Jack has always been on the aggressive side and Gabe very passive (2 and 4 respectively). Now they seem to have traded personalities a bit and tonight we had an episode that I had no idea how to handle.

I was downstairs working and I heard something that sounded like a chair falling over on the wood floor. I ran up the stairs to find Jack sitting in front of the fridge, crying, Gabe was still in his chair (barstools at an island). I asked him what happened and he said he fell. Jack was so upset, crying, etc he wouldn't answer. He whimpered for about 30 minutes and I couldn't find anything wrong with him. We finally got Gabe to admit that he had fallen on his head :( and later DH got him to admit that he had pushed him off. *sigh* I didn't know what to say. We obviously cannot have this sort of thing happening, he has been pushing him and kicking him constantly for a few weeks and I don't know what the answer is. I'm worried that Jack is really going to get hurt next time and I could have done or said something NOW to have prevented it. Can I really reason with a 4 year old? He's not a mature 4, so don't know how much he'll really take away from what I say, KWIM? This is very out of character for him, he seems to be having a rough patch. :(

Jessica

My dd is 5, but she's always been mature for her age, so I have always explained possible consequences to her for her actions so that she would think before she did something that could hurt somebody else. I'm not sure how I would handle it, if she wasn't so mature for her age.

If it were me, I would sit him down and ask what he thinks could happen to his brother, ask how hurt does he think his brother could get, then I would explain the seriousness of what could happen to his brother, that knocking him off the barstool could cause something bad enough that he might have to go to the hospital and his head or other bones in his body could get broken, or if he fell in just the right way, his neck could be broken and he would never walk again or he could die.

Then after I talk to dd about that, I want her to think about it empathetically (and this is something I've always done with her, even when she was a toddler). I ask her how it would feel if her brother knocked her down on her head off the barstool and how scared she would feel and how hurt her head would feel, etc. When she puts herself in the other child's shoes, she usually understands why this is something you should never do.

I'm also coming from a different side of it, my dd had a head injury with a fractured skull at 4 months old, she fell out of a bouncy seat, so I am SUPER paranoid about any kind of thing that could cause a head injury, so I am very honest with her about it, whether she's attempting something dangerous like on a playground or she's picking up her baby brother and trying to carry him across the room, I remind her of it and she knows how it scares the heck out of mommy.