3 yr old son, acting out when mom dropped him off to me (his father)

work765

this behavior was just a little bizzare and out of character for my son, so i've been thinking about it a bit.

Basically his mom and I have split custody and take care of him an equal amount of time.
The other day his mom dropped him off and he came inside my home like usual, and within minutes did things that he knows are completely forbidden and have never done before. He spit water on my face, and then made a huge mess by breaking up a ton of styrofoam.. These two things were way out of character. He is pretty well behaved.

so I was just trying to wrap my head around why he would be so mean within minutes of seeing me. Mom dropped him off and he had no reservations on leaving her. He just said bye and gave her no hug.. and came with me, and was all jolly as usual. Then he spit on me...

My ex wife and I have been separated since he was 1yr old.

ELF4321

You know how they they talk about terrible 2s? 3 is much worse.

FabulousMrs.P

He is probably just testing the water to see what he can get away with. My DD is 2.5 and every now will do things she KNOWS are not acceptable in our home. It just part of them growing up. We just try to be consistent with what is and isn't acceptable behavior and within a few days she does back to her normal self.

Ya Never Know

Not sure if this could be what's going on, but my DD gets mad at me if I'm gone out longer than she likes. In the summer I there are things that I do on Tuesday and Wednesday nights so I don't get to spend as much time as she'd like with her those days. When I'm home Thursday, she usually takes an hour to punish me for being gone by acting out, not listening, getting in to stuff, wanting nothing to do with me.. then she's fine after that. Maybe your DS just missed you, which for my DD is currently an expression of anger.

ASmallWonder

I agree with the issue being that he's three.  Discipline him and power on - it gets more and more...fun lol

work765

YaNeverKnow...

Your response, was kind of what I was wondering.. Either if he was mad at me for leaving him too long with his mom, or vise a versa; that he wanted to stay with his mom for more time.

I know about terrible twos and threes... and testing the water.. I deal with it almost daily.. The reason why I posted was because this was not one of those usual testing things.. it was deliberate as if was upset about something. And I tried talking to him but hes too little to really articulate deep emotions...

Obviously everyone's child is different.. and as parents we definitely have an intuition when it comes to our own and their emotions.. So.. I was trying to figure out what was bothering him.

work765

or maybe im just reading into things.. and wanted to hear that he missed me...

who knows!

ASmallWonder

You're right that all kids are different but I think in this case you should chalk it up to an off day and wait to see if similar things happen again Plus I always say that the only consistent thing about kids is that they're inconsistent.  So even though he's never done it and is usually well behaved, this age is ripe for learning new (and often undesirable) things faster than you can even comprehend them having been exposed to it.  Does he go to daycare?  Nuff said lol