Help!
I had left 2 yr old DS1 and 4 month old DS2 in lounge whilst I was cleaning up in another room just down the hall. Suddenly heard baby screaming, ran into lounge to see DS2 laying into his head with a plastic train carriage. Pretty hard too, he was using quite a bit of force!
I screamed at DS2, pushed him away, told him "Naughty, No!" and smacked his hand. I was so shocked. DS1 was laughing, thought it was funny.
Rang out of hours GP for advice. DS2 has small cut and now has about 10 small circular bruises on his head. GP said just to keep an eye on him and if concerned take him for face-to-face GP appt later.
I do think DS2 is okay but I am wondering what the hell to do about this. It seems that DS1 has been escalating his "violent" behaviour with DS2 recently - prior to this he has been a little robust in his cuddles and pats, also sometimes lies on top of DS2 and has to be pulled off. But he has never hit him with an object or with such force before.
My sense is that he does this for four reasons -
1] Experimenting to see what will happen if he does this, what reaction will he get from DS2 and me.
2] This behaviour gets my attention very quickly and negative attention is better than no attention [when I am busy elsewhere]
3] He enjoys the feeling of power and control he has over DS2.
4] There is a bit of jealousy there and he is taking out his resentment on his younger sibling.
The problem is DS1 is only 2 yrs old and I realise is not being deliberately malicious. He just has strong feelings that he doesn't quite know what to do with and minimal impulse control.
Just wondering if anyone else is dealing with this/has dealt with this? If so, what did you do, what worked in remedying this sort of violent behaviour?
At the moment I am just trying to be vigilant and not leave DS1 & 2 together alone.