Help! Ds1 is turning into the sort of child that everyone at nursery avoids. He was 3 in November and started to kick at about the same time, and we just can't stop him doing it. He thinks its funny. We've told him that it hurts when he kicks. We've tried ignoring it. We've told him off, and I've even smacked his leg for it, I'm that desperate.
More worryingly is his bad language and aggression. He heard me mutter "little sod" under my breath once, and thought it was the best thing ever, so repeated it at every opportunity. Now that alone I can deal with, but he's got "I'll kill you" from somewhere, must be from TV as none of us have ever said anything like that, but perhaps from Eastenders or Emmerdale, as that's the only grown-up TV he sees. Obviously he doesn't know what this really means, but he says it with such vehemence and aggression that its really shocking.
When he's told off or prevented from doing something as a punishment (eg shoves his baby brother over so has his toy cars taken away), he goes ballistic. Has very aggressive, angry tantrums that are becoming increasingly hard to ignore or pass of as normal toddler behaviour.
Things came to a head yesterday when he kicked another child at nursery (which he's not done before, only kicked us at home), called him a "little sod", then, when the nursery lady tackled him about it he told her he was going to throw her over the wall and kill her! She was shocked and upset to say the least.
I didn't find out about this until after he was in bed, so I told him this morning that I had heard that he had hurt X (the child), and upset Y (nursery staff), and that this upset me. He told me that he wouldn't do it again and that he wanted to be a good boy, but I don't know how much he understands about his behaviour and what he thinks a good boy is.
Has anyone else had experience of anything like this, and how did/do you deal with it?