In the last six months a lot changed, we moved to a new house, my wife had a baby (girl) and my son turned 4 and started school.
I'm not really sure if this is the reason but for the last month or so, my son has more and more temper tantrums. Basically any time we tell him no, he gets very frustrated and angry. Sometimes shouting or pushing me. It's pretty new behavior and I really don't like it. I have talked to him after the tantrums and he usually agrees he shouldn't behave like this, but so far it keeps coming back. One other thing he does is just ignoring us whenever we ask him something he doesn't want to do, pretending he can't hear us.
The last thing I want to do is be angry or use threads (like I'm counting to 3). But sometimes it's the only way to get him to do something (like getting dressed for school).
I would really want to have a better way to communicate without the negativity.
Thanks this is very helpful. He didn't have big tantrums at 2-3 but he would respond to being told no in a very bad way, by hitting himself. As a parent it's so hard to watch and we talked to him dozens of times, told him we love him, no need to punish yourself,etc. Very happy that was mostly a phase and he stopped. He also at that age 2-3 would bite (us, other kids, daycare lady).
This all sounds horrible, but 95% of the time he's a super sweet smart little boy. I think he's very sensitive and really doesn't know how to deal with his own emotions.
When we talk to him sometimes he just says he doesn't know why he got so mad. Sometimes he just doesn't want to talk. Maybe we have to try more to let him name his feelings and especially during the 95% of the time when things are good.