I have a gorgeous, funny, loving, wonderful 2.7 yr old son whom I love to pieces but I am feeling at the end of my tether with his behaviour. Yes, I know he is only 2, but it seems to be so much worse than any of his peers that we mix with. I'm not sure if I'm handling it the right way, it feels like whatever I do makes things worse, and/or makes both us feel bad. I'd like to hear from others who have experienced similar.
The worst problem is the pushing, shouting at/bossing around and sometimes hitting or kicking other children. The nursery mentioned this to us when he had just turned 2, when I was heavily pregnant. It has been up and down, but has definitely got worse since his 4 month old sister was born. It has got to the point where I am considering not taking him to social activities such as his pre-school dance class which he loves. Today I had to intervene about 8-10 times to stop him from being aggressive to other children. Sometimes it's deliberate, I don?t know why - he often shouts things like, 'it's my umbrella', 'they're my shoes' as if he feels threatened, even though no-one is trying to take his things, or he doesn't want other children standing/playing close to him. At other times he wants to play with other children but is too physical and accidently hurts them - he's quite big for his age (98th percentile for weight since birth). For as long as I can remember has been accidentally headbutting or bashing me but usually looks genuinely concerned and says sorry. The deliberate aggression is newer and more difficult to deal with.
I always intervene, explain what he did wrong, and encourage him to say sorry to the other child. Sometimes intervening means literally pulling him off another child which can be really difficult while I?m holding the baby. He acts like he is listening to what I say but then does it again almost immediately. I have tried calmly taking him out of the room and talking to him. I have told him if he is not gentle with the other children that we'll have to go home or he?ll have to sit out of some activities and on a couple of occasions I've had to follow through on sitting out, cue big angry tears. Today in desperation when he jumped on his friend for the umpteenth time I did not let him have a sticker at the end of dance class. Big, big sad tears and I felt absolutely terrible - no idea if I am actually helping to teach him anything, or just making him feel penalised and crushing his self esteem.
We do not model aggressive or bullying behaviour at home and we don't generally shout, although sometimes as a family if we get over excited about something we can all talk in quite an animated way. Sometimes when we get really exasperated we (DH or I) will speak to him in a short, cross, irritated voice that sounds a bit harsh and I know we shouldn't really do that and try really hard not to show anger or negative emotions. I am just so exhausted with it.
I have read 1-2-3 Magic and found it utterly useless. I did try the technique but he was just constantly in 'time out' without understanding why, hugely upset, very upsetting for me too, I don't think it works for 2-year-olds (at least not this one). I found How To Talk So Kids Will Listen much more useful but the strategies in there are barely making a dent in his aggressive behaviour and I am having trouble sticking to them because I'm so desperate I find it hard to think straight and stay calm and consistent.
He is also very uncooperative at the moment but goes into complete meltdown if we apply any immediate consequences (naughty step, taking away a toy for a few minutes, ending bath time early, etc.). I just feel we keep getting into a cycle of making him feel bad and behave even worse. I'm sure the aggressive behaviour is because of something I am not managing right but I have no idea what to do. My mother (who is very close to my son and absolutely adores him) casually mentioned that my cousin was like this when he was little and because my brother and I were quite compliant, she thought my cousin was 'just awful'. My fear is that he will alienate himself and other adults and children won't like him and I really, really don't want that to happen to him 
Any advice very welcome.