Anyone else have to deal with this? My little boy likes to hit his older siblings and then laugh. I say no, and he points to his nose. Which, okay, that part is kind of funny.

But, I don't think he fully understands what he is doing. Has anyone else had to deal with this?

Oh man do I!! My little man will be 3 at the end of MArch and he is becoming such a hitter!! We never had problems with our daughter, but he is getting bad. We have tried everything and nothing is working yet. Let me know if you come up with anything and I will too...
robin

With my son he hits differently, yes I know it sounds weird, he has his play hitting "firghing" and his mad hitting. when he is playing and hits me he laughs and we play sometimes. I make sure that I tell him the difference in playing and not to do that at school. Now when he is mad thats a different story. He will just come running up and slug you one or bite you (he has done both) I will slap his hand and he will pitch a fit. when he is done we sit down and talk about it, why he done it, needing to say sorry, and a big hug and kiss and not to do it again. I tried timeout, taking toys away but nothing worked, I just have to let him calm down on his own (no interaction from me) and then I say, 'are you done?' and we talk. That is what works for him but each kid is different. My son is 2.

My son will be 2 in July. I think that hitting (and not knowing better) probably has a lot to do with age.

i know this sounds mean but have you ever let the older child "defend" himself? if you really believe that your 2 year old understands, maybe being hit by someone a little bigger might jolt him into understanding that hitting hurts...kind of like biting the biter. it really worked for my son...only took one or two times of him being bit back and he stopped that garbage!

i'm not advocating encouraging your children to be violent at all but we are dealing with this with my 8 year old niece. she is constantly hitting my soon to be 10 year old son. I mean hard. we have always taught him not to hit, especially girls. but we have all finally agreed that it was time to tell him to hit her back. nothing else has worked, time out, not allowing her to play with him, spanking her...nothing. we had a family supper last night and she hauled off and slapped him hard enough that we heard it in the kitchen. he was ready to whop her back when we came into the livingroom. he backed off when he saw us, i reminded her again that if and when he hits her back, i will not punish him at all. her grandmother tried to intervene like nanny's do, but her uncle said and when he is done, you will have to deal with my. he told her he was not going to let her keep hitting his son. that ended it for the moment, but i really thing the only thing that will stop her is for him to let her have it one good time.