3 Year Old’s Behavior Toward Little Brother and Others: A Teacher’s Perspective on What Helps
The first time Eli hit Milo, Milo was sitting on the kitchen floor holding a plastic spoon. I was standing at the counter making toast. I heard a small thud, then Milo’s cry, and by the time I turned around Eli had already wedged his body between me and the baby. His face was calm. “No Milo go,” he said.
I knew sibling jealousy was normal, but I still felt embarrassed. It wasn’t just with Milo, either. At a playdate the next weekend, Eli shoved a boy who reached for his train. He bit his cousin once. He grabbed, pushed, and shouted “Mine!” whenever another child came too close. I started to wonder if something was wrong.
As a teacher, I had seen this kind of behavior in my classroom. But it’s different when it’s your own child at home. You can’t step back and observe as easily when you’re the one covered in spit-up and trying to make lunch.
So I started watching more closely. What I found was that the behavior wasn’t random.
Eli’s worst moments almost always happened when I was focused on Milo. When I was feeding Milo, changing him, or just sitting on the floor with him, Eli would appear from nowhere. He’d stand too close, then suddenly push. It looked like aggression, but it was really more like a desperate way of saying, “I need you to notice me too.”
That didn’t make it okay, but it gave me something to work with.
At three years old, a child’s brain is still learning how to handle big feelings. The part that helps control impulses isn’t fully developed. When Eli wanted my attention, he didn’t have the words or the ability to stop himself. He used the only tool he had: his body. The same thing happened with other kids. If another child took a toy, Eli’s immediate reaction was to hit or push because he didn’t yet know how to ask for it back. He wasn’t being bad. He was being three.
What changed wasn’t Eli. It was what I did before and after the behavior.
The first thing that helped was naming the feeling out loud. The next time Eli shoved Milo, I said, “You’re mad at me because I was helping Milo. You want me to put him down.” That didn’t stop him from crying, but it bought me a few seconds. It also told Eli that I understood what was going on inside his head. Understanding didn’t mean agreeing with the shove. It just meant he didn’t have to scream to be seen.
I also started giving Eli a small amount of attention before I gave any to Milo. When I sat down to nurse, I would first set up Milo in a bouncer next to me, then turn to Eli and say, “Here. I’ll get your blocks ready. After Milo is done, you and I will make a tower.” It felt silly. But thirty seconds of focused attention before the baby got mine made a noticeable difference. Eli stopped interrupting as much. He knew he wasn’t invisible.
When he did hit, I kept it simple. I would put my hand between Eli and Milo and say, “I won’t let you hurt your brother.” Then I’d pick Milo up and move away. No long explanation. No lecture about being a big brother. The message was just about the boundary, not about Eli being a bad person. If he kept trying to hit, I’d hold his hands gently or move him to a different spot in the room. That usually helped more than sending him to his room. Being isolated in the middle of a meltdown only made him feel more disconnected.
One of the most practical things I did was change the furniture. I realized Eli and Milo were often fighting over the same toys because there wasn’t much within easy reach for Eli when I was sitting on the floor. So I put a small basket of “Eli only” toys near the nursing spot. Nothing fancy—just a few cars, a puzzle, a mini notebook. When Milo grabbed for a toy, Eli could have a separate one ready. It didn’t solve sharing, but it reduced the number of everyday collisions.
With other children, the same approach applied. I lowered my expectations. Playdates were only about an hour long, and I stayed close to the action instead of sitting in the kitchen. Before a friend came over, we put away the toys Eli cared about most. The rest we could share. I gave Eli simple words to use: “My turn, then yours.” And I stayed close enough to step in before the push happened, not after. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. A few times we just ended the playdate early. That was fine. A short playdate with calm parents is better than a long one full of fighting.
I also tried to notice when Eli was getting close to losing control. He would start to talk louder, or his body would get stiff, or he’d say “no” over and over. When I caught that moment, I could give him a physical way to release the feeling. “You look really frustrated. Let’s stomp your feet on the floor together.” Or “I can’t let you hit Milo, but you can hit this cushion as hard as you want.” Throwing a ball outside helped too. It felt strange at first, telling him it was okay to hit a cushion when I’d just told him not to hit his brother. But the point wasn’t violence. The point was that anger needs an outlet that doesn’t involve someone else’s body.
The things that didn’t help were the things I kept trying first: long conversations about why hitting is wrong, asking him to imagine how Milo felt, and forcing him to say sorry. Eli couldn’t do any of those. When I asked, “How would you feel if someone hit you?” he just looked at me and said, “Fine.” He wasn’t being rude. He simply didn’t have the empathy skills yet. At three, children are still learning that other people have feelings too. That learning comes from watching us model it, not from being told to apologize.
I started naming feelings more often in everyday life, not just during conflicts. “You’re frustrated because your tower fell.” “You’re happy because daddy came home.” Over time, Eli began to say “I’m mad” instead of shoving. Not every time. But sometimes. That felt like progress.
There’s still a lot of messiness. Yesterday Eli brought Milo a little stuffed dog, then immediately took it back. Milo stared at him and Eli started crying. He only wants to be nice when he wants to be nice. That’s normal. I just have to stay close enough to catch the moments before they turn into shoves, and keep trusting that his brain is learning the pattern.
We haven’t solved anything. We’re just starting to see the shape of it now.
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