Best way to deal with aggressive toddler behaviour

[boredwithfoodprob]

My DS is 23 months and both lively and lovely. He has a fairly good vocab and doesn't have many tantrums yet. However, over the last couple of months he's become increasingly clingy and seems to dislike being away from home and this then leads to him being quite aggressive towards other toddlers his age. For example we were at a friend's house this afternoon who has a toddler same age as him, it was an NCT meet up, there were 2 other toddlers and their mums there. My DS knows them all well and knows the house well. It's a lovely house/garden with lovely toys/snacks on tap etc etc but all he could do as soon as we got there was ask to go home and then proceeded to push his "friend" over twice, once quite badly, making her cry, grab another girl's dress and flung her over and then started throwing toys around. I handle it by telling him NO very firmly and asking him to say sorry which he doesn't - I think saying sorry may be a waste of time as he doesn't understand it anyway so seems pointless. Anyway, just wondering if anyone has any advice as to how to handle this as i'm beginning to think it may just be easier not to take him anywhere!

please be patient with him, it's just an age thing, my ds who is 3 2mths has been hitting and pushing other children since he was physically capable and only now is he starting to come out of it apparently it's all down to his speech delay and frustration. i feel like I have been apologising for him for 18mths now and it's been a really tough time, do carry on with the socialising, and carry on telling him that it's wrong and to say sorry (even though i agree with you he won't know what sorry is yet but the penny will drop) you're doing a great job

Not much advice here but in the same boat - DS is also 23 months, a happy chattty little thing (and has never had a full-blown tantrum), but does like to push other children over at toddlers and when we go round to people's houses. I can't take my eyes off him for a minute in case he does something like this. I think it's a bit of a game to him (i.e. not really borne out of aggression) - he laughs as he does it. He will even tell me what he is going to do first ("Mummy, I'm going to shove Katie"). I am just trying to ignore this behaviour as much as possible, tell him no, remove him from the situation with a very brief explanation as to why, and apologise on his behalf (in his earshot, ideally with him standing next to me) in the hope that he will "get" it soon. I am just going on the principle of not rewarding bad behaviour with attention, and trying to get him to understand that pushing people over will hurt them. I do make a point of telling him that he's a good boy and making a bit of a fuss of him any time I see him playing nicely with other children (not that often!). We have also had to put a stop to rough and tumble play at home - DH has always flung him about a bit which he absolutely loves, and the two of them would tumble about in the garden, but I think this was sending really mixed messages. Good luck - I really hope it's just a phase!

Thank you both for your replies and helpful advice/understanding. Fingers crossed it's a short phase!