn't providing enough and they were/are ready for school. It is like they are pushing boundaries because they are bored and deliberately getting me angry/annoyed was an interesting pay off for them.
For my eldest, as soon as he started school, he went back to his normal self as he had new experiences to explore. For my youngest, he starts school next year so I have to ride it out. I have spoken to his carers and they said they often get the kids who are starting school the next year behaving this way for the last 4-6 months before the move up.
We have had some similar things happen here with DD.
The main one I have noticed is undoing the seatbelt just before I have parked the car. I have told her that is she does that then I will have to get her a harness again and put a lock on the seatbelt so that she cant put her own seatbelt on or take it off. She didn't like that idea (it seems to all be about power and control with her at the moment). We haven't had any issues with it again but I know I will need to follow through if she does do it again. I have explained the importance of seatbelts and we have spoken to someone (one of her carers) who was in a car accident and how having the seatbelt on stopped her from getting hurt.
I also have had her deliberately try to run away from me at the shops and laugh about it in recent weeks. I was so furious I took her straight to the car and I did lose my cool. Not a proud mummy moment but I just couldn't believe she did it when she knows its dangerous and that she had the nerve to laugh about it! grrrr!
Anyway in attempt to curb the behaviour I have started a sticker chart. There is no prize for getting a certain number of stickers, just the joy of seeing the chart fill up with stickers. She has 3 things she can get stickers for.
1. Listening to mummy and daddy
2. Cleaning up toys
3. Bedtime
I kept them broad so that it is easy to apply. It is working really well. We have spoken about how wonderful it feels when everyone is happy and that seeing all those stickers on the chart makes mummy and daddy smile. I even threw in that when Santa comes to the shops, she could take it to show him how good she has been. LOL!
Might be worth giving something like a sticker chart a go and see if that helps.
Ali thanks so much. You reminded me we had talked about a chart but I never got around to making it. I will do that tomorrow. We were going to put on it keep room tidy, empty and load dishwasher... And something else. I forget. Bad mummy. Anyway. I will do that.
Thanks for all the reassurance that the six months before school can be the hardest. I really hope that's it... Like I said, she's smart, so the boredom thing rings true. I'm going to look into reading eggs... Mathletics...
And I'm going to ask about the seatbelt lock thing. Actually I will tell DD about it and see if that helps.
Edit: wysiwyg, thanks, just saw your response... That rings true, wanting to help... It's possible she heard the car (loud Diesel engine) and thought she was helping. The seatbelt was on the way home from kinder but we were up on the main road that goes from the highway down to my street (if you remember how far up that is?) so we were only about half way home. Don't know.
Ok, phew, might need to readdress things. This needs thinking...
We found that DD1's behaviour was going down the toilet earlier this year, so we decided on movie night. We endeavour to put DD2 to bed, then we pick a movie she hasn't seen, get a bag of potato chips and curl up. It's past her bedtime but she can stay up, her little sister is in bed and it's just special time with us where she feels a bit grown up.
She only gets it if she has good behaviour (mostly!), throughout the week. It works really well as both a reason for her to try and do the tasks we set (like making her bed, putting placemats on the table) and just because she absolutely loves it. I told MummyNaomi about it and I know they are doing it with DS too - hopefully she pops in with how it's going.
To me it sounds normal - DD is a bit younger but have had similar type issues - one with wee - where I am sure she wee'd on floor in front of toilet just to see what it felt like, also doing things which she thinks are helpful or a surprise but not allowed things - like running round to the front of the house from the car without telling us (car and garage are a little way from house and we are on a main road - she is allowed to go on her own but must tell us).
I think the thing with your DD and the opening the front door, for them what they consider being helpful trumps all other info they have been given on the matter. (I think as adults in certain situations we do things too where we are so caught up in the being helpful or doing a favor etc we don't always think things through fully IYKWIM). They sort of want to demonstrate their independent thinking but don't always get it quite right. Was the seatbelt thing as you were coming home or going out? If coming home I can imagine DD would do that because she would think being helpful by being ready to get out of the car once home (as she can sometimes be a real pain about getting out) - and even though she knows is not safe to do it at that moment in time she comes up with this great idea of being helpful forgets all that.
DD is also doing things that she knows are wrong and then having a funny reaction (tonight she lashed out at DS without any provocation (who she is actually extremely tolerant of considering his current penchant for grabbing her hair and scramming her face) - then was crying her eyes out saying "slap me mummy, slap me hard - please slap me, I really want you to slap me". No idea what was going through her head - but you could almost see the cogs going round in her brain - that she wanted to test my reaction both to her hitting DS and to her wanting to be slapped - is like she does these things to store up the reaction so she knows for future reference or something.
I don't really have any useful ways of dealing with it though - I hadn't really thought of it as pushing boundaries more of a just coming up with the wrong answer to a set of circumstances. With DD with the running round to front of house thing which has done twice so far - the second time I just tried to explain that although was nice that she wanted to be helpful and good by getting to front door without a fuss, it only was helpful if she told me because otherwise I would worry. She seems to get it now. I think of them a bit like mini computers sometimes, e.g. she knew running to front door was wrong, but knows helping mummy is good - her brain computes it is better to be good so will help mummy by running to front door, but now has tried it and I have explained making mummy worry is wrong - her brain is getting to grips with evaluating multiple criteria and so far is making right decision.
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