Toddler hurting others and thinking it’s funny

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I am at my wits end with my toddler. He is just 2 and the last couple of months he has started doing a few things which are making life unpleasant. Firstly, just screaming if he doesn’t get his own way. He can scream for 20-30 minutes, for reasons such as me not letting him have the tv on. Ignoring him does not stop him.

Secondly he regularly hurts us and our daughter who is 7. Hitting, scratching, hair pulling, biting, head butting. Ignoring him does nothing, he just carries on. I have tried pushing him away with a firm ‘no’. He carries on. Lately I have been taking him up to his room and putting him in his cot and leaving him for 2 minutes - essentially a naughty step but one he will actually stay on. I use a very grumpy tone and say ‘no hitting. Kind hands’ or similar. When I go to get him I ask him to say sorry which he does, but clearly he doesn’t understand what it means, and he will go back to the same behaviour 5 minutes later.

He is not doing this out of frustration when angry, which I could actually understand. He thinks the whole thing is hilarious and will just walk up to one of us and start hurting us, laughing when asked to stop.

Any ideas? I’m finding the whole thing exhausting and utterly tedious. My daughter never did this.

There is no violence in the house at all so he’s not modelling what he sees.

Nursery have also seen this behaviour a few times. Apparently they just say ‘kind hands’ and encourage him to hug his friends when he’s hurt them as a way of saying sorry.

Any suggestions??

Have the nursery suggested anything at all?

If you think he’s not doing it through hunger, tiredness or frustration, how does he score on this simple progress checker?

No not really. In fact they only mentioned it because he started hitting his sister at pick up and the lady said he sometimes does it at nursery too. Presumably they don’t think it’s a massive problem or they’d have proactively mentioned it?

thanks for the link. It says he may need a bit more support with ‘talking’. I suppose this fits with what I think, his understanding is generally excellent and he follows instructions like ‘go and get your shoes’ and ‘go downstairs’ ‘let’s get a snack’. He has lots of individual words but due to pronunciation I’m not sure many people outside our house would understand some of them, and he’s only just starting to say ‘more milk’ etc whereas some of his peers have been doing this for months.

My daughter was the same with language - great understanding but slower to actually speak. She caught up by about 2.5 and her speech was way ahead by about 4, with no intervention. So I’ve been assuming he’s the same.

I think if it says that he needs some support I would talk your HV. The progress checker is from a well respected charity so the HV should take it seriously and refer him for a hearing test and some SaLT.

The waiting lists are long so if he does catch up you can always take him back off the waiting list.

It might also be worth also doing both of these before you talk to the HV:

2 year Ages & Stages

& the 2 year social and emotional Ages & Stages. The scores will tell you if he needs monitoring, in which case the HV should make a further appointment with you or if he needs referring.

He could of course not need either

Thank you, will definitely speak to HV, they offer a check in around age 2 here anyway.

I don’t know if this explains his rough physical behaviour though…as I say he’s not doing it when frustrated or upset, just toddles over and starts hitting and giggling. Would being behind with his speech cause this?

other than working on his speech I’m wondered what else I can do to stop him behaving like this. Or do you think improving speech will stop it?

Yes tackling his language might help but I’d really recommend doing both of those Ages and Stages that I linked to as they’ll give you a better overall picture.

try this: get down at his level, eye-to-eye, put a hand on his shoulder and with firm but loving tone tell him: is there anything you want to tell me? hitting is not nice for me I will listen and help anytime, just tap me.
the key is the same-level interaction and the tone

I understand what you mean but that’s an awful lot of language for a just turned 2 year old with speech delay.

@TinyMouseTheatre In fact, the emphasis is on eye contact and tone, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t explain things properly just because children are young.