[Kathleen]

Our four year old is going through a phase I like to call the "testing my limits to see how much I can say before I go to timeout" phase. When he is told something to do that he doesn't particularly want to, or told he can't have something, or told to stop doing something he's doing (you know typical 4 year old behavior) instead of throwing a tantrum, he's saying things like, "Go away" "I don't want to see you anymore" "I don't love you" "Leave me alone".

Right now, we are being pretty quick to nip this kind of talk and he's sent to time-out and not let out until he can apologize for the specific thing he said to try and hurt the other person's feelings.

I was just wondering if this is a typical phase. No one else talks like that in the house so I'm clueless as to where he picked it up and thought it was ok. Even he will say that no one talks to him like that. Is there anything else you can recommend to alter this behavior?

[Mom2boys]

My older boys went through this between 4 and 6 I think. But unfortunately while it does get better for a while, then it just gets worse when they get older. Arrrggghhh! The mouthiness never seems to fully go away.

Just stand your ground. That's the best advice I can give you.

[ladtk]

Is this your first?

Be happy it did not start sooner. Mine does the same and knows exactly where the corner is. I am thinking she is going for a record lately, how many times in 1 day she hears the word corner.

[Mel]

It was my birthday recently and I invited my mother-in-law and her 3 girls around who are 4, 18 and 20. The 4 year old has no manners and seems to be treated like a monkey since her older sisters are grown up and moved out of home. We ordered pizza in, were sitting at the table and to my horror she comes out with 'now I want you all to shut up when you're eating, so shut up'. Everyone off course thought this was adorable and laughed. She had a huge mouth of pizza whilst saying this and I was not amused even the slightest.
After finishing I asked her to wash her hands as it is a well known fact pizza is usually greasy and I did not want her wiping them on my brand new modular which cost me a couple of thousand. Now it was her mother this time that replied 'and you're having kids'. I said when we do have children old sheets will be staying on the couch and they will still have to wash their hands.
Now really isn't all this stuff common sense and is it really a big deal to say go and wash your hands, especially if you're at someone else's house? It really has made me angry, but my husband off course didn't hear any of it so I don't think he believes me.

[Fleur]

Sounds like MIL needs to get a grip. My mother would have killed me if I'd said or done something like that at someone else's house! I didn't let my kids be that disrespectful or mess up someone's house, especially expensive furniture. I know kids can have accidents but my gracious, that's rediculous!