3 year old with severe behavior problems

Please help! I am a mother to an almost 4 year old boy with severe behavior problems. He spits on people, kicks, hits, screams 'shut up'. He does this on a daily basis and often without warning. He is in preschool and even acts this way to his teachers and classmates. He has broken windows in our home and broken my car windshield. On a daily basis he tears up books and tells me to shut-up. He has been acting like this for the past year and it seems to be getting worse. We have seen a therapist and she suggested putting him on medication so we have an appt. with a psychiatrist next week. I can't see putting a growing 3 year old boy on medication but then again we can not continue to live with this. This is tearing my family apart and if his behavior does not improve the preschool will no allow him to attend. Just to give you some background: He has never been abused and comes from a two parent home with an older sister. His sister does not have this behavior.

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

I am not a fan of medication for children, but it does sound indicated in this case, at least for a short time..you might ask for an even more extensive evaluation by a child psychiatrist or a university department before you decide on medication or some other method..there is a child behavior forum here on med help, and they know much more about this than I do.