Advice needed on two year old's aggressive behaviour at nursery

[ThePoisedOpalBird]

I'm looking for a bit of advice and some perspective.

I have a beautiful 2 year old (young end of 2) who is a typical 2 year old in terms of tantrums, pushing boundaries etc. But we are having a real issue with behaviour at nursery.

He has recently been put on a ABC evaluation due to the number of incidents of him being 'handsy'.

He has been on it a week and I think we already have 10 incidents on there and he only goes 3 days a week! 7 of which were yesterday! They are keeping him on the plan for a month and then we will discuss if they have found triggers.

My worry is so far they all appear unprovoked! He is literally walking up to other kids and shoving them over, kicking them, trying to hit them with his water bottle (which is a very solid insulated bottle!) and he is apparently smiling as he does these things.

He had a new baby brother arrive 3 months ago and we have assumed this is the reason for the behaviour but I am not really experiencing this at home to the level nursery is. He is lovely with his brother 99% of the time.

I want to support nursery and obviously I don't want him to keep hurting other children! Could this really just be because of his baby brother? If so how long is it likely to last? Is there anything I can do at home to help nursery? I am dreading his review in a few weeks and them saying they haven't found any triggers.

Off the top of my head he can probably say 21 of those. Maybe a few more.

I promise you plenty of parents will be told at pick up that their child bit / scratched / shoved. Not all children do it of course but plenty do.

And no, they shouldn’t be informed which child hurt theirs anyway although I realise their child may tell the parent.

I’m quite shocked at the responses you’ve had and that the nursery are making a big deal of this? Here’s screenshots from ChatGPT when mine was 26 months…it’s textbook behaviour for them…they want to interact with other kids but don’t know how so they hit them.
the suggestions in here worked pretty much instantly for my toddler. I reminded him going in to toddler classes/soft play etc that if he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands then stick them on his tummy and it’s exactly what he did. Speech hadn’t quite taken off at that point but did very soon after!

I am probably more concerned about it than nursery is to be honest. I raised some concerns about his behaviour at home (not violent to others) prior to the aggression at nursery starting. I think due to my concerns at home and the increase in instances at nursery they thought it was best to do the ABC's to try and see if there is a trigger and something we can do to help. It also gives a written record incase the behaviour doesn't improve as we need it for GP/HV further down the line.

I am just concerned that the frequency of the hitting etc is increasing and if that is going to cause issues with him being allowed to keep attending nursery as he seems to like going.

You seem to have two separate posts on exactly the same problem, slightly different header but otherwise same issue, on today's AIBU.
Not sure why you've done that?
In any case, I've put my two-penn'orth on the other post.

I realised after posting on this forum I would get far more input and advice if I put it in AIBU 🙂

Thought it might be helpful to hear from a parent who’s child has been on the receiving end - slightly different situation as our son kept getting bitten and was slightly younger (around 18m). Our main concern (other than the physical impact) was whether it would impact him emotionally and socially. We ended up having a few meetings with the nursery to discuss it which was helpful and they reassured us that he wasn’t being targeted by a particular child (they actually had a few biters!) and that it’s a very normal social interaction for that age when they can’t communicate properly -often seemed to happen if there was an argument over a toy etc. They were also reluctant to interfere too early on with interactions as can be very hard to tell and would also likely decrease the positive interactions which are also very important for them socially. As they were slightly younger the staff ratios I think were slightly higher but for awhile they did end up trying to make sure there was a staff member monitoring him (as there were multiple biters) and being very careful when he interacted with the biters! As parents we were definitely more concerned than our son ever seemed to be but nursery did take it seriously which really helped. Sounds like your nursery are too and I’m sure they have experienced this before. Sounds like it’s definitely useful to understand any triggers but from what I know sounds very normal developmentally particularly with a new sibling. Does also sound like it’s a way of him communicating and so hopefully will improve as his speech also improves. Good luck I hope it passes soon!