4 Year Old Anger Problems

[tiredmomof2]

My son is almost 4 1/2.  He is an intelligent, articulate delightful child about 75% of the time.  He does well in preschool (no discipline problems) and also in his activities (karate and gym classes).  We are having a problem with his frustration and anger.  He seems to have a very short fuse and can be quite moody at times.  When he becomes angry, he becomes destructive.  He rarely hits me, but he will clear off a table, intentional spill things on the floor, and hurl things across rhe room.  I discipline him with time outs and removing privileges and toys.  When I take away toys, he has to earn them back with good behavior.  (And yes, I have resorted to a spanking when things get really out of control).  A common scenario (about once a week) is a "snowball effect" with his anger.  For example, I will be in the middle of putting him in time out and he throws a hot wheel that he had been playing with at me as I am putting him in time out.  Once timeout is over and he is looking for his hot wheel, I will explain to him that the toy has been put away because he threw it at me.  He then will become angrier and quite destructive.  These episodes are very troubling to me.  During these episodes, he has broken things, put a hole in the wall (slammed the door into it and the door stopper was gone), cleared off tables and urinated on the floor.  He does urinate on the floor occasionaly when he becomes very angry with me, sometimes because he did not get his way.  He is aggressive with his little sister when he becomes angry, but not with other children.  I have tried to be as consistent as possible with discipline (but I know that I am not 100% consistent).  He and his sister do fight over my attention fairly often.  He is a much easier child one on one without his sister around.  I do not think he as ADD.  He has no problem focusing on a task or sitting through a movie.  His preschool teacher told me she does not see any signs of ADD.  He does require a lot of love, huggs and reassurance from me.   I am very good at pointing out and praising him all the times he plays great with his sister or behaves.  I think he knows what behavior I expect out of him.  I do have a friend of a friend, a physician, who says his behavior is not normal and he needs to see a psychologist. (She has never met my child).  What do you think?  Is this normal 4 year old behavior?

[tiredmomribbit]

I have a 4 1/2 year old son who is incredibly smart and loving like so many people I've read on this site.  He has major temper tantrums with his father and I where he hits, sometimes spits, grabs things like scissors, etc and swings them at us trying to "get" us.  We have taken him to a neurologist who has diagnosed him with ADHD and we've tried Risperdal, Ritalin and now we are trying Zoloft because he semms to have major issues with my husband leaving because of medical issues.  We are trying to decide if keeping him on medicine is the right thing to do.  I know that ADHD and anger issues run in my husband's family (he has at least 1 niece and nephew diagnosed ADHD and the nephew is in treatment for anger issues).  My husband has had medical issues where he was hospitalized for a week and my son's behavior got increasingly worse while he was away.  When he came back then my son didn't want him to even go to work.  For a 4 year old he has been through some really tough medical issues with loved ones (Grandma had cancer surgery twice, his dad's been hospitalized several times, mom had a baby by c-section, an aunt died, etc).  I think all of these issue have something to do with some of the behaviors but we've tried time out, talking, putting him in his room so that he couldn't get out, spanking and nothing seems to work.  We are certainly frustrated and can empathize with everyone who's posted on this site.  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[mamma5]

I was beginning to feel like the only one out there. my 4 1/2 yearold has such extreme responses when he gets upset.  it has been going on since he turned 2.  today at the end of preschool, he got embarassed when he did something he shouldn't and started screaming violently words like stupid and other worse names at me.  when i tried to walk,  him out of the classroom he started biting my hand very hard.  i don't want to spank--a last resort, but time out is ineffective.  he can't seem to control his anger. little things are explosions.  can anyone reccomend a book about this type of behavior and its management?  i don't know what to do. my other children did not do this. i love him. it just gets so overwhelming.  it makes me feel like a horrible mom.

[exhaustedmomof3]

Wow it's some what comforting to know that there are other parents that are going through the same thing that I am.My son will be four at the beginning of November.He's smart,loved to cuddle, and Smaller then all the rest in his age group.The problem that I am having is the horrible tantrums he has.I can not take him to any store,even going for a walk is difficult.He screams to the top of his lungs,kicks,throws things,throws him self on the ground,and hits his head.When he is in a frantic state like that there is no way to get through to him.I have also tryed taking toys away,time outs in his room with the door locked because he will not go for a timeout for me,taking privilages away such as t.v.,outside,and games.I'm at my wits end with my son.I love him with all my being,but it's really hard to have a child like this when I also have a 6 year old and a new born.Does anybody have any suggestions as to what to do or why he is like this.I thought that as he grew that things would get better,but it's the oppisite it's getting worse with age.

[btsmom]

I have four year old twins.  One boy one girl.  My son has been having problems at school.  They tell us that he will throw chairs, toys, kick and scratch the teachers.  Really strange behavior for him.  At home and with family and friends he is very loving.  He will kiss on you for no reason.  Both children are very polite and cudious at home and out in public.  My son loves to sit in the chair with dad and watch TV, even if it is news.  He is very concerned about others.  The twins usually dont fight at home, just the usual tiff here and there.  The school basicly forced us to go seek professional advice, which we did.  The first appointment was just tell the counciler what kind of things were going on and she gave us a few things to work on and the next appointment was set for two weeks away.  During that time I think that the school called us 6 or 7 times about his outbursts.  Everytime they call one of us goes down to school and tried to talk to him to see what was the matter.  All he could tell us is he does not know.  We have tried spanking but I got to thinking that maybe something was going on in the class room maybe something between him and the teachers.  So we stopped because we felt like that was just not fair to him to punish him that way if he just was not able to communicate his feelings to us.  On the second appointment we found out that the couciler was leaving so all the role playing and other things that we were going to work on got thrown right out the window.  On the third visit we meet with the new counciler, during the session I told my son something not to do, then the counciler stepped in and said somthing to him about the same thing and he got mad and started hitting himself and crying.  When I tried to talk to him the counciler interupted me and stopped me he then go really upset turned to the wall and started hitting it.  It went on for about two min. and then I said that I would not let it go this long or get this extreme, the counciler then started to try to come up with things to say to calm him down.  We are so confussed at the behavior only at school never at home or over at family or friends houses.  What do we do????

[karen67]

Hello - has anyone tried any one particular brand of the fish oil? And where are you finding it?  I can see the point of not being able to get them to take it straight!
I have been looking into  the Omega 3 supplements ( in pill form ) but they obviously were not appropriate for children .I tried a homeopathic ,( since I was not finding anything as far as the Omega 3 's , ) which really was just lavendula, and had NO effect on the little terror at all. It did no harm, but no change either.
Thanks-
Karen
PS: Kim, how are you doing?

[PharmRep]

I was reading the post when I came to the Omega- 3