Do you need to consult your pediatrician?
It’s best to speak to your pediatrician or specialist if your child is exhibiting consistent undesirable behavior that puts them or other children in danger or makes social situations impossible.
Your child may need a professional assessment or have special needs that need to be navigated. Many parents and children respond well to behavioral therapy, even without special needs, to help learn appropriate behavior and response in a tense situation.
Discipling your 4-year-old
Dealing with a challenging 4-year-old can be frustrating. It can make you wonder if any of your actions are actually making a difference for your child. But it’s important to be aware of how they way you discipline your child can help or harm them.
Timeouts
With preschool children, timeouts have been shown to change behavior up to 80 percent of the time. Timeouts are most effective for changing one specific behavior in the long term.
The key to timeouts is that they must involve making sure that as the parent, you are also removing yourself from your child. It’s not so much the timeout that does the job, but the fact that your child is removed from your attention that makes timeouts so effective.
You also have to be sure to talk about the behavior after the timeout in a gentle and loving way. Understand that when you first try timeouts, your child’s behavior might get worse initially as they test a new boundary.
Verbal reprimand
It’s necessary to use verbal reprimands when dealing with preschoolers who are constantly looking to get into trouble. But the key to using verbal reprimands is keeping them few and far between. This means not repeating yourself 1,000 times. When you do that, your child will not take you seriously.
You should also always be sure to frame the reprimand to the child’s behavior, not the child. For example, you could say, “Johnny, I don’t like that you ran away from me in the parking lot,” instead of saying, “Johnny, you are bad for running away from me in the parking lot.”
Tips for managing your 4-year-old’s behavior
As you learn to help effectively manage your 4-year-old’s challenging behavior, try to keep these tips in mind:
- keep a positive emotional tone
- maintain a positive behavior cycle (praising behaviors that you want your child to display more of and not giving them
- negative attention for undesirable actions)
- keep a regular schedule for waking up, activities, and bed time
- establish consistent discipline strategies among caregivers
- give your child choices whenever appropriate
