Well, I can tell you what I do just as an example. A few minutes ago I had a 23 month old girl hitting a 2 year old boy (yes, she's feisty and tiny) because he was invading her fort. I made her stop and hold my hands and look at me and I told her that her hands have to be nice to her friends and she hugged him and said sorry.

Who knows what you little guy got away with at the other daycare or if other children were hitting him but you can probably get some hints about that from the parents. Maybe he's really confused and angry at the change and acting out and it will stop very soon. I hope so for everyone's sake.

Some children do not react well to big changes in their lives. If you put yourself at his perspective and think about how he must feel and try to talk to him at his level about being nice and having gentle hands with others hopefully it will help. Otherwise, you're going to be disciplining him until he gets it or you terminate but never cave in and whatever discipline you choose keep at it consistently. It's worked great for me for 5 years at my daycare.

As soon as a problem arises, like it is now with my spunky girl who just started hitting recently I nip it in the bud quickly. She's so done with the little boy who doesn't understand other people's space or socialize well. Whole other story!