Nursery concerned about 2.8 yo hitting behaviour - calling in EY support - any advice?

[Missbully]

Hi there

My ds (2.8) has been at nursery since 8 mths old, but since he moved to the 'biggie' room (2 yrs and above) apparently they have been quite concerned about his behaviour. In particular hitting and/or pushing/attacking other children for no reason. Ie he's not being provoked or fighting over toys, he'll be paying attention to something closely and then take it into his head to go and push another child. They're concerned because he doesn't seen to realise that this is wrong or unacceptable behaviour. They gave me along list of observations of this sort of thing and want to call in Early Years support to do an assessment. He's there 2.5 days a week and with me the rest. He does hit my and hubby, but we usually can tell that it's because he's tired/hungry or frustrated. I haven't seen him do this to other children when I'm with him (toddler group, when friends are round etc). Obviously this has really upset me, he is a very active and bright boy but they seem to think it is not just 'his age'. Anyone else had this sort of thing? I'm thinking that they are going to be looking into the autism angle tho haven't had any concerns about this previously.... sorry for the long post.

What do you do when he hits you? Do you tell him off? Does he know it's wrong to hit? At his age I think he's old enough for naughty step/time out. He needs to get a firm message that hitting is NOT ok.

Early years might be very helpful if there's something more to it than normal small child argy-bargy. Or very reassuring if it is!

Hi MB
Sorry you are having a bit of a worrying time. I had a similar situation with my DS. For us it started when he was only 9 months old when he started biting us and other children at nursery often for no obvious reason. We tried various tactics like ignoring him and making a fuss of the other child etc and also found a childminder where he could have one to one attention which helped so that there were not constantly other children around. Gradually the biting happened less and less but he did grow into a very active toddler and certainly there were times when he would hit other children and nobody could see why. Once he started school there were still some behaviour issues and I too was concerned that he might have a mild form of autism. In the end he was diagnosed with ADHD. However, many toddler boys are like this without them having a special need so please don't interpret this as your DS having the same issue particularly as with your DS this is the only symptom. I think a lot of boys just grow out of this boisterous behaviour. The nursery are probably being cautious as if there is a special need it is better for the child and parents if is understood earlier rather than later. FWIW my DS is lovely, intelligent and popular with his peers depsite his sometimes challenging behaviour! Good luck with this.

Thanks for your responses - i've not had chance to get online til now. We do discipline at home - very firm NO and time out (i use the hall as we sometimes travel to inlaws who live in a bungalow so no stairs!!) and then sorry and then move on and don't harp on about it.

Taking a step back I realise that if there is something more than 'normal' boisterous boy behaviour then at least we have had an early heads up. Unfortunately the assessment won't happen until Sept and I am due my second child end Sept!! But at least the nursery and us are all on the same page now re discipline now.
Boudicea - my son seems very popular too! So we'll see what happens.

Thanks once again