Behaviour change at age 3

[<3 Mumofthreetobe <3]

OMG. My lg has just turned 3 & she has all of a sudden turned into this little brat of a kid!! The sulking, the back chatting, the fighting with her little brother. She's really doing my head in. Have others found a change in their kids when they hit 3??

[CoNNiE_Melb]

Mine happened just before 3 and has continued now that he's turned 3.

I ask him to do something and the answer is either 'no, don't want to' or 'you do it'.

I'm finding that now is really the time to be consistent and follow through... We always say 'if you don't clean up your toys, I'm going to take your 'insert item' away'. But we just keep repeating and don't follow through every time, need to be more consistent!

[YoYo]

Age 3 is a killer!! I share your pain

[<3 Mumofthreetobe <3]

I'd had enough the other day. She wanted to play play dough. I warned her beforehand if she was naughty I'd throw it in the bin. She was, gave her one chance. She was still naughty, so I threw it in the bin! That's when the tantrum started. I ignored her then repeated to her why I did what I did - reminded her what she had done and what the consequence would be and that's why I did it. It's hard following through sometimes.

[Arimeh]

Threenagers.

They suck. I have one.

But the good news is, I've survived 2 of them before, so the likelihood of me surviving another one is pretty high.

[CoNNiE_Melb]

In the theme of following through, I've already put my DS in the 'naughty corner' twice today.

[Babyluv]

We have this going on at the moment. Dd is 2 & 9 months. I would like my sweet little girl back.

[Lily Dust]

Threenagers.

I heard this and I ADORE it!!! It sums it up perfectly

[YoYo]

All my threenager has done today is whinge and whine. No words just moaning!! Decided we needed to get out of the house.... Took the car to get the tyre fixed and she's fallen asleep on my lap. Nawwwww now I love her again.

[Jaycee]

I have just started noticing a change in DS2, he is 2.5

My beautiful sweet little boy now turns into a naughty litle boy. Lucky for him he goes back to the sweet little boy pretty quick

[raffy]

Oh I'm glad it's normal and not something I'm doing wrong, DS1 will be 3 in October and over the last few weeks he has turned into such a brat! He is so full on! Every minute he is awake he is doing something he shouldn't and its driving me crazy! I have to constantly be stimulating him with some form of activity but the second I turn my attention to something else eg, talking to DS2 or preparing lunch. He starts acting up and it's usually poor DS2 that cops it by the end of the day I'm physically and mentally exhausted

[Heaven]

I remember DD1 going through that stage when she turned 3 as well. I wondered what on earth I had done to make her turn out like this!! lol. Luckily it was only a phase and it didn't last too long. Hang in there!

[HotI]

when does it break?

[Lily Dust]

Incase some of you haven't seen THIS thread....

[Heaven]

when does it break?

Gosh, I can't even remember now. It seemed it started instantly when she turned 3. I was counting myself lucky we missed the 'terrible twos' but it was 3 that was challenging. She was back to normal in a few months I think. Or else I just changed how I dealt with it. I do remember realising I was just fighting with her all the time and that wasn't helping anyone. I tried to stop needing to control everything and go with the flow more, and let her have more control and responsibility where I could. I also worked on our daily rhythm and introduced more activities to keep her occupied and challenge her. That helped a lot, our days are smooth and easy now. Maybe only until DD2 turns 3, LOL.

[Arimeh]

when does it break?

When they turn 4

[<3 Mumofthreetobe <3]

Incase some of you haven't seen THIS thread....

Ahhhh very interesting!!!

[Arcadia]

Transition times are always hard for kids and parents!

I try and remember that they are going through something, not me so I need to offer lots of hugs and support, as well a very firm boundaries about some things. I find the more you try and control them the worse it is so pick your battles! I am really firm about safety and property damage but I had to relax a lot about other things.

Try and go with the flow and say yes as often as possible, even if its a yes but answer: yes we can blow bubbles but outside, yes we can do jumping but out on the trampoline etc.

Good luck! I actually found 3.5-4 hardest for us, but dd does seem to be more challenging in the lead up to a birthday and just delightful around her birthday (I don't want to say delayed but in some ways she does hit those emotional milestones later). So far ds is bang on his birthday!!