If you do, I would recommend ordering the video, Raising Cain. I think it's got a lot of really great strategies for dealing with boys.

My son tends to hit a bit when we are out. He's not quite two yet, and I guess the hitting started when he was around 1 year old. It's lessened quite a bit, but it was hard for me to deal with as the mother. I was hanging out with a friend who has a boy son about 6 months younger than my own, who is very laid back and calm...and she recommended the Raising Cain video to me.

My son used to hit younger children a lot, in which case, I would intercede and redirect him. The hitting was usually happening for a reason. If he was hitting because he wanted some physical contact with the other child, I would suggest a hug or kiss instead, and he would be super responsive to that. Even now, when hitting occurs, it is usually for this reason: because my son wants physical contact with the other child. He's very loving and sensitive, but doesn't know all of the socially acceptable ways to go about it, and thinks that hitting is a funfilled and energetic way to get that touch in.
The other reason that I've seen my son hit is out of frustration. In this case, I think that he needs to hit something to get that energy out of his body, and so I have been trying to redirect the hitting to be a slap at the floor, or a pillow, rather than at another child.

If he's hitting a child who is as large as he is, or larger, I tend to give them quite a while to work it out. Most of the parents that I hang out with share this philosophy, though many of the one's I see at the park don't... I have noticed that when I intercede, it doesn't tend to teach my son that he shouldn't hit (because the hitting doesn't appear to be lessened by my behavior. What has seemed to curb my child's hitting in a big way is letting the other child(ren, tell him that it's not okay and that they don't like it. I have especially noticed that in larger social groups of children, the older female children have tended to step in and take charge of the younger boys behavior. My son seems to respond to a 5 or 6 year old girl in ways that neither I, nor the other parents with me, can evoke from him.

So, anyway, I don't really know what the best thing for you to do is, but that's sort of what I've been doing 'on the other side'. There is an older boy that we know who was really messing with ds, and after a few weeks of this, ds finally just hauled off and decked him. This other child is 5. He has left ds alone since then. Before I had this kid, I would have been shocked to hear a mother say this, but what the hell...

"The Universe Molds Itself To Prove Your Beliefs"

One of my very best friends has a little boy the same age as my youngest, and when we first started hanging out (roughly 7 years ago, so our boys were 2ish then) we had our boys together all the time. Her son is a nice kid, easy-going, but then he was just a tad more aggressive than my son. He would hit him and stuff, and my friend wouldn't say anything to him about it. So I would tell him to cut it out, as T-bop was not very verbal as a toddler and didn't speak much. He would, but then would try hitting my son when I wasn't looking.

Finally one day after this kid kept bopping him in the head with a pillow, T-bop laid him out, he just decked him one right in the face and knocked him down. Then my friend said something, and got salty. I had T-bop apologize and tried to explain to her that yes, his punching her son in the face was an over-reaction to getting hit on the head with a boppy pillow, but this was just the straw that broke the camel's back for him, as this kid was always hitting him all the time. And she had never tried to stop her son from hitting him anyway. She calmed down and all, and the boys resumed playing. This kid never laid a hand on my son again.

By the time they were 5ish they stopped being friends of their own accord...they still play with each other and hang out when they see each other (she lives next door to my in-laws and my kids are over there at least once a week), like if all the kids on the street are playing a game they'll play with each other then. But they are not close at all (like won't invite the other to birthday parties and over each other's houses and stuff) and that's ok.

Your kid doesn't have to be friends with her kid just because you two are friends. I know it's hard to schedule separate time now because the kids are toddlers, but it gets easier as they get older. In retrospect I wish I had spoken up to my friend earlier and asked her to directly intervene when her son was hitting mine...and if she wouldn't have agreed to that I would have just not had my son around her son.

That's What's Up

I'm answering from the perspective of being a preschool teacher of 2 yr olds. There are two bullies in my class, and they hit others all day long (any second that the teachers aren't looking). My child has gotten full-body tackled down to the floor and given a bloody lip, others have gotten slapped, shoved into walls, and hit over the head repeatedly with hard toys. Here are my thoughts:

- you have to protect your child; show him how to stand up for himself & be there to rescue him if he is pinned down, etc. pay attention to his grievance

-I try to give comfort to the hurt child first, then say "no hitting" in a low voice to the other child

- since I'm the teacher, and not in a playdate situation, I take the other child out of the room, sit him on a chair, and use a lot of words to say 'no hitting, hitting isn't nice, we don't hit our friends', etc for a minute or so. This kind of physical follow through is working better than just the verbal one. Also, pointing to the hand that they hit with so they know what's being referred to specifically, instead of just intellectually.

- Try to interact with the bully more, offer them specific activities, lots of good praise for otherwise unremarkable behavior ("you stacked up those blocks so well" "you made that car go so fast", etc)

- Practice "playing nice" with them: have a lot of mediated games where the bully is taught to wait & help before being destructive; like helping the calm kid build a tower & hold off on kicking it down until the calm child agrees it's time to bring it down.

- be on the lookout for potential hitting. like now I know that when one child is playing calmly with something, and one of the bullies approaches, I try to be there physically bc I know that usually an unprovoked slap, push, or shove is going to be the way the bully "greets" the situation. so I get there and start talking about whatever kid A is playing with, and offer the bully a chance to join in or whatever.

Bottom line is, that it takes a lot more physical presence & interference on the part of the teacher/parent to manage the bully's behavior. You can't just expect them to play amicably together, with only an occasional toy grabbing incident. Somewhere along the way, they learned that hitting is acceptable and it's a habit that needs to be gently stopped with constant reminders and re-enactments of positive behavior.
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