My LO just turned 3 and for the past couple of months I've been having to deal with more defiance and testing of boundaries. I've had to be far more firm with him about getting him to listen to me. I don't give in though and just let him know he can do what I'm asking him to do or else he won't get to do whatever he finds fun. Being difficult at coop preschool? We can go home right now. Yelling when we tell him its time to get changed into pjs? Then you can go to bed right after instead of getting to play before bed. I also tell him that if he doesn't stop doing X,Y, Z that I won't play with him and I walk away.

I've done a lot of attachment parenting of him up until now and continue to do so, so he knows that I love him and will support him. I also will let him have some say over what activities we do -- so he has some control over what goes on in his day (such as wandering around stores and taking escalators on the way home from downtown/work yesterday -- not something I wanted to do but he wanted to explore which is fair enough).

I feel like my parenting since he was a newborn is paying off though, even as he needs to test his boundaries and authority in the world. Still it is a challenging phase with lots of yelling (him) and more scolding (me and his dad).