Both of my children are a bit dominant with other kids

[brytal]

Nothing I'm proud of at all and I'm very much trying to understand why and how I can change it.

First DC is 3, second is 1.

I don't remember my first really playing with kids at 1. It was Covid so I didn't take her to playgroups.

She played on the playground with kids and always seemed very interested in them, but she wasn't a bully and didn't take other children's stuff or push in front of them on the slide etc.

She started nursery at 2ish and I was told she sometimes snatches etc.

Then her brother came along and all was fine until he started being able to take her toys etc. she often pushes him away, doesn't want him to play with her stuff. Tug of wars. They argue a fair amount about toys. They don't want to share with each other, all quite normal. I step in on repeat to try to teach them.

1 year old has recently stated socialising more with other children and he's pushing in on the slide, pushing children down, taking their toys etc. I'm of course stepping in on repeat.

As it stands though, when we go anywhere, they're definitely the children who are not behaving very kindly towards other children. Of course we step in, but it's not nice and it seems like it's going to take a while for them to stop doing this, because they also do it at home with each other so much.

Any advice or experiences ? Is it always like this with siblings? The younger one then becomes a bit of a ' bully ' quite young ? I'm the younger sibling and was beat up by my big brother a lot, but it made me timid with other kids, rather than a fighter.

People mean different things by 'normal'. Some use it to mean common, others to mean 'what most children do', others mean something more like 'developmentally inevitable at a certain age'.

Let's say you have a preschool class in which a majority of the children are not typically developing (that's really happening right now). In that class you could reasonably say it's normal to not be developing normally!

Yes I do.
I also work with children.

I agree with all this, and this is what I do with mine. Time outs are for deliberately being unkind or destructive after warnings (they're 2.5 and 5)

I think it sounds normal and like you're handling it fine. My friends little girl is very very dominant and she's very much into gentle parenting which has zero impact in improving her behaviour towards other kids. Her daughter is at the point now where other kids don't want to play with her which I find really sad. But it doesn't sound like that's your situation at all

I’ve actually not ever come across a 2-3 year old who has ever been deliberately unkind in a way that we would associate with older children. For example, when my oldest was 3 and my youngest was 1, sometimes the eldest would be “unkind” but generally this behaviour was showing me a need, either for attention, or that he was frustrated - either way, it was never something I would have made him go away into time out for. He needed help understanding how he was feeling, not banishing.

However, every child is different. I know that for us, it’s turned out well. I have a 13 and 10 year old who are lovely and get on well, however yours may respond better to different strategies.