Grandson

Emily Bronte

I have two grandchildren who live with me. I love them dearly however the boy who is 4 is quite moody and angry. If I ask him to do something he gets angry with me.
I'm worried about him. Is there anythhing I can do to help?
Emily

January

Does the mother or father also live with you or are you their full time carer and guardian?

If you think there is something up you can get a referral to CAMHS (Child and Adult Mental Health Services) or to the HSE psychologist who can then, if he feels it is needed, refer on to CAMHS.

Is he in school or playschool/pre school? What do his teachers think?

Emily Bronte

January wrote: »

Does the mother or father also live with you or are you their full time carer and guardian?

If you think there is something up you can get a referral to CAMHS (Child and Adult Mental Health Services) or to the HSE psychologist who can then, if he feels it is needed, refer on to CAMHS.

Is he in school or playschool/pre school? What do his teachers think?

He's in preschool and is getting on fine there. His mother ( my daughter) lives with me too.

How Strange

My experience of 4 year olds is that they still can't understand their emotions so perhaps take a bit of time with him when he's angry or moody and tease out what he's feeling and help him put a word or words on it. Also take a look at the situation you're in at that moment and ask if there's anything contributing to his mood and that could include your behaviour or the other people around him. My son has a tendency to blame people when something doesn't go his way. We're working on it with him but at least he's now aware of it and we're trying to help him find different way of coping. It might sound like a small thing but sometimes it can send him off in a rage.

I think the great thing about 4 year olds is that you can sit down and talk to them.

January

Is it only you he acts like this with or is it others? I'd be speaking to his mother to try to resolve this rather than trying to resolve it myself if I were you.

LegacyUser

I'd echo the posts above. Also I don't know what the past history is obviously, maybe you should think about that too - has there been conflict there between his parents or anything? Often that can be the cause of a lot of anxiety and anger in small children because they don't know how to deal with it, or how to express their feelings about it. If there has, this could be part of his "reacting" to what has happened in his family situation, if he has an awareness of it. Small children notice and take in far, far more than most adults realise, and many of them worry terribly about it.

December2012

Four year olds can be loud and shouts. There is lots of wanting independence which could be considered angry.

Do you cuss too much about things that don't matter? There are lots of people who stress about coats and keeping clean etc that is unnecessary

What does his mother think?

Emily Bronte

Just looking back at this post I shared 2 years ago. My daughter and her 2 kids have a place of their own now. Things have greatly improved with my grandson. He's 6 now and is like a new child. He loves coming on sleepovers to my house and I enjoy him coming also. Think them getting their own place has helped alot and perhaps because he's that bit older now has helped too. Very happy with the situation now. Thanks for all replies at the time. Sorry if I didn't get back to you.

cant26

Emily Bronte wrote: »

Just looking back at this post I shared 2 years ago. My daughter and her 2 kids have a place of their own now. Things have greatly improved with my grandson. He's 6 now and is like a new child. He loves coming on sleepovers to my house and I enjoy him coming also. Think them getting their own place has helped alot and perhaps because he's that bit older now has helped too. Very happy with the situation now. Thanks for all replies at the time. Sorry if I didn't get back to you.

So lovely to read this. Take care x