Hello, I'm about to become a stepfather to a set of 4yr old twins, one boy and one girl. Here in the last few days the boy is becoming uncontrollable. He seems to be a bit sadistic with talk of shooting, stabbing and killing with friends and family when he doesn't agree. He will not listen me when I tell him to do something or not do something and gets a smart mouth frequently. When confronted about being in trouble he'll actually change the topic sometimes to something completely random. I confront him when he does something bad and he'll completely avoid eye contact as I know that is important. Pretty much the only discipline that does have some effect is time out as light-med spanking (not too hard about 3 times) only makes him cry and does not enforce anything. We think he is picking up on these bad habits at daycare/pre-k as we don't let him watch anything violent on tv. I've threatened to remove every toy gun and am seriously thinking about doing it. His first thing to do when we get home is to turn on the TV, i'm thinking about stopping that as well. He's said some weird random things like he told my brother over the phone that he was going to kill a cat and eat it so he wouldn't have to get pictures taken. His Dad is a bit sadistic and lives a loose lifestyle, I know since I've been friends with him since 2nd grade.
The girl is an angel most of the time and a bit of a tattle tell who'll get an attitude sometimes. I think she is improving as she sees I reward her for being good. I'm just trying not to have to bribe them to behave as that'll teach them wrong. Could use some advice and techniques to help get rid of the boy's negative behaviour.