How to help a 5 year old impulsive boy reacting by thumping/shoving?

[DrNortherner]

Ds is 5. Very happy and very popular and sociable. He is small for his age but has a ginormous attitude and is scared of NOTHING.

He has had a muche better start to Year 1 tahn in reception, but it is still ovbious that at playtime he is often involved in some sort of scrape. From what I can gather it is always in some sort of retalliation but as he throws the punch or does the shoving he gets into trouble. Any advice appreciated.

He is very into competition. Who is the tallest/fastest/strongest/best fighter etc

We have a zero tolerance of any hitting at home.

Thanks

You could try finding stories on feelings from your library or google social stories. Try to find ones that put them in the other person's shoes, and ask your son when you see that he retalliates "how would that make you feel if someone did that to you?" have him sit in a "thinking chair" for about 5 mins, add or subtract mins by age. When he's calm and quieted down have him talk to you. Ask him if there's anything he'd change about what he did and try to keep your words positive. Instead of saying don't hit, try to rephrase it to I need you to keep your hands to yourself, or something of that nature. Point out the positives as in I really liked the way you played with so and so this afternoon. On www.tvokids.com/bigbackyard/ there is a story with Sticks the squirrel on feelings as well.