My toddler is terrible to other toddlers

[Clare123]

My LO is 2.4, and when we are at home or with his sister or older cousins he is lovely. Plays generally well and is happy and cute.

BUT, when he is with other toddlers his behaviour is atrocious. He ruins games - snatches toys, hits and is a general nuisance.

I do time out and stand with him and try to get him to use his words, but it just doesn't seem to making any difference.

Help?! What can I do to make him play better with other toddlers??

I think toddlers are very threatened by other children moving onto what they think of as their territory. He doesn't mean to hit, snatch etc, he is just defending his space in a primitive way. Also at 2.4 he will have no empathy with another child's feelings/hurt. It is all about him.

I guess children he knows and on his home ground are 'safer' for him and he can relax.

I'm never sure that time out at such a young age is useful because he is not yet able to reason or control his impulses. He needs you to help him do that and to remove him from the situation or distract him, which I think you are doing.

I know when I recently went to a playgroup with my DGS 23 mnths, I found it rather unnerving myself!

The noise and the chaos and children snatching toys from one another may be too much at the moment for your lo to manage, so his adrenaline rises and he goes into fight mode.

It's quite normal for him to behave like this, though. I don't think you can make him play better. Maturity will improve things.

2.4 is very young to get 'sharing' - why on earth would he want to do it? He sounds a normal excitable toddler. They do grow out of it and learn to be little human beings eventually. DD is 3.2 and she's now happy to share and not be a complete monster took a while though.

Playing well with others is an acquired skill, you have to practice it. Are you expecting him to go off and play nicely while you sit and have a cuppa. Ha! No chance! You need to get down there and play with him if you want him to stop the eye-gouging and stomping on nine month olds!

Honestly, it does come...it just takes a bit of time.