2 yr old - hitting & empathy

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I was hoping for some advice/reassurance about my just turned 2 yo. He has recently started hitting at nursery quite a lot; most days there is an incident of some sort. He hits on occasion at home and we immediately do time out for a couple of minutes, explain that you don't hit and he apologises and hugs. I'm not sure how genuine the sorry is though - I get the feeling he just says it without really understanding why.

The nursery says the same thing: he'll apologise but 2 seconds later he'll hit again. They don't think he understands why hitting ppl is wrong and that he hurts them. They're concerned that he doesn't empathise and now I'm worried about this lack of empathy. Is it normal for a 2 yo to be this way?

We're going to talk about a joint approach next week to ensure we & the nursery both do the same thing to try and solve the hitting issue. It's more the empathy thing I'm worried out.

There is a theory that suggests that young children hit, not because they want to hurt others, but partly to see a reaction, and partly because they are angry/upset/sad themselves.

To counter the "get a reaction" you can get them to eg pull a funny face or something to try to make the other child laugh instead of cry. This has worked extremely well with my daughter and she has learned that making someone laugh is fun.

To counter the angry/sad/upset bit you need to hug and listen to them more at these times - don't punish an incident, first make every one safe, comfort hurt child, then comfort the hitting child. Again this worked brilliantly for us.

Within a week of trying the above rather than telling off/removing and ignoring etc dd1 stopped hitting. 'Twas amazing

Oh and dd1 is only just getting empathy now at 3. I was also worried but apparently they get empathy at about 2-3 so she was just on the late end of the range

That's an interesting strategy and not one I've heard before. That's great it worked for you - I'll suggest this to my husband and we'll give it a try; anything to try & curb this cycle of hitting. That's a relief about the empathy bit too - I was worried we were raising a mini Dexter!