# Aggressive 3 year old



## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

We have twins (boy/girl) who will turn 3 this October and when my H picked them up from DC today, the teacher indicated our son is very aggressive towards other children and that they keep the twins separated because it's known that he picks on her a lot. They've been at this center for about 6 months total and I'm afraid his aggression is getting worse. They really like going, never fuss when I take them there each morning. 

Is there anyone who has successfully curbed their toddlers aggression? He does this at home, and we try to be on top of it with timeouts, apologies, an occasional butt smack, redirecting his attention to another toy if that's what's wrong, etc... What are we forgetting to do?

I don't want him to get kicked out of this DC!


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

First off, teachers hate boys.


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

Tell me about it. Being a boy is practically a crime.


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

Teachers hate boys because they expect them to act like girls.

Boys are great. I had 19 in my class last year (out of 25) and we had an amazing time!

But about your aggressive 3 year old...there are many reasons why children can behave this way. Any turmoil in the home lately? Fears? Sometimes it can even be psychological or hormonal. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Have you talked to your pediatrician?


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## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

that_girl said:


> Teachers hate boys because they expect them to act like girls.
> 
> Boys are great. I had 19 in my class last year (out of 25) and we had an amazing time!
> 
> But about your aggressive 3 year old...there are many reasons why children can behave this way. Any turmoil in the home lately? Fears? Sometimes it can even be psychological or hormonal. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Have you talked to your pediatrician?


No, I haven't talked to her yet, they have their 3 year old check-up coming up in two months, so I suppose I can talk to her about it then... I just fear he'll get kicked out before then  

I've read somewhere that children this age do that to get the other children to "play" with them... My daughter can play by herself for a while, but my son appears to need constant stimulation by someone, anyone so he acts out to get attention I guess, even if it's negative ... Thanks for your input!


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## Duddy (Apr 29, 2011)

There are a few points I'd like to share that might be helpful.

1)With toddlers, It's really important to know what usually happens in the second or so before the aggressive behavior and 1 second or 2 after the aggressive behavior. 

You want to identify the most typical triggers and consequences (reenforcement sources i.e. you mentioned negative attention). 

For example, does the target behavior (aggression) happen most often interacting with other kids? Are there toys or preferred activities involved? Do they always get the teacher's or parent's attention or just some times? 

What reduces or gets rid of aggression without reinforcing the behavior? For example, change of activity, setting etc? Are there shared activities in which aggression is not likely to happen? Why? What's makes the difference and how can you harness this? 

2) It's important to describe and understand in simple, physical, play by play terms, what the specific aggressive behavior or behaviors look like. 

Is it pushing, hitting, yelling, grabbing all of the above? Are some of these more specific behaviors linked to specific consequences (getting a toy from a peer; getting "negative-attention" etc) or to specific activities? 

What would a more healthy behavior look like each situation? Is there a specific social skill that would be a good replacement that you can teach and then cue and saturate with praise and a celebratory song or sticker etc (immediate positive reinforcement)? 

The best behavioral parenting interventions for toddler aggressive behavior, are usually "front-end" and don't miss intervening in a single aggressive behavior instance, until the behavior is reduced to acceptable levels and/or replaced with more appropriate, pro-social alternatives. 

The natural positive consequences take over once the new behavior is established. For example, the teachers reduced stress from trying to stop the aggressive behavior leads to more smiling and positive social attention, in place of the negative attention. 

Front-end means removing triggers (distraction, change of activity etc). It can also mean teaching and systematically reinforcing a positive replacement behavior. 

Here's a great, front-end "social skills" (pro-social replacement behaviors) development resource for young kids. It can be used at home even though it was designed to be used at PS, DC and KG etc (it may be a great way of connecting practically with the teacher also). You can usually find it in your local library: 

Skillstreaming - Early Childhood: A Guide for Teaching Prosocial Skills - Product Detail

Believe it or not, really basic social skills can be shaped and reinforced in toddlers, so they get what they want or need without being aggressive. 

It's best to teach and practice the new social skills in a way that's really, really fun. Then when you cue for them, your far more likely to see them when it counts!

The emphasis should be on positive reinforcement for a desired alternative behavior, although immediate negative consequences for negative behavior periodically, can increase the effectiveness of the positive discipline. 

It's really important to be 100% consistent for a week or until the behavior is changed. You want to cut the aggressive behavior off from any form of reinforcement. 

There are often "extinction-bursts" (behavior gets worse before it goes away) at first when reinforcement is cut off. But this is made much faster and easier to manage when you're reinforcing an alternative behavior, that the child knows how to do from fun learning. 


One of those behavioral things most parents don't get is that intermittent reinforcement (the negative behavior gets it's intended payoff evey 10 or 20 times), is incredibly powerful at keeping problem behaviors going. The extinction-burst never really gets to end. 

So if you intermittently let the behavior happen without your intended consequences once every 10 times, it's likely the 10 times you do intervene will have little or no effect. 

In fact your positive efforts can actually jump over and "reinforce" the negative aggression because he got away with it once or twice. 

I'd keep it positive and practical with the teacher. The last thing you want is a defensive shut down, particularly if the teacher's own responses are inadvertently maintaining or intensifying the behavior. 

I've found it really helpful when working with teachers of kids in all age groups to get them to do really simple behavior observation and charting. 

If you give them the tools (check out behavior charts for toddlers via google) and make sure the extra work load is low, it actually helps the teacher to focus on important behavioral details. It can really stimulate the teacher's own natural intervention, insight and positive influence on problem behavior. DC teacher are very busy you know.

At the very least you can definitely reduce/replace the aggressive behavior at home. Any positive behavior you shape at home can also help to reduce problem behavior at DC. 

With toddlers, behaviors like this are usually very environment specific, so you can reliably change the behavior at home even if it persists at school. 

It's always better when a problem behavior takes place in just one rather than 2 or more major environments (i.e. just at school and not at home or Vs-Vs). 

If you do some replacement social-skills development at home, it would be very easy for the teacher to cue your son to transfer the home learning to the DC setting.

Teacher-behavior like toddler-behavior, will also change when the results of their efforts are beneficial and reinforcing. Reduced child-aggressiveness in the classroom has that effect most of the time.

Detailed information (i.e. charting, precise behavioral descriptions etc) from having a more structured approach like this, is incredibly helpful to any specialist you might see if the behavior doesn't change through an environmental intervention. It can really help in pinpointing any medical issues that may be contributing factors. 

The majority of toddler aggressiveness problems do respond very well to a behavioral parenting intervention, even when temperament is a factor. 

Finally, when it comes to social aggression and social skills development, early intervention like this can really have amazing positive consequences on your child's mental, physical, social and economic well-being, for the rest of their lives.


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## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

Thank you Duddy! I'm going to print your response out and discuss it this evening with Hubby, and I'm going to look into your reading suggestions too... Very informative and very appreciated


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## Sameold (Aug 11, 2011)

I have a three year old son, along with his three big brothers.
He doesn't have empathy until after the fact. It doesn't occur to him that his action will hurt someone until after the person reacts in pain. He's very sorry after he hurts someone, but he can't anticipate what will cause someone pain.
Age helps--unfortunately that doesn't make much difference with your situation where you need the problem solved immediately. Every one of our boys went through this phase of wanting to play roughly without comprehension that they could hurt others. And it was play. The older boys have learned to pull their punches and play-fight, and do it ALL the time. Sometimes someone gets hurt, but it's always an accident in play. (I can tell, if one deliberately hurts his brother, say he is mad about something, I have to demand the apology and it's grudging. If it's an accident, it's 'Oh, no! I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Mo-oom! I hurt him!')


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## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

Sameold said:


> I have a three year old son, along with his three big brothers.
> He doesn't have empathy until after the fact. It doesn't occur to him that his action will hurt someone until after the person reacts in pain. He's very sorry after he hurts someone, but he can't anticipate what will cause someone pain.
> Age helps--unfortunately that doesn't make much difference with your situation where you need the problem solved immediately. Every one of our boys went through this phase of wanting to play roughly without comprehension that they could hurt others. And it was play. The older boys have learned to pull their punches and play-fight, and do it ALL the time. Sometimes someone gets hurt, but it's always an accident in play. (I can tell, if one deliberately hurts his brother, say he is mad about something, I have to demand the apology and it's grudging. If it's an accident, it's 'Oh, no! I'm so sorry! Are you okay? Mo-oom! I hurt him!')


Wow - You have your hands full!! 

It's hard to tell if he knows when he hurts someone, he seems to always blame the other child when he hits someone... Like yesterday, he blatantly shoved my daughter down off of a picnic table and was adamant that it was her fault  Sometimes it's like watching a little married couple  

Thank you for your input!


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## Duddy (Apr 29, 2011)

Cherry said:


> Thank you Duddy! I'm going to print your response out and discuss it this evening with Hubby, and I'm going to look into your reading suggestions too... Very informative and very appreciated


No problem at all Cherry. You're very welcome.


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## HappyWife40 (Aug 23, 2011)

Just throwing this out there: Is there any possibility of a food allergy or sensitivity? My nephew was an extremely aggressive toddler/preschooler. Once they figured out what his real problem was (sensitivity to gluten and casein) he was a totally different kid. It turns out that he had been in pretty severe pain for a long time. 

Good luck with everything!


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## Sameold (Aug 11, 2011)

Cherry said:


> Wow - You have your hands full!!
> 
> It's hard to tell if he knows when he hurts someone, he seems to always blame the other child when he hits someone... Like yesterday, he blatantly shoved my daughter down off of a picnic table and was adamant that it was her fault  Sometimes it's like watching a little married couple
> 
> Thank you for your input!


We're homeschooling, which helps: I don't have to deal with outsiders' ideas about what's going on with my kids as much and I can send kids outside to run around before school, during school, whenever necessary to burn off energy.

When someone is crying, is your little boy sympathetic when he's most definitely not the cause, like if his twin trips and falls, does he come to worry about her? Have you ever gotten hurt to the point of being visibly in pain (I have a bad back--doesn't take much--if I stub my toe I'll probably cry even if I don't fall) and has he shown concern? Has he developed that sort of empathy yet?
Were your twins premature, by any chance? I've read that often premature babies are delayed slightly in development, so while he's three by the calender he might only be two or two-and-a-half developmentally, and if so, have you gotten his teachers to consider that aspect? Could they be measuring his actions against the wrong metric?
What I've noticed is that my boys have to be able to recognize when someone else is hurting before they can recognize that they can cause others hurt. Your son might still be in the stage where his concept of sister (and playmates) has more in common with his toy truck than himself.


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## Cherry (Sep 23, 2009)

Thank you for the suggestion HappyWife, it's something we'll bring up with his ped in October 

Sameold - Yes, he does show sympathy/empathy to some degree... I don't see enough of his interaction at school to know if he does it there, but if his sister get's hurt, and he's not involved (i.e. they're not fussing over a toy and she's off by herself), he will definitely go running to her and ask her if she's okay. If my H or I get hurt, it's the same thing.

And yes, they were premature by a month, and I've heard that too about being less developed for their actual age, I know we take it into consideration at home, I probably should discuss it with his teacher too, didn't think about that! They started there about 6 months ago, and their other provider knew about their premature birth, just didn't think to discuss it with their new provider. We have been more consistent with our punishment of his aggression, so right now I guess time will tell if it'll pay off.


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