3-Year-Old Boy’s Behaviour – Looking for Advice

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some advice/experiences with my 3-year-old’s behaviour. ❤️

We started nursery in April, and he has been going every day for half days. Since around the end of May, the nursery staff have been regularly telling me that they are finding his behaviour difficult.

They say he sometimes grabs other children’s toys, wants to cuddle other children but they don’t always want this, is very active, sometimes screams, and has pushed or punched other children.

I also want to mention that he is definitely not behaving badly all the time. He has good days when everything goes really well, and then he can have days when his behaviour is much more difficult. It seems quite up and down.

At home, I’m trying to work on boundaries and behaviour with him. We are trying to be more structured and consistent, and I often use a timer to help him understand transitions and expectations, but honestly I’m not seeing a big improvement yet.

He has so much energy — he constantly wants to climb, jump, run and be physically active. He finds it difficult to sit still for very long.

Another thing I wonder about is his speech. English is his second language, and even in his first language he isn’t a big talker. I can understand him, but he doesn’t always express himself very well with words. Since starting nursery, though, he has started using more and more English words, which I’m really happy about. ❤️

The nursery lady has also suggested some homeopathic remedies for his behaviour. I’m quite unsure about this and haven’t tried them because I’m worried about giving him something without knowing whether it is actually appropriate.

I’m not looking for judgement — I genuinely want to understand whether this is normal behaviour for a 3-year-old, whether the language barrier could be contributing, and what strategies have actually worked for other parents.

Has anyone been through something similar with their 3-year-old, especially after starting nursery? Did you find that their behaviour changed after starting nursery? What helped you?

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I think it sounds pretty normal, my son is a fidget too and he never sits still for more than 2 seconds unless he's being read to! At 3 they're still learning how to interact with others so maybe your son is still trying to figure out how to make friends. Maybe you can get some books for him about making friends. With my son we've been practising asking "do you want to play with me?" if he wants to approach someone. So for example if he wants to play with me or his dad we've been prompting him to ask that so he gets some practice in. Idk if he actually does it at nursery with other kids but he does it at home now 😂
If you're worried that the language barrier might be an issue, you could give the nursery a list of words your son knows in his native language and how theyre pronounced so the staff can communicate better with him. So words like lunchtime, water bottle, nap time, just words he'd use a lot in his routine at nursery.
I wouldn't give him anything homeopathic tbh but that's just me 🤷‍♀️

Sounds like a 3yo boy to me! At that age they have discovered they are a whole person and want to have autonomy but lack the impulse control and understanding of boundaries. They're incredibly sweet and loving but also hard work and it's constant repetition which can be exhausting. My son is the same age but he started at 12 months old so has had that social exposure for a while, as soon as he turned three though his behavioir changed and we noticed shouting, space invasion and hitting started where it didn't exist before. He also has become territorial over a friend in nursery. It sounds like the big difference in our situations is that the nursery staff have had alot of time to get to know our boy and us, so we've found them very helpful with navigating this tricky patch. That isn't an excuse for your nursery though, they will be well aware this happens, and should be providing extra support given he's knewly entered a setting. Big thumbs down on the homeopathy suggestion, that's not their place at all.

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