Dear Kory,

Hugs for you! This is a hard situation--if it's any help to you, around here at least, this kind of behaviour seemed very much tied to being 4. Four was really hard here, all three times (my youngest recently turned five, and my husband and I both breathed a big sigh of relief!) For our kids, anyway, four seemed to be the age when their reach most exceeded their grasp, and we had to find ways around (or through) that frustration.

It sounds like you're already finding these ways (your art solution sounds great!). Something that worked really well for one of our kids was tons and tons of outside time (he'd live outside if I let him!); all of them respond well to lots of exercise. Another idea: I wonder, does your son have a special teddy bear or anything? Maybe he could tell his bear some of what's bothering him? Or he could try to teach Teddy to write or read? Or write a letter to Teddy, where spelling won't matter, since Teds don't know how to spell anyway?

If you get to the point that you do want some help with teaching reading, Mona McNee's book "Step by Step Reading" was a wonderful help for one of mine--the other two were reading all by themselves very fluently very early, but reading was just an exercise in frustration for my outdoor lover--I would have been OK just leaving it be for a year or two, but he really didn't like being passed in reading ability by his younger brother, and the McNee book got him up to speed very efficiently (he's now reading several years past grade level). Being able to just pick up a book and read it whenever he wanted was a great pressure release valve for him, too--it was well worth it to us in the end to have sat down and worked our way through the reading lessons.

Hope some of that helps a little bit--

peace
minnie