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I have toddler who is just under 2.5 y/o and is constantly hurting and being mean to his baby brother who is 9 months old. He will often take toys away from his brother just because his brother is holding them. Sometimes he pushes his brother over while he's sitting up, or kicks him while they're sitting together to keep him away from any nearby toys.

I think at least part of his behavior is rooted in jealousy. We make sure to give the toddler a lot of love and attention, but as soon we give any attention to the baby, he starts to act up more.

We have explained to him that it's not nice to take toys or push and that he should say sorry whenever he does it. We remind him to apologize and return the toy after it happens, and he does, but the behavior continues. We try especially hard to praise him for being nice whenever he plays nicely with his brother. I thought this would work, but it's almost like an immediate knee-jerk reaction for him to just be mean whenever he feels emotional. He just can't help it. I feel like I must be doing something wrong. What else can I do to help my toddler understand this behavior is unacceptable and teach him to be nice?

Update to answer question in the comments:

The toddler does seem to actually like his brother most of the time. He gets excited when the baby wakes up from naps and loves to sing "good morning to you" to him. They also play well together in the bath and he likes giving the baby high-fives and hugs and stuff like that. The mean behavior is not super common and seems more impulsive than anything. It's still concerning to me though because he's actually hurting his defenseless brother on a consistent basis.

Hello world
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Ryan
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3 Answers3

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We struggled with this too. I don't think we found a perfect solution, and eight years later still have some issues of this nature; but what did seem to help was focusing on the feelings.

By this I mean focusing on teaching the older sibling how the younger sibling feels when they do (whatever). This is a combination of 'show' and 'tell'; show older brother the younger sibling's tears and emotions (literally), and tell the older sibling how the feelings are connected to their actions. We tended to avoid requiring apologies at earlier ages, as our understanding was requiring an apology is counterproductive - they should choose to make the apology as a result of seeing the emotional impact of the behavior.

We also would talk to our older son about why he made the choice(s) he made, and tried to help him find alternative options for accomplishing the goal he had. Sometimes it was just wanting whatever younger brother had, but sometimes it was more complicated - being frustrated younger brother was in the way, or younger brother took something without realizing it was important where it was, or whatnot. Giving him tools to manage his frustration was an effective way of helping him solve the problem in a different way the next time it occurred.

Like I said, this didn't work perfectly by any means, but it seemed to help some, at least. We struggle still with empathy, and this is part of that in my mind. Find other ways to help develop empathy and some of this will improve. Don't feel bad for looking out for the baby, though - that's an important part of your job, beyond developing older sibling, protecting the younger one is necessary to make sure they are okay!

Joe
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    Thanks for the answer. I think talking to him about feelings is very good advice and something we did better when he was younger and kind of got out of the habit of doing. It’s not an overnight solution, but I think it’s definitely important and likely to help. – Ryan Feb 17 '22 at 00:41
  • Great answer. To supplement: Make sure older has some safe places to put items he doesn't want to share. Teach older the trick of trading toys -- if he wants to grab Toy A from baby, it's easy if you just hold out Toy B. Baby will drop Toy A when he reaches out for Toy B. Teach older gradually to verbalize his feels, e.g. "I want some privacy now." "I don't want baby to bother us when I have a friend over." (Some of this is looking ahead when the toddler is a bit older.) My older got so fed up with younger bursting into his room unexpectedly, we reinstalled lockable doorknobs for his room. – aparente001 Feb 17 '22 at 13:26
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    Childless dude in his forties here, so please excuse my ignorance. I had the impression that this sort of abstract thinking, the ability to comprehend the concept that other people are as real as you are and have emotions just like you do comes relatively late. Is that wrong? Can a toddler really grasp the concept that people around them have emotions and can be emotionally affected by the toddler's actions? – terdon Feb 17 '22 at 15:23
  • @terdon good question. I had to look this up, but it looks like they can start learning empathy around 2, so this still seems like good advice – Ryan Feb 17 '22 at 15:27
  • Good question for a separate question. But as Ryan says, yes, some learning is possible at that point. Much of parenting at this age is about slow progress - not expecting the child to instantly have the empathy of a 40 year old, but doing the work necessary to start the learning process. – Joe Feb 17 '22 at 15:40
  • @terdon: It varies. Some children start early from 2, while others may not until as late as 5-6. The more the child is involved in taking care of younger siblings, the earlier they develop empathy, on average. Incidentally, having an older sibling care for them also helps children to develop empathy faster. – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 16:04
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    @terdon - On some level, this is present almost from birth. Experiments on infants show they can differentiate and show signs of empathy to a mother's feelings. – anongoodnurse Feb 18 '22 at 15:18
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This is the OP. After using some of the advice from the other answers as well as some of our own techniques, I want to share how things turned out.

He is now much nicer to his younger brother. He no longer tries to hurt him and he actively tries to share with him.

What worked?

  1. We talked about how his actions made his younger brother feel. Whenever he would take a toy from or hurt his brother, we would remove one of them from the situation and talk about how his younger brother was sad because of what happened and what it’s like to be sad. We would talk about it even when he was not the one that caused the younger brother to be sadThis worked surprisingly well and he started noticing on his own and giving his brother kisses to help him feel better.
  2. We emphasized good behavior. Instead of just telling him he was doing a good job when he was playing nicely, we would make a big deal out of it by giving him a high five and acting really excited. He started even choosing to share even when not asked and we would talk about how it made his brother feel happy.
  3. We would encourage him to take toys he did not want to share somewhere else. If he didn’t want to share toys we told him to take them somewhere his brother couldn’t get to.
  4. We spent more one-on-one time with him. When younger brother takes a nap, instead of using that time to catch up around the house, we specifically do “learning time” with him which he really enjoys. It helps give him some of the positive attention he may have been missing before.
  5. Less screen time. We used to put on the TV to distract him while we needed to get other things done. We made a new rule of no TV until after dinner and only one show per day. This seems to have had a major positive impact on his behavior as a whole, although it was hard for the first few days.

These techniques worked well for him, but I imagine their effectiveness will vary from child to child. Anyway, I hope these ideas may help other parents who struggle with this problem in the future.

Ryan
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You need both positive and negative actions. It is not wrong to punish a child appropriately for behaviour that hurts another person, and I get the feeling that you are deliberately avoiding even slight punishment. In fact, I would even say it is necessary to impose consequences for any hurtful behaviour, for the sake of the people who would foreseeably be hurt by future hurtful behaviour of similar kind.

If you do not impose consequences, you effectively send him a very strong message that he can get away with anything he likes because there are no consequences! That is not only bad for your baby, but bad for your toddler's personal growth as well.

For example, if he takes away a toy 3 times in a row (for no good reason), a fair consequence is to take all toys from him for a day. The punishment is justified by the repetition of undesirable taking from others, because if he cannot control his behaviour on his own then someone else has to teach him to do so.

If he pushes his brother over deliberately, it is fair to put him in a time-out. Of course, you also need to explain the reason for the time-out.

If he kicks his brother, that is crossing the line into violence, and cannot be tolerated in any sensible parenting approach. You should immediately stop him and warn him of severe consequences if it happens again. If you judge that he knows his kicking hurts the brother, then you may even need to give a palm-to-palm spanking. Many people may tell you that spanking is bad, but that is a false generalization. You must never spank in anger, and you should not use an object. But your baby is not a disposable object and you cannot afford to let the elder brother harm your baby just because you do not want to effectively curb violence.

user21820
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    @user21820 thank you for your input. I agree that consequences are important as well. We usually give him a warning the first time he does it and then put the toys away (not for a whole day though) if he does it again in the same setting which is rare. Maybe we can make a clear rule and then follow through with the consequence on the first offense. I also disagree with the spanking however. I don’t see any way of justifying hurting someone that can’t defend themselves. That’s what he’s doing to his brother, and if I did it to him, that would just send the message that it’s okay. – Ryan Feb 17 '22 at 15:17
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    … but I recognize I could be wrong about that. We’re all just out here trying to do our best. I don’t have anger issues, but spanking just isn’t for me. – Ryan Feb 17 '22 at 15:21
  • @Ryan: In case you missed the point, the palm-to-palm spanking is different from other spanking, because the goal is simply that both parent and child suffer a slight sting and nothing more. Furthermore, it has to be done cooperatively; you do not grab the child and force him to get a palm-spanking. Rather, as made very clear in my answer, it only applies "if you judge that he knows his kicking hurts the brother", because only in that case would he be able to understand when you explain that such hurtful behaviour is 100% unacceptable and he must get a palm-spank. – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 15:42
  • If he cannot even understand that his kicking hurts the brother, then spanking does not even apply, so all the objections against my advice based on the child being too young are empty. But some children can understand much earlier than others, and you would have to judge for yourself. Those who can understand will naturally know that your palm-spanking is mainly symbolic of an unacceptable behaviour, and the slight sting is shared by both, to implicitly affirm that it is not one-sided against him. Palm-spanking is not for those who have anger issues, but it works for those who do not. – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 15:45
  • @Ryan: By the way, I assumed my advice about the toys was clear but apparently not. Obviously we cannot just silently wait for the child to violate the rule 3 times and then suddenly jump to the final consequence! As you seem to have realized in your comment, you should explicitly lay down the consequence on each repeated offence. The first time you don't even have to deal out consequences, but simply return the toy taken and warn that his toys would be taken away for an hour if he does it again. On the second time you follow through and warn that the third time it will be for a day. – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 15:53
  • @Ryan: One last thing; the fact that you are trying to do your best is enough; don't worry too much about whether you are giving too much or too little punishment, but try to make your parenting as consistent and fair as possible. Remember, your baby is just as much entitled to a safe environment as his elder brother, so being fair to your baby requires you to deal out barely sufficient punishment to prevent the older one from repeating the undeniably harmful behaviour (kicking) to the baby. If you can stop the behaviour without punishment, why not? But some children need a little bit. – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 15:58
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    Can someone please tell me what “palm to palm spanking” is? I tried to Google it but only perverted stuff comes up…thanks in advance. – sammy Feb 17 '22 at 15:55
  • @sammy It is just plain English; you use your open palm to hit the open palm of the child. Not palm to buttocks, not slapping, not using a stick (or other objects). – user21820 Feb 17 '22 at 16:01
  • The majority of the comments here were deleted because they were not for clarification. Note that per the current community consensus we will allow answers that suggest spanking and similar approaches (within certain limits). This does not mean that we necessarily condone this. We are very aware of the fact that many countries ban any form of physical violence against children. The SE system encourages voting on all posts, up and down as users deem appropriate. – Stephie Feb 17 '22 at 16:20
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    @user21820 Unless you are a lawyer and well-versed in the topic, please refrain from rekindling the discussion. – Stephie Feb 17 '22 at 17:50