Toddler aggression at nursery

[Marfs10]

DS is 2.5. Started preschool in September, 2 days a week. We had a couple of drop offs with tears but nothing awful and we were always reassured that he calmed down quickly. He is quite an active thing, the nursery had lots of outside space so I was reassured that this would be a good fit for him.

The issue we have is that he keeps being aggressive to other children at nursery. He’s been around other kids a lot (play groups, play dates, soft plays etc) and I have witnessed that he can have a short fuse, but in my experience, always as a result of something. At nursery though, his aggression is almost opportunistic - not always an obvious trigger and quite extreme - hair pulling and scratching most recently, neither of which we see at home. The nursery are having to be with him constantly to keep everyone safe.

Do I keep him at nursery and just hope that he settles, or pull him out, keep him at home and try again when he’s older? The nursery are talking about SEN but at this age, surely that would be very difficult to diagnose?

Hopeful bump

Why is he at nursery, because you work or just for fun?

If he doesn't need to go then definitely try again in a year.

The thing with SEN, is if his behaviour means he needs 1:1 care, the nursery need to be able to fund that so they have no choice but to look at getting inclusion funding.

@VikaOlson it’s just for fun, and to give him the opportunity to prepare for school in a couple of years. Thank you for your reply, it’s nice to hear someone say what my gut does.
Yeah, that makes sense about the funding. Is funding for that age common?

2 is still very young for nursery, a year before school is more than enough preparation.

Funding is hard for nurseries to get but if they are having to provide 1:1 they will need to try. They will certainly want to involve the SENCO and try to put interventions in place to see if they can manage the behaviour.