Hi, all:

Wondering if anybody else has had this kind of experience...

Wonderful little SS seems to be in a pattern of both lying and destroying or at least dismantling toys, then lying about what happened to the toys. Recently he has:

Torn apart a foam rubber ball and then insisted to me for a solid 20 minutes that he had no idea what happened to it. I told him repeatedly that I wasn't mad and he wasn't in trouble but I wanted to know what happened. He likes to sleep with a toy and I put him to bed without one, hoping that bargaining chip would get him to tell the truth. NOPE! All that got me was more, "I'm weally tellin' da twuf." As a last resort, I told him the lying was making me sad, then that he was headed for a spanking if he kept telling me stories. Only the spank threat registered, but even it took a few minutes to work.

Two days later, he was getting in trouble at preschool for not paying attention. He told the teacher he couldn't listen because he was sooooooooooo hungry since he hadn't eaten that day. That got a letter sent home to his mommy, who must have felt about an inch tall, "reminding" her to feed him! He ate a huge breakfast at her house that day. I felt badly for her.

Last night, he was hiding something under the covers in his room when I walked in. He kinda threw his body over his bed and said, "Don't look under the covers. There's nothing there." I giggled, humored him, and left it alone but when I looked later, there was a favorite toy in pieces. It wasn't broken, just taken apart, but he was hiding it.

He seems happy and well-adjusted going between our house and his mommy's. It's all he's ever know. Do you girls think this is this just part of 4-1/2 year-old boy "growing pains?"

Thanks!

SMIT