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Three is a conforming age. Three and a half is just the opposite. Refusing to obey is perhaps the key aspect of this turbulent, troubled period in the life of the young child. It sometimes seems to his mother that his main concern is to strengthen his will, and he strengthens this will by going against whatever is demanded of him by that still most important person in his life, his mother.
Many a mother discovers that even the simplest event or occasion can elicit total rebellion. Dressing, eating, going to the bathroom, getting up, going to bed – what ever the routine, it can be the scene and setting for an all-out, no-holds-barred fight. Techniques and tricks formerly useful can no longer be guaranteed to work. The mother’s equally resistant response may be tempered by knowing that soon, when he is Four, her child will have developed a self concept strong enough so that he can sometimes conform, and also that he will sometimes enjoy going out of bounds and saying and doing things he knows full well will not be permitted. But even when out of bounds at Four, he will usually be much less difficult to manage then now, at Three and a half.
The blog post outlines some typical 3 and a half behavious and has some solutions for ways to deal with them. I know that when I went from reacting to my DDs tantrums and explosions with equal anger to a calmer, more accepting approach it made a huge difference in diffusing the situation and from there I was able to re-establish the fair rules of our house. It did not resolve the issues totally (that came naturally when she simply outgrew the phase) but it did make the passage through the phase much smoother and helped keep my sanity.
