Bad peer influence at nursery

[Zaksmum]

My son has started in a new nursery (aged 2.5) - to which he's settled in very well. However, he has now attached himself to a disruptive child and is following his behaviour. From being a lovely child at nursery, he has now started pushing other children, making them cry, and is increasingly physically violent. eg pounding his fists against me, whilst saying "punch, punch".
For my son, I don't want to disrupt his nursery again. For me, this is the only nursery that works around my work hours. The two friends will go to pre- school together, being the same age so there are no quick solutions.
Any ideas / solutions??

Being a mum and a nursery nurse i know this is a hard one! My son picked up all sorts of behaviour from a boy at his nursery and im lucky i knew what to do. At my old nursery we had a policy that issued incident form and behaciour forms if any child had a persistant unacceptable behaviour. You should approach the manager and tell them your concerns, they will not be able to tell you anything about the other child but ask if they have a monitering situation and all you can do is request that they moniter your childs behaviour when he is around the other child and when he is away from the other child. If this monitering shows that the other childs behaviour has a dramatic effect on your childs behaviour then you have grounds to request them being kept apart for periods. Ask the nursery if they have key worker groups and if your child is in the same group as the other child they could easily be split. Sorry if im waffling, hope this helps! GOODLUCK