I’ve been known to spout advice in large vociferous quantities in all of *your* comments boxes whether or not you’ve asked for it, so now it’s my turn.

And I’m asking for it!

I have a four year old boy living in my house and I have no idea who he is, or where he came from.

He swings from over the top silly, rambunctious, noisy and ludicrously boyish, to sullen, grumpy, withdrawn and downright unpleasant. For about 5 percent of the time, I get sweet loving boy back, and all is right with the world.

So what gives?

Seriously, the husband and I have discussed it at length, and even chatted to his school teachers who say it’s just a passing phase (he is not being bullied, or bullying anyone) and that boys get a huge rush of testosterone at four, which can lead to this kind of thing.

But still. I love the little guy, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that at times, he drives me absolutely around the twist.

He’s gone from being the model big brother, to one, who would like nothing more to cause his little brother pain, anguish and as much suffering as possible. I shudder to say it, but I’m beginning to see the kind of behaviour that we only ever used to see coming from his totally brattish cousin who THANK GOODNESS no longer lives on the same continent.

I am constantly having to tell him to ‘be kind’, ‘play nicely’, ‘share with your little brother’. To the point where I am SICK OF THE SOUND OF MY OWN VOICE.

We do not believe in smacking. (It is counter productive, I can’t bring myself as a parent to dish out a a disciplinary smack, and then in the same sentence say, “Don’t hit your brother. ” I mean duh, it doesn’t take a genius to see that that kind of parenting is for the history books, and clearly nothing but destructive).  So we use a system of ‘smiley faces on the chart’ for good behaviour, removal of smiley faces for bad behaviour, and time out for when frankly neither my husband nor I have the patience to deal with it anymore and he gets sent to his room. X number of smiley faces leads to ‘reward’.  The problem is, that when he gets punished (has a smiley face taken away/gets a time out), he gets so angry at being punished that one time out quickly escalates into him shouting at the top of his lungs, and the cheek of which would make my own grandfather wake up from the grave with his belt in hand.

So interwebz, dearest, could you offer me some advice please? I am at my freakin’ wits end. I *hate* shouting at him, for crying out loud he is my sweet baby boy whose arrival heralded my own incarnation as a mother, and changed my life forever. So please? I can has super nanny advice?

I *do* believe that part of  the problem, is that at his current school, he is graduating the ‘playschool’ and instead of moving onto the Grade Pre-R with all the kids he started play school with, he’s going off to a new private school, to do Grade Pre R there. So it feels to him as if all his friends are going one way, and he is going another. Now I know, as his mom, that he is a very sociable little guy, and makes friends very easily. So while he’s feeling tense about it all now (and maybe he doesn’t even know why) I know that within minutes of starting the new school, he will be absolutely fine, and what he’s probably worried about is the ‘unknown’.

(He just came into the room now, and was so sweet and kind that I almost deleted this entire post).

So, roll up, bring your Dr Phils and your Oprahs and your Child Whisperer philosophies because in the words of Dr Frasier Crane, “I’m Listening.”

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