AIBU to keep my two-year-old at nursery when displaying increasing aggressive behaviour?

[ThePoisedOpalBird]

I'm partly posting here as it gets more replies and also because i'm not sure whats best.

I have a lovely 2 year old who has been put on a ABC review due to aggressive behaviour. So far he has been on it a week and it seems to have got worse! He has had around 12 incidents in the space of a week ranging from pushing kids down to trying to hit with items or just straight out smacking them in the face. So far nursery have not identified a single trigger!

He is casually walking up to these kids seemingly happy and then hurting them. There is no overwhelming crying or other kids taking his toys etc. He just seems to walk up to them, hurt them, smile and now runs away from his teachers (I assume as he now knows they are going to remove him from the situation and do a different activity with him.

I'm at a loss of how nursery are going to tackle this when there is seemingly no cause? Could he just be bored?

I guess my aibu is do I let nursery continue to try and work this out and hopefully he doesn't end up being kicked out. Or would it be more reasonable to remove him and keep him at home?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

There was a boy at my child’s nursery like that, we were quite worried as DS was coming home every week with new bites from him. He was put on an ABC review and plan, they told me it was about watching and anticipating and removing him from the situation before anything happens etc. The biting stopped after not too long and I saw him about 18 months later at the preschool graduation and he was the sweetest little boy. I would let nursery carry on with the plan and see how things progress.

And here is your answer. You left out the important bit, he has a 3 month old sibling. He’s frustrated, and acting out because he’s jealous. Hopefully with consistent “kind hands” and lots of praise when he is well behaved he will grow out of it. It’s not called the terrible twos for nothing.

Dc don’t really get into collaborative play until age 3/4. So late on in nursery. Many cannot do it in YR. They really don’t get the concept at 2 and many won’t understand sharing or lining up. They just want what they want when they want it.

I work in behaviour services and the use ABC is really often misinterpreted because people don’t have proper training in really understanding what they are looking at.

A few things I’d be asking specifically based on the ABC’s right now is (most importantly) how people are responding after he does it. Without clear trigger before it usually means that he is gaining something from the behavior paired with being too young to understand how it is hurting other people. Often staff in nurseries reinforce tricky behaviour by the way they respond . Generally, the function of tricky behaviours are related to a sensory need, attempts or a hope to escape or leave and environment, a need for more interaction in that moment or access to a tangible object (toys). It sounds like tangible is ruled out. If he’s being taken to another area by himself (either escape or increased interaction 1:1) that may well be reinforcing it. They need to find ways to meet whatever need he is communicating n more appropriate ways before expecting any improvement (for instance, a regular supportive adult) and all the staff need to respond consistently. Quite often 2year olds just find it interesting or fun to see how different people respond . Also worth just considering the possibility of a sensory need and if he’s a child who might get easily overstimulated with lots of other children around.

It drives me mad at my sons nursery when some of the staff report my son not listening or so on and then when I ask how they respond to him it’s quite clearly in a way that is going to make him want to do the same thing again. 2year olds often just need a quick ‘we use kind hands’ and then redirection to something else , not making a big deal and some modelling outside of the incidents about kind hands ect through play. It tends to keep happening or get worse when people try and ‘teach’ or reprimand in the moment fo a child that young.

How is it pearl clutching to say a two year old acting callous (which is a recognised diagnosis for some two years old) isn’t a potential reason.

You may not agree which is fine but let’s not insult to make a point.

No, I know they don't collaboratively play with children their own age, it's normal for them to parallel play instead. But most toddlers aged 1-2.5/3 are very interested in collaborative/social play with adults, or sometimes much older children, basically someone who is being more directive in play. Possibly I used the wrong word. But what I mean is it is expected developmentally for young children of this age group to want to show things to you, to bring things to you for help, to want you to watch them etc. They are usually curious if an adult is demonstrating a new toy or expressing interest in things, they tend to copy what adults do, esp from age 2+ (pretending to talk on a phone, drink from a cup, pretend to cook with a play saucepan etc) and they are interested in things they see you use, especially if they aren't allowed to have it, whether it's your phone, car keys, TV remote. They are normally participating somewhat in tasks like getting dressed and eating, even if they don't always want to stop playing to get dressed, and often understand very short, direct sequences like putting shoes on before going outside. They will pretend (or try) to feed you, and reach for things you are holding to indicate that they want them. They enjoy being shown books and read to, especially interactive books e.g. with textured patches, noisy buttons, or flaps. They tend to enjoy playing games with adults like rolling a ball to each other or building simple towers and knocking them down. They often enjoy nursery rhymes and simple repetitive songs, especially if they have actions. They will usually try to copy or be interested if an adult is showing an activity e.g. playdoh, drawing (mark making), stacking cups, marble/ball run, etc, for example handing you the blocks or ball to repeat the activity or wanting to attempt it themselves.

That kind of thing is normal social behaviour and play for children in this age group. Of course rough and tumble play, exploring, climbing, movement like swinging and spinning is all great and normal for toddlers to enjoy as well but it is unusual for this to be the only kind of play they are interested in sharing with adults.

Dumping everything out (and throwing things) can both be part of schema play which is also normal and healthy - you can often redirect more destructive urges like throwing into activities like a soft ball or beanbag to be thrown or things like a ball run or train track with a bridge the trains can roll down. But again it is unusual if a child is so intensely interested in schema play that they only want to do this and only alone, without adult involvement.

I beg to differ - I think you might benefit from some parenting help.

Your attitude towards your second baby is basically that every single need must be tended to immediately. This is not realistic when you have more than one child. It is unfair on your older child, who is displaying quite obvious behavioural problems.

You really need to get your head around this. I have 4. I am into attachment parenting, I'm not a fan of leaving babies to cry, controlled crying, any of that. I wouldn't use those methods intentionally. BUT... sometimes the baby has to wait. Sometimes the older child needs to be prioritised.

If he doesn’t understand he’s hurting people what on earth is the point of the “king hands” mantra? How can that possibly be understood? It’s far more oblique.

He is acti g up at nursery because he thinks you have replaced him with the baby.

You're home all day with the baby while he gets packed off to the nursery. You feed the baby in demand while he has to wait for attention from busy staff in a roomful of toddlers all clamouring for it. He sees you with the baby in the evenings and at weekends. He knows you're at home when he is away.

Take him out for a few weeks and show him that he's still your little boy.

Yes I am sure him being at home with me and the baby when they baby requires so much time currently would be so much better than the place he excitedly leaves for 3 days a week.

OP, have you heard of “heavy work” and “deep pressure”? If you google those terms with “OT” or “occupational therapist” you might find some other things your DS enjoys which give him the same sort of sensory feedback at the rough play he enjoys

I have two diagnosed autistic kids (one now also being assessed for ADHD) and there are some red flags for me in the way you describe him. So while he’s too young to know for sure, it would be sensible for you to look up signs of autism and ADHD and just keep an eye out.

You’ve mentioned a couple of times that you don’t have good social skills…I’m guessing you know that ADHD/autism/all the other forms of neurodivergence are very strongly inherited? So if you think any of it rings true for you (try searching for signs in girls and women specifically, it’s very different) then obviously the odds of some kind of issue for your son go up.

It’s not anything to worry about, and I’m definitely not armchair diagnosing, just to be aware of.

If nursery felt that your child was actually a danger to others I’m sure they would be telling you to remove him btw, don’t feel like you need to remove him before they ask you to!

Sensory diet was a game changer for both my boys - we have all kinds of sensory toys and movement breaks just casually throughout our day, they do it themselves in school breaks/quiet moments and it definitely helps keeps everything calm.

Oh I am very aware I am highly likely to have mild autism due to lots of my behaviour and probably ADHD too. As does my dad, sister and brother so we are aware he could potentially end up with very similar traits.

Thank you for the reply though we will discuss the sensory diet with nursery.

It’s probably been said already but it’s likely he’s having all these problems at nursery because at home his needs will be met quickly. At nursery he has to wait and there are other children getting attention as well as him. I think as someone said above, it’s important for you to find out how well they are using ABC. Some staff will not have the experience to be dealing with a child with challenging behaviours like this. I’d want to know what are nursery doing to keep the other children safe and prevent your child from hurting others. You and nursery need to use the same words and same reaction when he bites, a firm no, holding the bitten area, at home saying ‘ow’ and showing that it hurts, no attention after that, keep moving away saying no, holding affected area so he links if I bite then I get ignored and it’s not a nice feeling.

He is 27 months old.
For pretty much a quarter of his life so far he was probably the most important person in your life, with the safety an security that brings. He was settled in a routine at nursery.

Then a quarter of his lifetime ago, he was moved rooms in nursery, which is a big deal and scary, and then had a massive change at home where he has been usurped by a baby who has taken his place as the biggest priority in mums life.

His behaviour is not unusual. I had 14 months between my first 2 babies, the most important thing we did was put the oldest first. We had a swing seat for the baby (who was called the baby, like the cat, or the chair). Feed time for baby would also include cuddles and/or cuddles for the oldest. I exclusively breast fed as well, you have a spare arm, it's possible. When the baby slept, they would go down and I would be on my hands and knees with the oldest giving yhem undivided attention. Making them feel that nothing had changed.

Give your toddler time to adjust. He's had s lot happen in the last quarter of his life, you can't expect him to deal with such big changes without effect.

Have you told nursery that there are family members with autism? It is possibly something they are thinking about but to know it is a stronger possibility due to family background may mean that they approach how they manage this behaviour in a different fashion sooner and so your son gets the support he needs sooner and the other children are protected

He doesn't bite at nursery. He rarely bites at home. He is hitting and shoving and kicking at nursery. They tell him no that's not how we use our hands/ gentle hands and they redirect him to do a different activity.

Baby unfortunately doesn't even tolerate swings. But yes he has lots of snuggles when I am feeding baby.

No, I haven't told them. None of us have an official diagnosis of autism we all just share very similar characteristics that match autism/adhd. Only 1 of us have a diagnosis of ADHD.

I want him judged based on the behaviour they see not a preconceived notion he may have inherited something.

Let nursery run their ABC analysis - sometimes that comes up with an incredibly obvious trigger that gets lost in a room of toddlers and trying to get "the day" done. The key one to me is that he's at that age where his communicative expectations exceed his capabilities - so he's probably frustrated anyway (which you'd expect anyone working with children to appreciate and be used to dealing with) - and that element will ease as his language develops - but it might be worth exploring some basic Makaton with him to ease this period of time?

Plus his little world has just been completely turned upside down - HIS human, HIS person who devotes their entire life to HIS happiness and whims and fun... has totally unacceptably (to him) suddenly expected him to enter into a job-share agreement, with him getting (to HIM) the bum end of the deal at present. Even if grandad's around, or dad, or relatives - you are still THE HUMAN and should be there for him at all times when he expects you to be (as a two year old whose brain is still very little). He'll work this one out in time, and they'll probably end up quite close as siblings - but it's still absolutely fucking huge as an adjustment for him, and you, quite naturally as a mum with a narrow age gap and a velcro baby, are having to split yourself as best as you can do (I've got two with an 11.5 month age gap so I get it - it's tough as hell while the baby's still glued to you and relatively "boring" to the older sibling).

I would be willing to bet that the moving at a child to hit is geared towards obtaining attention - he's now made the link that "I start moving, the staff start moving to distract me and give me loads of lovely attention to try to stop me hitting out at Johnny". I'd also expect he plays nicely with older kids because they're older and bigger than him and he's picked his targets quite savvily - and he's going for the kids in his current room at nursery that are not likely to hit him back. If it is attention like this - the ABC charts should show that up fairly clearly - and you might well end up having to spread yourself a bit thinner to pick up some of the slack as well as others chipping in - which is going to suck for you in the short term but that's the juggle with two little people close in age.

There could be sensory processing needs in there - that's something to be explored - try tracking down something like one of those toddler trampolines or similar - see if that helps calm him down, or does it tip him over into being silly - he might love rough and tumble - but too much of it with one of my kids would just escalate them into the stratosphere (they're both now diagnosed as autistic but function well in mainstream settings to give you an idea of the level they're at) and we need to manage it to get that "sweet spot". "Heavy work" was recommended by OT for my more sensory younger child - so she had the job at school to help push the tables to the side for class assemblies - got the school job done, gave her the sensory fix she needed and helped her regulate herself. She also has a couple of weighted cuddly toys she tends to sit with on her lap which help her a lot (TK Maxx have had them in recently). It's something to explore as he gets older if he's still disregulated.

But at the moment he's having a tough time readjusting to being expected to share the centre of the universe spot with a sibling and he's not got the language or executive functioning to express his discontent very well because he's just little himself (although he probably feels like a giant compared to the baby)!

They need to stop using gentle hands and use direct communication. No, we do not hit. We do not kick. Gentle hands/feet doesn't mean anything to a child who doesn't understand what gentle is.

People with ADHD who go undiagnosed are significantly more likely to go on to develop addictions. People with autism who go undiagnosed are significantly likely to experience skill regression or not be able to access support that helps them become independent.

Children with any neurodivergence who go undiagnosed are much more likely to develop significant mental health issues and in their later years go on to self harm, attempt or die by suicide.

Children who are neurodivergent who don't get the support they need in their earlier years won't be labelled autistic. They will be labelled naughty, defiant, disobedient, unreachable, different, weird, nasty, dramatic, overly sensitive, boisterous, oddball, etc. The list goes on. It is really harmful for future outcomes of mental and physical health. They are also significantly more likely to be incarcerated later in life.

There are strong links between autism and ADHD and the MTHFR gene which is linked to other comorbidities such as EDS, HSD, POTS, dysautonomia, and also links to other neurodivergence such as schizophrenia, OCD, dyspraxia, epilepsy.

Chronic stress from unmet and unrecognised needs leads to cPTSD, and inflammatory diseases such as migraines, arthritis, me/cfs...

I'm not saying your child is autistic. I'm not saying your child has ADHD. I recognise a lot of what you've written in my own child though who has an autism diagnosis, is on the pathway to receive and ADHD diagnosis, as well as myself who was a late diagnosed adult who also received all of these additional diagnoses.

If you suspect, even a tiny little hint that your child could be autistic, you need to bring this up with nursery so they can start the early help process. He won't be entitled to an ADHD assessment until he is 6-7, by which point he will already be in a mainstream school and the support he will get might not be the support he is entitled to.

Cautionary tale, but my son was diagnosed at 3 and is still in mainstream, and in September will be resitting reception for the 4th year, because the ehcp process is so brutal and that is with an early diagnosis. Imagine where he'd be if he hadn't had any diagnosis or assessments with feedback reports.

You've given a substantial amount of information on this post alone that shows social communication and interaction struggles as well as mental rigidity. I really think you need to go into this with an open mind. Only professionals can say yes or no, or they need more time, but the sooner you're on the ball, the better chances for positive outcomes later down the line.

I appreciate the input thank you.

Ah this is useful to know. I was picking up bits of what you were saying about struggling with baby groups and not wanting him to struggle with social skills and I wondered if there was something there, but didn't want to suggest if it wasn't already on your radar, as it sounds like you have a lot to think about already.

FWIW, IME (where the family history is more ADHD leaning) schools/nurseries have actually been much better able to support where I've been upfront about this. Although I was a bit alarmed when I first switched to this approach and they were asking me questions like whether my (then 6yo) could speak, and worried I had done the wrong thing, it was actually so much the right thing. There is a massive difference for DS where he is perceived as having difficulty and supported vs where he has been perceived as troublemaking, wilful or aloof. He went to 3 different settings before he started school at 7 (not in UK) and I did this exact thing with the second one, even though we had moved him from the first (large, busy, long commute) setting due to overwhelm, I chose not to mention concerns in order to give him a fresh start. The only thing I told them was that he could be "sensitive". The staff at this place were absolutely lovely, very experienced and so kind and I don't think they did anything wrong, but it was a bit of a disaster because they made assumptions about what he would be able to manage due to his age, and then misinterpreted his cues of stress/overwhelm as him not wanting to engage with them or just being naughty/disruptive. And because they thought he was just having settling in issues they didn't mention it to me straight away. I also didn't know as much then, so I didn't pick up on cues I would probably notice now in hindsight. I think really I was worried they would think if I mentioned ADHD (which is what we thought at that point, he is now diagnosed ADHD, with a question mark over AuDHD) that I was looking for a label to excuse his behaviour rather than dealing with it, which was absolutely not the case.

The other thing I have learnt for DS is that he doesn't always pick up on things in the way other children would. He didn't especially have issues with violent behaviour, at least not at nursery/school, though he could be boisterous/disruptive, but telling him "kind hands" would not have made any sense to him or helped him understand what was expected instead. He needed really clear guidance both to show him when behaviour was unacceptable but also how to approach other children to ask them to play, for example. And I'm now wondering whether the random pushing while looking happy is possibly your DS' way of trying to initiate a game - something which has been helpful for my DS has been teaching him very formulaic games that other children will understand, such as catch/tig, hide and seek, or a particular favourite activity at nursery e.g. doll's house, ice cream stand, train track, and a simple phrase for asking for it. When he was feeling self conscious or anxious it was like he would lose a lot of his verbal capacity so for example at pick up, (at age 4) rather than say "DS3 has an apple, I want an apple as well, can I have one?" he would just make a whining noise and point at the apple and if pushed just say "Apple". If I had known then what I know now, I probably would have looked into whether he could use something like a set of PECS symbols on a keyring to support him in those moments, but this kind of thing wasn't on our radar at that point. I was trying to encourage him to speak to staff members and use full sentences, which he could do when he was feeling more together, but at that point of the day I do think it was genuinely beyond him at that age. And that is not typical, but he was very very overwhelmed and distressed by that setting, again despite kind, caring and knowledgable staff who really wanted to support him.

I wonder if at home you can try something like thinking up a gesture and short phrase, like putting a hand on his shoulder and asking "Want to play?" in order to initiate the more physical games that he likes, prime all the family members so they start doing it too, and then let nursery know that you've started this at home in order to show him an acceptable way of asking someone to play, in case it's helpful (or in case he tries it and they didn't understand the intention).

There is nothing wrong with being ND but it does help if people understand that it's possible he has a different approach or a different timescale rather than trying to coax him into a neurotypical one or waiting for him to pick things up by inference. IME, there is quite a lot of wanting to reassure you that your child is not autistic or "it's too early to say" (esp for ADHD) if you raise the possibility, rather than being mentally put into a box, but a lack of sharing this info mostly leads people to assume behaviour rather than difficulty, which I didn't appreciate is because a lot of the time children displaying these behaviours have had more lax rules at home and do turn things around when they are shown clear boundaries and settle into the routine of nursery. I guess I didn't recognise how unusual it is when a child does not respond to those methods. I just thought they have seen so many children so they will know what to do, but the majority of children respond very differently to DS, so staff can be a bit thrown if their usual approach isn't helping, and they often don't have enough experience of ND children to be able to recognise profiles, especially as many children are diagnosed later than nursery age, so they may only be aware of how children could present in a very narrow/stereotypical way. It's also arguably correct for them to avoid suggesting concerns in this direction, because they are not trained medical professionals. OTOH, we only know our own child(ren) and what is normal for them, so it can be difficult to know whether they are typical among children their age or not. It took me quite a while to recognise that what is normal for DS is different to other children his age. Even though I have 3 children, the older 2 both have ADHD (DS1 would not have been diagnosed at this age) and I concede I have no sense of where DS3 is in relation to the "norm" any more.

I'm glad you've said that - I've spent the last few years wondering how a toddler understands the word "gentle".