I work 3 days a week, my child goes to a very good nursery in the morning and a childminder, who is also very good and a friend. She picks my child up at 1. I then pick him up after work at 5pm -5.30 from her place. My commmunication with the nursery takes place at 8 in the morning.. The arrangement works well, My son is in a more relaxing home environment during the later part of the day.
Yesterday, this isn't a common occurence, my childminder told me that when she picked my son up at nursery she was told he had been hitting a child and when he was told to stop he wouldn't. My childminder talked to my son about it and so did I. I come down hard on hitting and physical aggression. I told my son if it happened again a favourite car would go up in the cupboard and stay there for 2 days. This is a terrible punishment in his mind. I talked at length about what it feels like to be hurt by someone else and how the little boy must have felt. We also talked about alternatives to hitting. What do others think? In retrospect i am thinking should I have punished him that evening? My son can be aggressive although he is good natured. He is a big boy 99 percentile for height and weight. I do not want him to use physical aggression to express frustration.