Ahh, yelling and say something bad in front of children always puts a smile on my face.

Before my grandma Fran died, one of my last memories of her was on this camping trip. She was reading a story to Kate, my 4 or 5 year old cousin by the fireplace. My grandma was smoking a cigarette, and Joyce, Kate's mom, walks by and says "Have another cigarette, it's healthy" in a sarcastic tone.

And then Grandma Fran, with Kate still on her lap, says without missing a beat "Ah why don't you blow it out of your ass."

As to the situation, I'm a firm believer in handling the situation with kid gloves. If your kid is being lippy and talking back ro doing bad shit, then call them on it and don't back down. But don't be so hard on them that you traumatize them and all.

Two points:

1. In all the years people have been having children, no child has ever cried himself/herself to death. Never even been injured by cring. Let the kid cry, don't respond to that form of manipulation.

2. A child needs to accept that there are things he/she can't have/do. Distracting a child/changing the subject does not teach this crucial lesson. Later on, the world will teach the child this lesson, and it will not go well. And there will be nothing you can do about it.

Greek-lol! Very funny.
I never would have had the guts to say something like that to my parents.

Once, when I was Very Young (two or three), I exhorted my mother and father to "STOP FIGHTING, OR I'LL THROW MY LINCOLN LOGS AT YOU!"

Not sure how this is relevant, except that I agree that parents ought to be wary of fighting in front of their children.

I think it's a good sign that you can laugh about the whole thing. We parents take ourselves and our parenting too gorram serious, most of the time.

My two cents, re: fighting in front of the kids -- yes, better for everyone if you can present a united front. When you can't do that, it is INVALUABLE that your kids can see their parents being RESPECTFUL as they work through a disagreement. (And that respect clearly broke down here, probably at some point before your recounting of the dialogue begins.)

Finally, and most importantly, if your kids see you fight, be damned sure they see you make up, too. Even two- and four-y.o.s need to be reassured that you still love each other, their world hasn't been broken, etc. Especially, especially, especially when the fight was about the child in the first place. That is just a scary, scary power/burden for a kid of any age, IME.

I've got very little advice about the 4yo's mouthiness, as I struggle with this constantly in my 3yo son. My current strategy is to a) model the respect I want to hear from him; b) praise/reward him when he gets it right; c) ignore the bad stuff as much as I can. Failing all of the above, I probably threaten and whine as much as the next parent -- but I'm working on it.

Don't get me wrong here. When my daughter asks Why, more often than not, she's looking for a way out of what she's doing. The not part, well, she's genuinely asking why she has to do something. I can tell, mostly. Its when she asks why when she's asked to do routine things she's been asked to do a hundred times like wash your hands. Asking Why then is just trying to aggravate. My wife seems to think that everytime she says it, she genuinely wants to know why. I disagree. And, yes, I know what I said was wrong...And not just because the boy repeated it.

I agree that your wife shouldn't have said what she said, it was pretty awful, but you shouldn't have said what you said either.

May I offer a bit of advice, as a long time nanny?

1) You and wife need to decide between the two of you how she's going to be disciplined so that you're working as a team and then stick to it. Or else she's just going to continue to act out because there's no consistency to the expectations of her behavior. Either that or she's going to figure out how to play the two of you off each other, which is worse.
2) She's 4, which means she's going through one of those phases where she's redefining who she is (much like the terrible twos, sorry.) Crying and throwing fits is just part of the territory. Her asking why is part of her figuring out who she is and how she fits in with her world. As frustrating as it is, you should try to respect her curiosity. Instead of getting angry, try telling her up front exactly why she's being asked to do something ("It's time for dinner so please put your toys away.") Dunno if it'll help, but there you go. My nickel.

I'm in no way an athority on this subject as I'm still childless, however I'll put my 2 bits in anyway.

Not punishing children for behaiving in a disrespectful manner is not doing them any favors. You know all those jerky adults who think the world revolves around them? You know, the ones who cut in line, yell at waitresses, and talk durring movies? Their mommies and daddies never told them "no", and they always took the children's side when teachers or other care givers tried to remedy the problem. i.e. "Oh, you didn't do anything wrong. That big mean teacher just doesn't understand."

That being said, kids mouth off. They act up, and they think the world revolves around them. You are not a bad father. You're just trying to remedy this problem so that your offspring can become productive memebers of society rather than one of those people we all hate.

*whew* rant done.

Personally, I think what wifewithpez said was worse and more hurtful than what you said. I think your son repeating her words would be worse than him repeating yours.

Oof, the problem with Grandmothers. My sister-in-law has a 6 year old daughter named Jill. She is a rude, disobedient child, no matter how cute she is. Her parents discipline her, and then her grandmother and great grandmother get mad at my sister-in-law for the punishments, saying"Why are you punishing Jill for this? When Lucy and Ella do the same thing, you don't punish them?" Well, Lucy and Ella are 2 AND 1 YEARS OLD!!!!! JILL KNOWS BETTER. My mother-in-law and my grandmother-in-law always try to tell my sister-in-law how to raise her kids. I'm an outsider, but I've seen them in action and I just want to scream sometimes. So ruttin' annoying.