Public Displays of Agression

*sigh*

It's the day that every parent dreads. The day their kid loses it in public.

Allow me to start with a little background - this past week Kieran has woken up in the middle of the night but gone back to sleep. Sometimes he's up early (5) and sometimes he'll sleep in (6 or 7). So, I know he's pretty tired. This morning he didn't want Ken to go to work and pitched a fit, but recovered by the time we hit the farmer's market. We came back home from the market, watched 1/2 hr of TV and I offered to take him to Trader Joe's to get his granola bars since we were out. He fell asleep on the way there. When we got out he didn't want to wake up, he wanted me to carry him around, but eventually agreed to sit down in the cart.

Everything went fine until checkout. He was sitting on the counter and asked if he could "write his name" meaning he wanted to play with the signature pad. I told him no and when he kept reaching for it, I put him down off the counter. Then the first hit came. I told him that hitting is not nice. He hit me again. I let him know if he hit me one more time he would not get his granola bar. He not only hit me, but kicked me and yelled and screamed when I told him no when he asked for his granola bar. In addition when I got down on his level and held his hands, he head-butted me so hard my nose bled. I was PISSED, but managed to hold onto my cool enough to start ignorning him. We got outside of TJs and he asked for his granola bar again. I told him no, that he hit me and I had warned him that if he did he would not get the treat we had come to buy. He lost it again, and screamed in the parking lot.

We're fine now. He's napping (so needed) and we had a nice lunch and some fun before he went down. I'm so upset and frustrated though because he does keep hitting me. I've done more reading on it and everything I see says be consistent with your chosen method of punishment. Mine is ignoring him/time out. It works about 1/2 the time. He and I are going to have another conversation about it when he wakes up and is a bit more coherent. Like I said, I know the WHY of what happened but I don't think Kieran understands it. I keep telling him he needs to use his words and hitting is not nice and not accpetable. It doesn't seem to be sinking in. Do I just have an agressive kid? He's hit another kid at school, but the person there basically shrugged it off saying "that's how kids are at this age". She wasn't excusing the behavior, exactly, but she was trying to say that it is not unexpected. I'm ready for him to be older now please....