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[quote=Anonymous]OP--stop and take a deep breath.  The last 1-1.5 years has been extremely difficult for many people, adults and children alike.  I've observed some of the virtual classes and talked with other parents and many kids are having issues and acting out.  One of the other reasons that I am on the teachers side in the parents vs teacher war.  The teachers have had to deal with so much especially with children who are stressed out from the pandemic and virtual learning and home situations.  Even normally well behaved children are acting out in class and being difficult, losing focus, or burned out.

It sounds to me like you are burned out and stressed (so many parents are) and it sounds like the stress and situation are bleeding out to your children.  That type of behavior and inappropriate body control issues sound very much like children who are stressed out and do not know how to handle their emotional distress and lose control of themselves.  They are so young that they don't know how to handle their emotions, and they have so little control over their environment that they just lash out.

A few things to help normalize things.  You need to set up some private space for the kids.  They need to have some space where they have control of the environment, they can leave their mess around without driving you nuts and have some personal place.  If they don't have space in bedrooms for the private space and there is no other room, like a small apartment, then carve out a corner for them.  We have a playroom for our twins and last year in the pandemic they were driving each other nuts interfering with each others things.  We ended up getting a couple of open plastic shelves and two small bookcases from Ikea and we built a corner of the room for each kid where they can do whatever they want and parents and twin had to stay out of "my corner".   One asked for a little table and we put one of those small picnic tables with benchs in his corner (took up about half of his space) and he set up his Legos there and his brother could not touch the Legos that he had built in his corner.  The other set up a small crafts space where he could work on crafts stuff  without his brother tampering with it.  We also stopped enforcing "cleanup" in the playroom.  So they could leave the room a horrible mess (and it was) and we would not nag them about that.  But they had to keep the common areas clean as normal.  They became better at keeping the common areas clean as long as they had a place they could control and leave their mess without being nagged.  Just that one thing helped all of us.  The parents were happier because the family room and kitchen spaces were cleaner and they didn't fight us or complain as much when we asked them to clean common spaces.  The kids were happier because they had a place to hang out and not be nagged about.  We also hung artwork on the playroom walls with painter's tape and when we ran out of wall space, we talked about what they wanted to replace.  When something came down we asked keep or trash?  They trashed some of the old stuff and we had a bin for each kid to toss the art projects to keep.

We also let our kids pick their own clothes.  We consult them when we buy clothes, so we get clothes they'll like.  We let them pick what they wear, even if the colors clash or they don't seem to go together.  IF it is someplace important, like going to church or visiting grandparents or the odd time we go out to eat (in the "before" times), we pick.  But the simple act of letting them pick their clothes most of the time, means they fight us less when we ask them to dress nicely in clothes we pick out.

Just a couple of examples.  But look for places, things, events, where you can let them have some control without driving you nuts.  Give them control of some aspect of their own lives where you stay out.  It will help their emotional stress to have some place or thing or choice that they control without nagging.  Find a way to create a boundary so that their control is restricted in a way that will not drive you crazy.  The boundaries will be good and healthy for all of you.  They have control inside the boundary.  You have control outside the boundary.

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