At A Loss

Well, it's happened. My sweet, perfect little boy has become a biting, kicking, screaming, crying, stomping, hitting toddler. It started a little earlier when he would hit us or someone at daycare occasionally. We would reprimand him and tell him it was bad and that he should be a sweet boy. It has now become a more and more frequent occurrance. Today he got in trouble for it so much that I had to go get him from daycare. I don't want him to be the kid no one wants to play with, but I can't figure out what's going on. Right now we have two theories. 1- We spank him when he's acting out so maybe he thinks that hitting is acceptable when someone does something you don't like. When we ask him why he hits or bites he always says because s/he (insert something he didn't want to be happening). I guess in his mind if Mommy and Daddy can hit so can he. 2- He wants attention. Eric's gone alot for band stuff and I have homework and schoolwork so maybe he feels like he's not getting enough one-on-one time. In either case, what we're doing isn't working so we're going to have to change something. Instead of spanking or pinching we're going to try a different form of punishment. Anytime he hits, kicks, bites, etc., he's going to go straight to time out. If he gets a bad report from daycare or continues to do a behavior after being in time out, he's going to lose priviledges. He lost his trucks and Cars movies today. I don't know if he's old enough for this type of "grounding," but we're going to try it. When he's being good we're going to give him a lot of good attention. Eric and I are going to try to be more deliberate about the time we spend with him. We'll try this out and reasses at a later date.