2.8 yr old hurting her brothet - not sure how to handle

[charlmills]

My dd loves her 11 month old ds loads and will be sooo good with him but the trouble is she will also be very aggressive with him; pushing over, kicking him, and rolling over his head, she will also rub her head on his really hard etc etc. Now he does like a bit of rough and tumble with her but she always goes that bit too far.
I'm just not sire how to handle it. I tell her off and if she carries on she goes in time out. However she does it day after day -
Anyone any tips or just to let me know that its normal and will pass as I really hate getting angry with her all the time.

Sorry to hear that you are having a hard time.

Surely she is behaving like this because she is looking for attention? I would continue with the time out and perhaps sanction with something along the lines of, "If you do that again you will not have a story at bed time" and follow through with the sanction.

Additionally, I would try to give her 10 minutes of your time in the am and 10 minutes in the pm when she gets your undivided attention (make sure DS is not around i.e. when he sleeps). I find if I give my children a bit of one on one time each day, they are lovely!

Sounds like she doesn't have 100% positive feelings about her brother 100% of the time (normal!). Can you engage with this? In this case, you would say to her something like, "that was a bit rough, DD, are you feeling a bit sick of DS right now?" If you give her the space to acknowledge and share her ambivalence with you, you might be able to agree things that are acceptable to do in that situation. If it is that she's feeling a bit like she'd like him to not be there sometimes, it might be kinder to help her with those feelings rather than jump to punishment without acknowledging the thing she is trying to communicate when she 'accidentally' hurts him.

Would she understand "kind hands" If you used it as a reminder, rather than going straight in with No? She might not see the difference between a gentle hug and crawling all over him...

I think I definitely need to try the kinder approach as I find myself saying no all the time like ds is some peice of precious china. But she is such a little madam sometimes it winds me up.
I know she is trying to assert herself sometimes and other times she is genuinely playing. Trouble is sometimes he laughs and other times he doesn't. I've tried telling her that when he cries he's not enjoying it, but I suppose its hard for her to make that initial distinction.

If she's not deliberately trying to hurt him - malice aforethought? - that's different to eg walking up and pinching him. I've done some temp nursery work recently and there was a book called Hands Are Not For Hitting. Might be worth checking the library for something similar.

If you're nearby when she's rough, there's nothing wrong with holding her hand with yours and using it to stroke his hair,hand over hand, and praising her up. Also, lots of praise for playing nicely with her brother when she does get it right! (not teaching grandma to suck eggs, it's something I regularly forget about )

Keeping the naughty step for deliberate mischief should mean it has more impact.

Oh, and exaggerated crying and facial expressions can work - boohoohoo it makes mummy sad when you play rough with your little db sniff sniff

Thanks for all your comments. A situation arose today where dd was playing with something and ds was trying to grab it. I said to ds that he would have to wait and maybe dd would let him have a go in a minute. About 30 seconds later she let him play with it.
I think she appreciated the space given and respect that she was playing first.
She also pushed him earlier (diff situation) when he was getting in her way so I gave her a warning but also said that I could see that dd was annoying her. It seemed to diffuse the situation very quickly.
Like I said thanks for the tips people just helps to rethink every now and then how you are dealing with things.