Today we spent several hours with friends of ours who have a 2.5 year old child. Its been a while since I've spent that long with them and I came away a bit traumatised. Their son is really full on, I think. He was extremely jealous of anything my son was playing with and often snatched it away from him and tried to hit my son. He would get upset about my son trying to play with his toys (we were at his house) and would crowd him and physically dominate him and throw things at my son and 'smash' what he was playing with across the room. Once or twice the toys hit DS and it upset him, but by and large my DS didn't really notice. The parents (our friends) seemed to be doing a really good job, always on top of his behaviour and giving him consequences for his behaviour, but it was a constant, full on, really hard job.

It really freaked me out that my sweet placid child is going to turn into a constantly challenging, scary, difficult toddler. Do they all act like this? Is it an inevitable part of toddlerhood? Should I "brace"?! I know their son has always had a fairly dominant "alpha" personality, whereas my son is more laid back, so I am hoping a lot of it is a function of personality. I mean, I know all toddlers push boundaries, but do they do it all the time and behave so 'aggressively'??