OPINION: 'Does anyone know what to do when your three-year-old tells you to f**k off?'

We’ve got the sweetest little boy in the whole world, I swear to God.

But sometimes, he says and does things that are just not in his nature and I keep telling him: “That’s not you, that’s not who you are, you’re a good boy, with a good heart, I know who you are,” and then he tells me to “f**k off”.

He is three-years-old.

And the truth of it is, he is a good boy.

He wants to be involved in cooking his own breakfast, lunch and dinner, he loves baking soda bread with me on weekends, he loves to hoover the whole house (I’m not making this up), he tells us every day: “Daddy, I love you. I love Lily (his sister), I love Mammy, I love Sophia (our dog).”

That’s his regular mantra, and he also says how much he loves his new house and playing hurling in the halls and it is all one big fairytale when he is in this kind of form.

And then something happens. It could be something small like Mammy or Daddy saying: “No, you can’t have that until after your dinner.”

And his responses start off pretty polite.

“No, go away, I not happy with you.” And then he persists in asking for it and we persist in saying: “No. Listen to Mammy and Daddy.”

And then the red mist descends. “No, you go away, f**k off! I kill you! You not nice to me.”

Then the shock sets in for us and we’re trying different ways to react to these outbursts, such as: “I’m hurt now, I’m sad cause Jack said a bad word (several of them actually and a threat to kill which I think is a criminal offence)”.

I’ve followed child psychologists on Instagram and they’re part of my daily social media consumption now and I love each and every one of them.

David Coleman is my favourite, he gets me through the day sometimes, I swear to God.

I think our young lad is going through some three-teens thing and we have no clue how to deal with it or react even and to be honest, at times, it feels like we’re losing total control.

I’m sure many parents reading this have felt that same way at one stage or another when it comes to their kids.

It’s a very frightening feeling.

Because, what do you do?

How do you react? What’s the best way to react and how do you react that way consistently when the child’s behaviours are constantly changing and the boundaries of appropriate behaviour are being pushed, moved and knocked down sometimes.

And then there’s the other side to him, the three-year-old who is actually magic around his seven-month-old sister and she absolutely adores him and she thinks he is the funniest person in the world.

We’ve found him in the room with her, just the two of them, and he is playing peek-a-boo with her and she is in stitches laughing.

We’ve even caught him dancing for her, which she finds hilarious as well.

The dog even trusts him now to sit beside him and get rubbed and NOT hurt, pulled or kicked off the couch.

For a three-year-old that’s pretty impressive.

As I said already, he is great around the house for sucha young boy and is just generally a lovely child to be around, most of the time.

The issues we’re having are around the word “No” and the explosions that follow.

And then when he calms down he is always so contrite.

“Jack and Daddy no fight, I love you Daddy,” he says. The clever little devil. And you’d be on the verge of checking into the asylum, but it does warm the heart when he comes back to us.

We’ll get there, I hope.

And as David Coleman says: “Okay folks, mind yourselves, mind your families, hang in there.”