Nearly three year old pushing other children and being unkind

[Hardbackwriter]

Please be kind - I already feel bad enough about this. The last few times I've picked up DS1 (2y10m) from nursery they've told me that they've had a lot of issues with 'unkind hands' and 'unkind words' and today they've said that it's not improving and that he needs an 'action plan'. His behaviour at home is very stroppy but not often violent (there has been the odd incident which I thought we'd dealt with well but clearly not!) but there's been a lot of upheaval because his little brother was born 12 weeks ago and I wonder if we've been letting too much go as a result. I feel like we've let him down. I've never seen him push or be unkind to another child, but then he hasn't had much social interaction outside nursery because of Covid. I don't really know what to do - when we talk to him about it he agrees that he mustn't hit/push and it's not kind but then he just does it again the next time he's at nursery.

Just remember to say kind hands on his way into nursery, lots of cuddles and attention at home but it’s a pretty average thing. You can get kind hands books too.

Thank you, I've just ordered a couple of books for us to read together. And thank you too for saying it's normal - I feel like we must be crap parents, I've seen so much judgement of the parents (let's face it, mothers) of hitters and I am really worried about him getting a reputation as an unpleasant child. It's worse because he's very tall for his age so although he's one of the youngest in the preschool room he's also one of the biggest so the children he's pushing are presumably smaller than him.

As pp lots of reminders going into nursery.
Kids go through a stage of it, I wouldn’t say your bad parents or let him down at all.
Could be worth having some 121 time with him, could even say kind hands today and we’ll go to the park just us two after nursery.

Ok, so nursery need to watch him for a bit to understand when and why he’s doing this.

Is it towards the end when he is tired and/or hungry? Is it when someone takes something off him or does something else he doesn’t like?

Then the next step is to tell him what he should do instead in those situations. So “if someone takes your toy/ is mean to you/ makes you cross, what should you do? Tell a grown up. You don’t hit. You tell a grown up”. Repeat every day before nursery.

Oh we had that! It was a phase and in the end I had a meeting with the staff and asked if the behaviour was significantly different to other children. They said no. We had been made to feel awful but it was totally normal and a phase many children go through and come of the other side.

Hi there, this is an older thread but we're in the same boat now with our nursery. 3 year old son with alot of energy can get 'handsy' with other kids. What came of your situation? Have things gotten better and how long was your LO in nursery before it just clicked for them?

Thank you!