2.5yo hitting at home and nursery (finds it funny?)

[TerroristToddler]

I'm at my wits end with my 2.5yo DS. He is my second child, and my oldest is 7yo and we never went through a hitting stage with him.

My toddler attends nursery/pre-school 3 days per week and has always been a happy little soul there. He moved up from the nursery room (for younger tots) to the early pre-school room in September and since then he has been so boisterous. He began hitting and pushing towards end of October whilst at preschool and we've started to notice this at home too. He's one of the younger ones in this room - most of his little friends are turning 3/already 3.

At home, we have spoken about 'kind hands' and I also say no firmly and explain we 'don't hit because it hurts' but he kind of smiles and keeps doing it. He can parrot back to me if I ask that he's not allowed to hit, it hurts etc. but I wonder if he doesn't actually understand (given he's smiling at the same time?!) or maybe he just doesn't care. His hits tend to be a bit random too - he might not be in a tantrum or anything but just wanders over and hits whilst smiling (e.g., if eating breakfast him and his brother will be happily eating and he'll hit my eldest out of nowhere). I'm quite convinced its an attention seeking thing, and I am trying to do more focused activities with him on my days off so he's getting positive time with me and the activities keep him entertained.

He is still showing a lot of this behaviour at preschool though. The room is quite boisterous anyway (manager did say he's not the worst behaved in there and that its generally a rough-play/loud cohort) and I've been told he likes to 'follow the crowd' when the others are getting excitable but then is harder to calm down than the others so then its hard for them to get him to come and sit and eat his lunch, or join a quiet book time. He ends up being sent to the older preschool room (3-4yo's) sometimes and seems to calm easily in there. I've asked preschool to share their behaviour plan with me so we can be sure we're consistent both at home and preschool with our approaches... but other than that I'm at a loss as to how to help.

Any thoughts?

I am in a similar situation with my 3 year old. I'm crying to friends and they're all saying "it'll pass...it's normal..." so we are just being firm and consistent, trying not to let my own anxious thoughts take over and looking forward to the phase ending!

The same with my 2 year old 😖 it's really hard and I'm also hoping it passes!

Also same with almost 2 yo boy, went through a hitting stage, then a pushing stage, now back to hitting 🫠🫠 the other two passed and I hope this does too

Mine is hitting and hair pulling 😣 if he wants a toy or something he will just grab kids hair, it's mortifying. Hopefully someone can advise us all a bit further as it's an awful stage, constantly being on edge and watching over him 😩

We've ben dealing with this too. I also think it is an attention thing. I tried a few things; stopped asking her to say sorry when she did it to another child as getting that out of her gave more attention. Instead said sorry to them myself and talked about how sad they were and how it wasn't kind. Consistently said 'no hitting' then swiftly moved on to a distraction including getting up and physically moving to a different space eg kitchen if we were in the lounge. Lots of positive chat about all the kind behaviour demonstrated to dolls/teddies etc, hammed it up big style and encouraged endless positive role play! We also started reading The Colour Monster which talks about feelings including anger. Not sure what if any of this helped, or if it it was just a phase that's improved, but it's definitely got better of late. Interestingly she has also spontaneously started using sorry in the correct context without prompting now, although the frequency it's needed is a lot less!

Thanks for your replies - oddly comforting to know a lot of us are battling the same issue!

We've had some progress in the past week. Preschool started a sticker chart, following a meeting I called with them to discuss how to handle it. This has seemed to work well, and I understand the manager has spent more time with the room staff to reiterate behaviour policy to ensure that its applied more consistently (I don't think it was being applied well before). Last week he had no hitting or pushing incidents at preschool and even got an award at the end of the week for great behaviour - really trying to amp up his good behaviour and give little/no attention to the bad.

With my son it is 100% attention seeking so we're just trying to break that cycle. It doesn't always feel right ignoring the bad behaviour as I instinctively want to spend time explaining to him why its not okay etc, but I realise this was driving it more as he knew if he hit he'd have some 1:1 mummy time even if that time was me being cross at him. @SErunner you seem to be doing something similar too.