On My Wits End with a 3 Year Old Boy... Is This Normal?

I don't know who came up with the terrible twos when 3 is so much more horrible. I'd talk to the pediatrician but s/he will tell you it's life with threes. The best thing is that that they do settle down at 4. Hang in there. And I'd do something about that screech! Needs some swift action when it happens.

Don't overthink these things. We can make anything in today's world out to be something it's not...it sounds like fairly normal 3 year old behavior.

Be firm, be consistent, be loving. He will grow out of the three's!

most of what you write sounds very normal. 3 year olds are in a constant whirl of discovery, and its attendant frustration. they're not infants any more and the world is their oyster BUT they don't yet communicate well, and so many of the fascinating things they encounter are off-limits, or don't react the way they think they will, or alarm them.

put yourself into his 3 year old shoes and don't expect adult, rational responses, and it'll start to make more sense.

yes, it's possible he's got some sort of syndrome. sometimes symptoms do start showing up at this age, and if your radar is beeping madly at you, get him tested.

but make sure your expectations are in line for what 3 year olds are like. in addition to all the frustrations, littles this age are intensely charming, fascinating and oodles of fun. your inability to enjoy him concerns me, and may in itself be causing some of his anxiety. kids pick up on that really, really well. we kid ourselves when we think we're hiding it from them.

i'd suggest you take some parenting classes (not because you suck! or you're stupid! or a bad parent!) but maybe if you had a better perspective of how 3 year olds develop and process you'd enjoy this delightful stage more. or if you have stressors outside of the parenting paradigm, work on getting a handle on that. this is such a marvelous stage- i'd love for you to be able to groove on it. it'll be gone in an eyeblink.
khairete
S.

I call them threenagers. All the sass without asking for your car keys. lol.

Don't over explain things to him because after 2 sentences you turn into the grown ups on Charlie Brown. Instead get down to his level and gently move his face so that you are making eye contact.

Temper tantrums = time out. When you are trying to get him to do something like put on shoes to go to school you can use my daughter's wear them down technique. You say I know you are frustrated that you can't stay home and play but you need to get your shoes on for school. Lather rinse repeat. You are giving words to his feelings but after a few times he'll give up and put his shoes on.

Just remember that when you figure out how to deal with this stage he'll evolve into something harder.

Yes, it's normal.
Welcome to Terrible Threes!
The good news is it gets better at 4.
For not listening to you - you have to get his attention before you start chatting with him.
When he's playing or his attention is elsewhere - he really can't hear you.
Twirling hair - some kids just do it for awhile - there's nothing to do about it but it'll go away on it's own.
Screeching/screaming - tell him "No - we use our inside voices" and put him in a 3 minute time out in his room every time he does it,.
Tantrums are just part of Terrible Threes - he can pitch a fit in his room and come out when he's done. No one needs to listen to that.

Sounds a lot like my son at age 3...he could be impossible. I had to get down on his level and touch him and get him to look into my eyes when I said something to him otherwise he would not hear me. He would be so busy playing he just could not take the time to listen to adults talking. He hated not getting his way and would have tantrums...huge ones. It was challenging. I would ignore the tantrums or even carry him to his room and put him there to scream it out. When he was done and exhausted then we would start over. I remember trying many different things and reading many different books when he was this age. 1-2-3 Magic helped...just not giving in and being very consistent. Nothing helped 100%...he just had to get older and become more mature. Good luck! Parenting is hard work.

I imagine you're stressed by all the stuff that's happened. Now put all that on the 3 year old's shoulders. I don't think it's about "did he get enough attention" when all these changes were going on. It's the changes, period. The tantruming, hair twirling, "spacing out" sound like how he's coping with the overwhelm of all the changes that happened.

Whatever you can do to bring things back to "normal-ish", or build a routine that he can count on/fall into. And he's picking up on your stress and exhaustion and frustration. Somehow you have to find some balance and peace from all the changes so you can help him find his. If you can find ways for the grandparents to help out weekly, with anything that'll take some weight off your shoulders, that might help. And if they can watch your youngest so you can have some alone time with your son, AND monthly watch both so you and hubby can have some time, that might help also.

Sounds like both of my kids when they were three. But it wouldn't hurt to get his ears checked. He could have ear pain or plugged ears. When our daughter was a baby she started screeching like that. I thought she had just discovered her voice. After about three days of it she spiked a fever. She was diagnosed with a double ear infection serious enough that her ear drum had burst. No sign of it for three days except the screaming.

Updated

Sounds like both of my kids when they were three. But it wouldn't hurt to get his ears checked. He could have ear pain or plugged ears. When our daughter was a baby she started screeching like that. I thought she had just discovered her voice. After about three days of it she spiked a fever. She was diagnosed with a double ear infection serious enough that her ear drum had burst. No sign of it for three days except the screaming.

I love D. D.'s term "Threenagers"! They are moody, they think of themselves!

This sounds so normal for a 3 year old. First of all, you just cannot ask a 3 year old "How was school?" In fact, you'll see a zillion Mamapedia answers that tell you not to both with that question for 5, 7 or 9 year olds either. You either get nothing, or "fine" or "I don't remember." What your 3 year old is thinking is not at all what you want to know! So at a quiet time, or when you're at dinner, or in the car, you can ask a much more open ended question like "What was the most fun thing you did today at school?" Or, better, look at the drawings or little projects he brings home (or what's on the bulletin board) and say, "Tell me about this. How did you make it?"

He's engaged in his own activities - totally normal for 3 years old. He doesn't understand the "manners" involved in responding to a greeting with his own greeting.

Twirling the hair? Not sure - it may be a habit, it may be a sensory thing, it may be an obsession. Time will tell.

Screeching? That's a tantrum, just like his other tantrums, and you don't give in to it. If bedtime is when he's overtired, then start a half hour earlier, and do it with quiet routines: bath, teeth, pajamas, story (not an action story), snuggle in bed with a lullaby or quiet talk, and lights out. If he's screaming, it's for attention - that doesn't mean you haven't given him enough. It means he's getting a payoff for screeching, which is additional attention even though it's negative. Maybe he doesn't want you talking to anyone else (like answering the buzzer), maybe he doesn't want an interruption to his routine, I don't know. But my screaming kid went right into quiet time in his room (none of this "sit on the step until you calm down and I'll sit here and keep you in your seat"). He needs to be deprived of your attention when he does this until he can calm down. I don't think it helps to try to talk over him or tell him why screeching is a bad idea. You just remove yourself from it and he will learn it doesn't work and that it's more frustrating than whatever precipitated it.

Try one of the good discipline books including the "spirited child" book - it's really important for you to have an in-control, calm attitude. Your stress, while understandable, can actually be making your child more anxious and unable to calm down.

If a tantrum has no benefit, it will stop. But that means you have to very calmly say, "I can't understand you when you are crying/screaming/storming off" and "I'll talk to you when you are done yelling and throwing things."

It also helps to give kids a warning time before they have to transition to the next activity. If you come in and say, "Clean up, we have to go to school" then he will feel interrupted and ticked off. If you set a timer or give a 2 minute warning - "2 more minutes and then we will clean up and go to school" or "Let's put your things over here so you can continue with them after we go to the store" you will start to get a better result. It doesn't happen the first time so don't give up - it's the consistency that's important. And don't get into the situation where you are bribing, like "If you clean up now, you can pick out some candy at the store." That gets old fast, and they wind up never doing anything without a return. And sometimes they just have to do what needs to be done.

It concerns me that you aren't enjoying your son. The more strong but loving structure and techniques you can employ with confidence and consistency, the better you will do with this child and with the second one when she gets into the act.

Has he had a recent hearing test?

For all of my boys, they reached the peak of unbearable behavior at age 3.5 and then were noticeably more tolerable as they moved towards their 4th birthdays. With my oldest, I was convinced that I was raising a sociopath and brought him to a psychologist (this was after he bit my arm hard enough to draw blood, through a sweater, at the grocery store). I really, truly felt like I was failing at parenting and that something was terribly wrong with him. He was very moody, angry (what on earth inspires such anger at age 3?), had tantrums, cried a lot, couldn't sit through a meal at a restaurant, had meltdowns at the store, couldn't tolerate hair cuts, would tear his room apart and kick the door and throw things when told it was time to pick up his toys, would insist on wearing shorts outside in the winter, didn't handle transitions well, and one and on and on. Turns out he was just being a 3 year old boy LOL. I'm happy to report that he was dramatically more pleasant by his 4th birthday, a pretty cool little kid by the time he was in Kindergarten, able to roll with the punches and adapt to changes, and at 17, he's pretty normal.

That said...he was later diagnosed with some issues, specifically ADHD inattentive and some learning disabilities. So something my pop up later, but there is nothing to really be diagnosed or treated now and if there was anything now, it would be picked up by his preschool teachers and they would bring it to your attention.

A very helpful book for me at the time was Raising Your Spirited Child. It gave me great insight into what's going on in the minds and bodies of kids who are "more" (cry more, feel more, are more sensitive, more stubborn etc.). Once I was able to better understand him, I was better able to respond to him, predict poor situations, and head off a meltdown. For example, I learned to really listen to and respect his "no" - this wasn't a kid who was going to say no to something and then regret not doing it and therefore needed to be coaxed or pushed into something. When he said no, he meant it and was fine with it - no to amusement park rides, no to laser tag at a birthday party, no to a concert with loud noises, no to a deep-sea fishing trip...these were all things that while seemingly fun and age-appropriate, would have been a sensory overload nightmare for him and he knew it and was fine with it. So I had to be his voice against well-intentioned relatives and friends who tried to convince him otherwise. He does enjoy those things now, but he had to pick them on his own terms. Another area was with transitions - even at his own birthday parties,he was slow to warm up. So I would invite one friend to come 30 minutes early, they would play and by the time everyone else came, he was ready to have fun and not try to crawl back into the womb via my lap. And so on and so on - it was good for me just to know that my concerns and perceptions of him being atypical ("more") were not my imagination or the result of bad parenting. He was (and is) wired a little differently and that's OK. I learned what makes him tick and he learned too, and together we figured out how to have him function with ease.

This is actually pretty common at his age. Even though you and the grandparents gave him lots of attention, not seeing Daddy, new baby sister and remodeling will cause stress.

A couple of thing will help (but not cure). Make sure he gets plenty of sleep, and make sure he is getting to bed early enough. An over tired 3 year old is even harder than a typical 3 year old. Make sure he eats often - every 2 hours is good. If he starts acting up or hasn't eaten in awhile, offer him a cracker with peanut butter or a piece of fruit. We used to always say, "You have to feed the monster!" A drop in blood sugar can have a big effect on little ones, and some kids are more susceptible than others.

Hang in there and know this is very, very common. Keep working with him to learn and grow and develop good habits. But also know that this is very typical of 3 year olds.

What are his consequences for tantrums and screeching? If he has none then that's why he does them. I have one easy child, one very spirited one, and one extremely difficult one. They all curbed that behavior quickly with calm warnings and firm enough discipline. The book Back to Basics Discipline by Janet Campbell Matson is great. However, if he really does seem out of it sometimes, I'd check into that! It's completely normal for him to ignore you (if allowed) but if something seems physically wrong with him then get it checked!

you just described my 3 yr old dd. she does all this and a little more ( throws herself on the floor and kicks while screeching) she twirls her hair and everything else you describe.
she does better with a solid routine. and having busy work to do when shes gotta sit still and wait (like at a drs visit)
so it seems that weve got normal three yr olds! and i loved reading all the responses that reassure me on this. days get hard, my ears hurt from the tantrums. i recharge with momy time and weekly mommy in the classroom time at my older child's school.i even have times where i tell dh that if i don't take a break i will snap and then i retreat to my room, dh keeps the kids in line and makes sure they leave me alone for a bit so i can recharge before returning to mommy work.

If the pre-school is taught by actual teachers with degrees or training and experience they should be letting you know if they see anything out of the ordinary.

I KNOW teachers aren't doctors BUT they spend hours and hours and hours and week and weeks and years in classrooms with normal so when there is abnormal it sticks out like a sore thumb. It's very noticeable.

So ask the teacher how he seems. Is he doing well? more questions like that. Don't say "I think something is wrong with my child". They might not know anything about abnormal and that sort of question might make them "look" for abnormal more than normal.

My point is find out from them what they think of your son without giving them any influence or suggestions. See if they see anything to be concerned about.

If you still think this is a problem then call your insurance and ask them for the names of psychologists in your area that do evaluations for autism and other things like that on the spectrum. It might be that they'll say the pediatrician has to do a referral. If the doc won't then do get a second opinion. That way one doc's decision won't be wrong and hurt your child's chances of getting evaluated.

But if everyone says he's fine you might have to wait it out and see if more comes of it. He sounds okay to me. Parts of it. The screeching is annoying for sure but it could be anything. That is the thing that would bother me the most I think.

You should have him evaluated.

I have a 3 year old, too, and I think everything you described are generally normal except for the seeming "out of it" part. I say that they're generally "normal" only because I've gone through some of those exact situations with my daughter and she's gotten over them.

As for # 1, my daughter does the same exact thing -- she doesn't always answer when I ask her about what she did at school or when I ask her to do something. She also has trouble answering some questions involving time -- this morning, yesterday, last weekend, etc. because she's still learning the concept of time. Just make sure that you're at his eye level and be right in front of him (you're not talking to him from across the room).

Regarding # 3, My daughter also did the screeching, but it was because she was feeling something intense that she could not verbalize (usually extreme anger when something didn't go her way). Give your son words for his feelings and teach him to verbalize rather than screech. Once my daughter knew the words and learned how to express her feelings, the screeching stopped. She still does it once in a while, but it's rare. It's was a process and definitely didn't work overnight. Does your son hate or get scared of certain sounds/noises? That might be a reason why he screeched at the sound of someone buzzing in the door. Just a thought.

And as for #4, I think all kids around this age have temper tantrums, and in your case, some of it might have to do with having a little sister. My 3 year old was also around 2.5 years old when her little brother was born and I noticed that she threw more tantrums. Although it might've been something she would've gone through regardless of whether she had a new little brother, I tried to give her as much attention as I could and to teach her to verbalize her feelings, which I think helped with temper tantrums. Ignoring the tantrum also helped -- ignore the tantrums and give him attention when he's being good/not throwing a tantrum. This will also take some time. So patience and consistency is key.

I don't know what to say about the hair twirling except that I've seen kids at my daughter's school do it. Of course, just because there are other kids that do it doesn't make it "normal," but I don't think it's something to be too concerned about at this point.

While I agree with the moms that all this sounds pretty typical, if you've got a mommy instinct going off that you are unsettled about, I would mention it to your pediatrician.

I had concerns at that age and allowed my well meaning friends and family to convince me I was being overly neurotic. My mom instinct wouldn't let it go so I asked a trusted family member to be honest with me and she agreed. It was nothing too serious - my son had trouble hearing and needed tubes - but I am glad I finally listened to myself.

Not saying at all that's what your son has. There is no way anyone on here can tell you if it is typical for your son or not. You know your son best. If you feel something's up, just mention it at next appointment. At the very least, it will ease your concerns.