Help Me, Obi-wan, You're My Only Hope

"Kill the pig! Slit 'his' throat! Bash 'him' in!"

Ah, Lord of the Flies. It was mildly entertaining in high school, but when I wake up every day to my four year old chanting it beside my bed it loses its charm. Our little angel, our polite, smiling, laughing little bundle of pure happiness has developed the hair trigger temper of David Banner.


All kidding aside, it's become a problem. When he gets upset about something, he goes completely off the deep end and lashes out with whatever is at hand. While I admire his adaptability, it's starting to effect home and school.

Liam has a friend in pre-school named Jack, and if he doesn't get to play with Jack, either because Jack is off sick or he doesn't get to be Jack's partner while they are walking to the gym he loses it. Like throws his lunch, yells and screams, kicking/punching/threatening his teachers loses it. We've got 'that boy.' We're so proud. Unlike his older brother, Liam loves going to school and we don't want anything getting in the way of that, but we can't seem to get it through his little block head that he can't act like that while he's there. Terrorizing his family is one thing, but we'd like to keep the illusion up to our neighbours that we know what we're doing.

When Connor was at this age we could work with him. It got to the point where I could just give him a look and he'd put himself in time out. Liam is his polar opposite. The yin to his yang, Jekyll to his Hyde, the Data to his Lorn and we don't know how to deal with him. Time outs and being sent to his room do not work. After screaming burning epithets at us for a few minutes, he'll just make up a game to entertain himself with. One exasperating day I asked him what he thought mommy and daddy should do to make him understand. He suggested taking away all of his toys. Reasoning, punishment, goals, bribery, yelling, screaming and swats to the ass have zero effect. He doesn't care.

Now, that said, when he isn't being the poster boy for anarchy (which is only a small amount of the time)he's still a little angel who wants to snuggle, who will remember to say please and thank you and genuinely appreciates what you do for him. Friday afternoon we took him to the doctor's because we think he has allergies. The doctor confirmed that he does and that his ears are plugged up. While talking about it we realized that his change in attitude corresponded roughly to when he started his snot-capade. The doctor recommended giving him antihistamine daily for the next two months to see how it helps and hopefully being able to breathe and hear properly will turn things around for him. Unfortunately since he's already started down this prickly path he'll still need some reprogramming.

Any suggestions? Seriously. We need some help here.