DS is 3.5 and he's recently started a new preschool. He went to a different nursery for two years before this. DH and I suspect he might have ADHD as he's always running around and climbing everything, and also is very impulsive. Both my brother and I have ADHD diagnosis and we're pretty sure my dad has it (he thinks so too but can't be bothered to get a diagnosis at his age). It is genetic and my children are at risk of inheriting it. A SEN teacher at the previous nursery agreed that she can see the signs too and was doing some interventions with him (eg quiet time). He's too young for a diagnosis but there's a lot pointing to it.
In the previous nursery we would occasionally be told that he hit another child - it was always when the child was playing with a toy which he wanted and they wouldn't give the toy to him. He was never aggressive out of the blue in other contexts. In the current preschool we're told that he's hit another child about twice a week. It's become more frequent. Every time this happens the teacher talks to him about kind hands and DH and I talk to him at home and say that it's unacceptable to hit others. I always ask him calmly what happened, did he get angry, which child did he hit, but he never tells me anything. He gets very quiet and looks down in shame. At home he occasionally hits DH with an open hand eg when DH says he can't have chocolate before dinner. He never hits me or his 3-month-old brother and he's gentle with us. He does a lot of climbing, running around and screaming at home but isn't aggressive.
Today I was collecting DS from preschool and one of the teachers said this with a smile on her face:
"I just wanted to let you know that he put his hands on another child's neck. We didn't know what he was trying to do because we stopped him. Oh and he has this red mark on his hand." I explained that he has three mosquito bites on his hand which are red - I showed her that there are clearly three bumps on the red marks so they're bites. She just replied "oh so you saw them".
My aunt who is a headteacher at a different school and has 25+ years of teaching experience said that if she didn't know us she'd think there is violence at home since DS aggressive to other students and he might be acting out after being abused. This made me think of how that teacher went smoothly from insinuating that DS tried to strangle someone to pointing out that he has red marks on his hand. Do they think we abuse him? DH is a buddha and the calmest person I know. We don't argue, sometimes I tell DH off when he does something that annoys me but never in front of DS. We don't even raise our voices at home. I got spanked as a child and I despise corporal punishment. We are gentle parents but we do set strict boundaries at home - bedtime means bedtime, talking to others with respect, no excessive screen time etc. DS doesn't have an ipad and doesn't watch youtube, doesn't play video games, doesn't touch our phones. He can only watch a Disney film (Dumbo / Aristocats / Bug's Life / Toy Story) a few times a week. No other content. Nobody babysits him unsupervised apart from preschool and very occasionally my aunt (she's very calm and I trust her because she looked after me when I was a child). He has no grandmas as both DM and MIL passed away before he was born. He sees his grandads sporadically but they're very calm and never even alone with him. He doesn't say anything bad, hitting is the only issue.
There is virtually nobody aggressive in his life and he has no access to violent content. Where is his aggression towards other children coming from? I really got worried today as I got the vibe from the teacher that they think DS is a strangler and we're abusers. No amount of talking about kind hands or telling him that hitting is bad has helped. What can we do to stop him from hitting children?