He's 4 (just) and dh has texted to say his pre school want to talk to me tomorrow as ds apparently punched one of the other boys in the stomach. Dh has had a chat with ds and he says the other boy said something horrible to him but he can't remember what. I don't think there's any excuse for hitting though but I do want to wait and hear their version of events (dh heard it from our nanny who picked him up from school this afternoon)
I think ds does need to be punished for this. He's hit me before, and his sister and my usual punishment is to take away whatever is his favourite toy at the time and/or send him to his room for 5 minutes. I want to hear the full story first hand before deciding on a punishment, but will it be too late for me to punish him tomorrow? Will he have lost the association between bad behaviour and punishment? Quite often when we've had to punish him for something I've asked him if he can remember why we're punishing him (sometimes only 10 mins after the incident) and he can't.