To think this isn’t normal 3 yo behaviour?

[Threestepsbackwwards]

Consistent with shoving other kids out of the way, trying to kick for no reason, etc.

It’s been going on since about 16 months for context.

What are you doing when your child does these things?

If this isn't your child what do the parents do when the child does this?

Told off, removed from situation, reminders re kind hands / legs. Guessing from responses it’s not normal and is poor parenting?

Many young children start to do this but stop quite quickly when the correct behaviour is consistently reinforced. A child who hasn't learnt after 18 months of correction is unusual IME.

Yes … this is a worry.

I'm guessing that this isn't your child and you're here to have a good old bitch about poor parenting?

I wish

Way too little context.

Why and when are they shoving out of the way? Do they know how to ask someone to move out of the way?

Kicking "for no reason" - is there any kind of pattern to it? Is it occurring during a tantrum? No behaviour happens for literally no reason. Are they annoyed with the person? Trying to get something they want etc?

It could be normal at 16 months (though 16mos are not normally coordinated enough to kick) but child should probably have learned some better techniques by 3. But if they have been allowed to continue the immature behaviour and it's worked for them, then they might not have seen any reason to change what they are doing.

I’m just asking if normal or not 🤷

So why not give more details in your posts so that people can actually offer some informed advice?

Unlikely to be poor parenting if limits are set. I would consider whether this child is autistic.

Just for hitting? No, that’s unreasonable.

First step would be parenting classes.

"not normal" does not always mean "poor parenting", it could mean:

Sensory difficulties
Underlying painful health condition
Socio-emotional developmental delay
Speech and communication delay (incl hearing issues)
Poor frustration tolerance
Extra strong emotions (needing more emotional regulation skills than usual)
Underlying stress for child
Poor role models
Reactive nervous system
Poor impulse control
Struggles with flexibility
Poor problem solving skills

Some of these would benefit from a health and developmental check up whereas some can be improved with the right kind of parental support.

What are the circumstances? Any particular situations or triggers? How often does it happen?

Agreed.

There is something amiss either with the parenting or there is something amiss with your child

Have looked into parenting classes but mostly seems to be sponsored/expensive stuff, hard knowing what’s genuine. Plus I don’t think I’m doing anything drastically different. Not perfect but is anyone? So don’t know really.

It’s not about you doing anything wrong at al!! I think that can put people off parenting classes but it’s no way about blame. Parenting doesn’t come with a manual. Try your local family centre, the classes are free.

It can be normal although depends on the context. I hope this article helps https://www.ahaparenting.com/read/Dealing-with-Your-Own-Feelings-When-Your-Child-Hits

The parenting response you've suggested is not unusual which means it is an approach that works for the majority of children, so it's not likely that this is caused by a lack of parenting or bad parenting. Unless there's a huge elephant in the room like an abusive father or something.

Have a look down the list of possible underlying issues and see if any are worth investigating.

If you want a very good evidence based parenting approach to try, which tends to work even with children with challenging behavioural issues, this is very well arranged, and it's free: https://www.coursera.org/learn/everyday-parenting/home/welcome

That kind of thing particularly breaking down expectations into individual steps from where you are now to where you want to be is very good, even for behaviours which are caused by some kind of delay or difficulty with certain skills. It focuses on encouraging lots of repeated practice of the desired behaviour, rather than on discouraging the unwanted behaviour. It's a more itensive and targeted method which is backed up by research. I'd think of this as a sort of "gold standard" for the everyday reward/punishment/teaching type approach - anyone can use it, not everyone will need it. Using other parenting tools is not "bad parenting" but these might be more effective.

If this is still not helping, then it's worth exploring some of the deeper, less "obvious" issues such as autism, ADHD etc.

I would also recommend looking at Mona Delahooke's work about understanding dysregulation and stress behaviour.

Thanks.

So like now he’s on a climbing frame and another kid is coming up behind but nowhere near really. He starts kicking them in the face I took him off it (when I wedged myself up) but wtf … no provocation or anything. Just makes me wonder where I’ve gone wrong.

I'd give you health visitor a call and discuss it with them.

I did indicate it as a concern and no one got back to me. I don’t really want to go down the HV route. I do need to think about what happens when he starts school, it’s causing me a big worry as I can’t see many kids wanting to be friends with him. (Which sounds horrible but just being honest, I don’t mean I care if he’s popular but if he’s being unkind he won’t be liked realistically.)

Start with the parent blame and work backwards from there?

Sorry?

Well he's only three. Thinking from a three year old's perspective:

He might not have a lot of understanding that kicking will hurt the other child. He might enjoy some game in some other context which involves kicking (football?) and have trouble correctly transferring that interaction to this context.

He might have an excess of energy and the other child is simply in an unlucky sphere. It could have been anyone/anything. It just feels good, and is an impulsive response.

He might feel threatened by someone else being close to him, like he is going to fall off, so he is lashing out in self-preservation.

He might feel threatened by someone else being on the climbing frame, because he believes that it is "his" climbing frame, and he doesn't want anyone else on it.

None of these are excuses or reasons that it's OK to kick, but depending on his language skills you might be able to use them as starting points to find out what is happening before it happens, as you'd want to approach in a different way.

Taking him down, giving time out or leaving the park or whatever other consequence is reasonable, will communicate that you do not like this behaviour, which can help discourage it. But you still have to fill in the gap which is what to do instead. Some children will automatically learn prosocial behaviours by copying others, while some children need more explicit instruction and assistance with finding out what the right thing to do is in certain situations or sometimes in any given situation.

Finding out (if you can) what is behind the behaviour helps you work out what skills you need to work on with him in order to replace this behaviour with one that is more prosocial. For example, if you assume that he has too much energy and needs more directed energetic play to get it out, that will work really well if that is what the problem is. But if the problem is that he feels vulnerable and is acting in self-preservation, then it doesn't matter how much energy he gets out, and actually being tired from lots of physical exercise might make this worse.

OTOH if you assume that empathy is what is lacking, and you do a lot of work about being gentle and caring, and sharing, and playing with other children, this will work well if it's a problem with sharing or empathy. But if it's actually that he has too much excess energy, then he probably won't be able to use those new skills unless he's got that energy out.

(Just examples).