When good boys go bad!

Ahhh…see?! A little angel!

This is 4!

My little boy was born the sweetest little angel that God ever created! He was perfect! A good sleeper, good eater, sweet, lovable and cuddly and such a little charmer.

Now he’s 4.

Now instead of being all sweet and nice I hear, ‘you suck! I don’t like you anymore. You’re a mean mommy. I’m going to timeout! (Bonus! I didn’t even have to tell you to!). You don’t love me anymore. I’m moving out. (well ok…please say that when you’re 18…not 4! Thanks!) That’s what I hear all.day.long! He still can be cuddly but only when he’s in a good mood, which lately isn’t too often. It’s been about 4 weeks of this and I don’t know what to do. We’ve done time out, we’ve taken things away, we’ve sent him to his room, we’ve had talks, I’ve had  my dad talk to him….I’ve done it all!  The only thing that’s changed at home is the weather and the fact that school is out now. But it’s got to the point that his sisters don’t want to play with him or be around him anymore, and I can’t say that I blame them…he’s been mean!

I thought it was because he was playing too many video games, which I’ve always been against, but we took that away too and no change. I’ve started a summer schedule too that I hope will make things better. About a week or so ago I packed up all 3 kids and headed to Wal-Mart in hopes of finding the perfect products to keep them busy and out of trouble this summer. We got bubbles, paints, markers, crayons, paper, a slip n slide, sidewalk chalk and a plastic bin with drawers to keep it all in. So now we have all the stuff so the next thing is the schedule. In the morning they eat breakfast, have some play time, my oldest does her summer school work and then we go for a walk. Then home for lunch and naps. After naps we go outside where they get all their built up energy out playing in the pool, slip n slide, sprinkler, chalks and running around. Then we have normal time inside, they go back out before dinner and then after dinner it’s bath and quiet time before bed. This is our first week doing it so I’ll have to wait a while longer before I can really tell if it’s making a difference.

This Saturday Rainbow is coming to install our new swing set and hopefully that will help too…we’ll see. We also started chore charts for the kids so that they can have something else constructive to do and earn points to get them surprises in the process. I just need my sweet little boy back! I want all the hugs and kisses he used to hand out at any given moment. All the funny stories he would make up just for shits and giggles. And of course getting along with his sisters and thinking they were the best things in the world. I can deal with him thinking I’m mean mommy now because well….don’t all kids do that at one point or another when they’re little?

Do your boys have attitude problems? What do you do to help get them past these terrible 4s?