Ideas fro a 20mo old pusher

[jen&james]

My Ds is 20mo old. He has started to push other children, his age, younger and older. He just walks up and knocks them down if he can. I of course say No pushing, we use gentle hands and show him how he can touch gently. I repeat, shadow, repeat, shadow any time we are out. Any other idea to get him to stop. It is driving me crazy and I can't go to LLL meetings or play groups. My first DS did this after he turned 2 but his was more because of sensory issues. He would feel overwhelmed in social situations and would attack other children, football style and then end up crying and upset himself. He still has sensory issues but is 4 1/2 and does fine in group situations now. My sencond DS seems to just do it to see who he can knock over and then when the other child is upset he stands there and smiles. He is only 20mo so I know he doesn't really understand how his actions hurt. Any ideas of how to handle this, i am going crazy!

[Kikelet]

I have been working with little ones for about 10 years in various settings nd encountered this situation countless times, so I wanted to respond to you. The very best way I was able to help a child to stop hitting/pushing/spitting was to make them sit down for a few minutes to cool off. Most of the kids who did it weren't even mean, they were just experimenting with their physicality and were satisfied to get any sort of reaction out of other children, whether they were laughing or crying. If a child was truly anti-social or had developmental problems, they would hit/push knowing that it was a fast way to get out of a social situation and no amount of cooling off would help. This situation requires a lot more attention and teaching than a child who genuinely loves to play with other kids but needs to learn that there is a consequence for pushing. I feel that the "time out" approach is gentle discipline for a 20 mo. old because you can't really talk to them about why what they did was wrong.. I think it's just best to remove them from the situation until they learn to stop. It can be incredibly frustrating as a parent when you want to let your kids have fun, but you have to take them away because they are misbehaving. I never felt guilty for short time outs because most of the time the kids would get it after a few sit down sessions, it was just a matter of catching them every single time and being consistent. Even at 18 months, the babies understood most of the time that hitting/pushing/biting meant no play time for 2 minutes because they would stop the behavior eventually. Sure, they test you the next day and the next, but when you remind them that you mean business, they learn it all over again each day and over time it improves.