To be a bit concerned about this

[Longbrownear]

DS is 3 in November, very end of the month if that makes a difference (Probably not.)

He started to be a bit aggressive towards other children early, around 16/17 months. I had to stop him trying to pull other children off toys and equipment he wanted. Then started being told he was biting at nursery, this peaked 18/19 months and tapered off and gradually stopped and hadn’t happened for ages now which is a relief.

What is worrying though is that he still hits and pushes. I think he pushes rather than hits at nursery but there are some situations where he’ll hit. It just feels like the longest most never ending phase ever and it is worrying me a bit.

I know I’ll probably come in for some abuse here but hoping someone might have something useful to suggest or even if it’s normal or not?

My son was the same. He is now 3 and a half and still has his moments at nursery. When he was around 2 and a half his behaviour around other children was so bad that I was too scared to take him to meet friends as he would just hurt them. Once his speech got better then things definitely improved. Before the summer holidays this year his behaviour at nursery was great and there was no issues. Then we were off for 6 weeks and when he went back its like being back to square one. But I have been strict this week having no screen time and doing loads of positive reinforcement when he does nice things and I feel like it has made a massive difference.

If you’re worried it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit more learning around how children manage their emotions. Then you can help him to learn that too. It all boils down to he can’t deal with or express his feelings so is hitting instead. A little bit of help with that side of his development will probably help. I’m sorry I don’t have any recommendations on anything to read to support this though! Hopefully a google will point you in some good directions.

Thanks @Kam610 . I do think speech is a massive issue as his isn’t great. He has loads of words and can speak in sentences but it’s more he hasn’t got the concept of telling you something. So if he wants a yoghurt he can say yoghurt (and ‘please’ when prompted!) but he can’t seem to say ‘Oliver hurt me today’ or something - even when we try to have conversations about feelings I don’t know if any of it goes in. Not sure when this will come.

I’ve done a lot of reading @SBHon , it’s hard though because it indicates it’s normal and just says to say things like no, we don’t hurt our friends etc. Nursery use kind hands so I do too in order to have consistency but he doesn’t seem to understand. I don’t know what to do!

My son was like this. His speech was delayed so I think he was just frustrated. He went through an awful biting time at nursery,so much that I used to dread collecting him. He's now 29 and the most amazing man. It'll pass 😀

The speech thing is massively frustrating for them. He should be a lot calmer when he can communicate better. Hang in there...

Thanks, that’s really reassuring!