I have a 3.5 year old boy who is now a lovely, lively friendly little boy.
however from the ages ages of around 2-3 years he could be very aggressive with me and other children.
He would pull hair, hit, push. Many times we left an activity pretty soon after we got there.
It left me embarrassed and at a loss of what to do. I’d tried everything, I tried leaving places, I tried time outs, I tried clearly explaining to him it was wrong and hurt me/other child and I sometimes lost the plot and shouted.
At around 2.5 we saw a speech and language therapist and it was quickly discovered my son had quite a significant speech delay.
It was explained his behaviours could be him trying to communicate, expressing frustration, seeking sensory feed back.
When I started looking at it more he was trying to communicate and less just naughty behaviour we started to make progress. I would shadow him wherever we went, at the ready to prevent any negative behaviour and if I could see it beginning I would try and re direct his behaviour or give him a more appropriate way to communicate with a child (wave, give a toy)
(and obviously he’s a toddler so of course sometimes he was probably just being plain naughty)
His speech has since developed and his behaviour is soooo much better. I’m still very anxious when I take him out, however most of the time he is lovely, and wants to play with children, says hello, shares his toys. A few times he has been hit/pushed and I’ve fully expected him to react negatively but he’s just ignored it.
I wanted to share this because I remember how I felt in the worst of it and I just wanted someone who could resinate with me or offer support through their own experiences.
It does get better, and in my son’s case it got better the more his speech developed.
People also lie, saying their kids have never done this kind of thing but I’ve noticed a lot of kids do it, because I still follow my son around (due to speech delay and I’m worried he won’t be able to communicate his needs) he’s been pushed, had his hair pulled, I’ve seen kids scrapping, pushing each other etc, I’ve had a child deliberately chuck balls at my face while his mum was drinking a coffee. I just didn’t notice any of this when my son was doing it as I was too preoccupied preventing his behaviour.