4 year old tantrum

amother

Tue, Oct 24 2023, 9:51 pm

My ds is very wonderful—happy, polite, bright. Loves the baby and making him laugh. But…

sometimes, usually when he hasn’t gotten enough sleep (despite our best efforts), he will get extremely upset and try to hit and punch and kick and spit. It only happens at home, maybe once or twice a week at most, but many weeks go by without anything of the sort. Obviously the best solution would be for him to never be tired, but unfortunately that ends up being unavoidable sometimes (like when he doesn’t fall asleep right away and gets up early).

Neither my husband nor I ever did anything like that at that age (except against close-in-age siblings) and I’m wondering:

1) how common is this behaviour?
2) what should I do about it when he’s trying to hurt us?

It doesn’t usually take that long for him to calm down (I can’t remember him being so upset for more than 15-20 minutes in the last long while, and the hurting us is only a part of that time), but obviously it’s something that it’s never okay to do. Wondering how to approach the situation.

BrisketBoss

Wed, Oct 25 2023, 8:07 pm

I mean, it seems like you know all the pieces. Try to avoid this tiredness in the first place. Block his hitting when it happens, try to share your calm. This isn't so abnormal and it's just the way it is right now. Your child knows it's 'not ok' but that doesn't really matter. There is nothing you should feel obligated to do in terms of teaching him proper behavior; it's just a stage that will pass.