Maybe at 4, the concept of losing his favourite toy is not immediate enough. Have you tried the naughty step? The child is isolated for the number of minutes relating to his age (ie 4 mins for your 4 year old son).
He probably is just doing this as an experiment... let's see what happens if I do this......He obviously gets a resulty... and he is repeating the experiment. He cannot feel empathy yet... my friend who is a child psychiatrist says this does not develop until at least teenage years. But to help this develop, you can encourage him to think a bit about the consequences of his actions. "Look... that hurt that girl. You don't like it if someone hurts you. It's not nice to hurt people".
My youngest used to push, hit, bite etc (especially to her siblings.). It was embarrassing but she doesn't do it now. She is 9 and the model pupil at school. I used every opportunity when someone hurt her to say "You are hurt because X hit you. This is what it feels like for the people you hit. That's why I tell you not to do that as it isn't nice to hurt.It wasn't nice when X hit you and it's not nice when you hit Y". Eventually, consistencey won.
Sometimes I had to say "If you hit anyone else I will take you home". The punishment is immediate and easily understood.
As you are being consistent, I am sure your son will learn eventually. Just remain calm yet stern when he is behaving this way. (Is stern the right word?)
Oh yeah... and whenever he is nice and kind and loving shower him with lots and lots of praise....
Good luck. Don't think you have a bully in the making. My daughter is now so anti-bullying it's hard to imagine she was this difficult violent child when little!!!!!!
Why do you punish him? He doesn't understand. Punishing children causes them to become aggressive. He is most likely aggressive because of being controlled, punished and lonely in his heart (because he is not understood.)
I had similar problems with my older son, but the problems vanished when I learned what to do instead of punishment. I learned kind ways of understanding my son.
If you understand the reason, you can eliminate the cause. Have you read the book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, or the author's many advice columns in The Mother, and other magazines internationally?
I recommend that you learn to respond to your son in a way that he takes away the REASON for his aggression.
