Small Successes are Important - 4 Year Old Boys & Testosterone

For the best part of his 4 1/2 years Sebastian has been the most easy going, lovable kid you could imagine.  He's child number three out of four and has three sisters.  Let's just say he's very loved and he knows it, just like all my children do, but he's the only boy so it is kinda different.

Sometime back in February or March we started to notice a marked change in his behaviour.  A combination of rough play and bursting into tears at the slightest thing.  He hated day care and started to become a little clingy.  It was all new behaviour.

When we were in the USA he had a great time but there were definite times when he became frustrated and had difficulty keeping it together.  The whining has had moments where it's reached epic proportion.  Our sweet, easy going, little guy had suddenly become quite challenging. 

He goes from divebombing off the couch and wrestling J to absolutely bawling because I won't let him have a second muesli bar.  While I was away the other weekend, I forget which one, Steven said...'I just don't know what to do with him'.  I told him to pick up the book next to his bed and see if it would enlighten him any.  Not surprisingly he didn't but when I got home I did, I opened it to Chapter 3 and started reading.

The book Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph, the chapter - Testosterone.

We had actually realised that the crazy ninja behaviour was associated with the 4 year old testosterone surge but it was a conversation with my sister that enlightened me as to it also being the reason for his crying outbursts.

The Testosterone chapter in Raising Boys was very useful for helping us understand what is going on with our boy and help manage some of the craziness.  It also helped us understand why he hated daycare so much.  With all this testosterone running rampant in their bodies four year old boys find it very difficult to handle situations that they feel uncomfortable in or are not what they are expecting.

The one chapter in the book has helped us to put a few little things in place to make our days with the litle dude run a little more smoothly

• Small successes are very important.  Do things with your little guy that will give him a sense of achievement in his slightly out of control world.  Sebastian's big grins and fist pumping action when he had success playing games on the Playschool website were so cool.
• Structure and routine are important more now than ever before.  Your little man needs a set of guidelines to work within so he knows what is going to happen next.  Our local kindy provides 2 afternoon and 2 morning session per week for each child, at the moment this change between Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday/Thursday isn't really working for Sebastian.
• Introduce the days of the week in a more formal way.  Maybe give him his own calendar,  this will help with variable routines and what to expect.
• Sebastian loves playdates so I try to ensure we always have a new playdate booked for him to look forward to.  It helps keep the whining and nagging to a minimum.
• I find that I need to be ultra engaged with his play to keep it from deteriorating into couch divebombing and sister ninja kicking.  Four year old boys have short attention spans.  If I get caught up doing something else for 5 minutes too long the house will get turned upside down pretty fast, going to the toilet can have pretty severe consequences if I take too long!
• Break jobs like 'tidying your room' into smaller more manageable pieces.  Sebastian is very successful at tidying up after himself if I give him one job at a time rather than a blanket 'tidy your room'.  It also gives that sense of achievement when he is finished.
• Let them take a leadership position from time to time.  Sebastian very much dorected our cooking activity on Tuesday.  It was very cool having him 'teach' me how to make something he had cooked at kindy.  I'll share his recipe for spinach & cheese triangles with you this afternoon.
• Make sure they get plenty of time for outside play to let off steam.  Boys will be boys, they love rough and tumble.  That will never change.

I'd love to hear any tips you have to share on boys & the four year old testosterone surge to help us get our days back into some sort of organisation.

Tatum xx