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1.19.2009
I know its not my turn...
But I have a 1 nearly 2 year old who has a fascination with hitting her older sister. I feel like all I do is walk her to time out time after time after time. I make her apologize and I give her a stern "no hitting". She screams during time out, but then soon is hitting her sister and smiling about it. WHAT SHOULD I DO??? She once had a pulling hair fascination and I decided to give her hair a tug just to show her what it felt like, because my 3 year old doesn't fight back she just reverts to tattle telling, so my 1 year old didn't know what it felt like, it worked she never pulled hair after that..she just moved on to hitting, and I won't smack her. :) So please any suggestions!!!
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6 comments:
Yeah, Brielle has started hitting us sometimes. It's tough because most of the time she's not doing it in anger, she thinks it's playing. We just take her hands and look her in the eyes and say "no hitting"
I feel the same way, that some days I'm just following her around saying no, no. But hitting is kind of a big one. I don't really have a good answer, I just tell her no hitting, and have her do something else. I've noticed she does it more when she's bored.
We have a friend with a little boy who can be a real bully a lot of the time. His mom is very on top of him but can't catch him every time he hits. BUT, when she does, she grabs him and says "Show me soft or gentle" and demonstrates what soft feels like. Eventually, he has learned to repeat the soft motion, and kind of petting (like a dog) the kid he just hit. He doesn't get to continue until he has demonstrated soft and gentle.
Also, you could ask your librarian to help you find some age appropriate books on the subject. We checked out some books on being nice to kitties, because we want to get a kitty. I'm sure there are tons of books about not hitting. Sometimes, removing the child from the situation is the best remedy, though.
Maybe it is because she knows she'll get immediate attention for it? Hitting is hard, my boy has started hitting us during tantrums... and it is seriously one of the hardest things because you can't say "NO HITTING" and then spank them!
My sister used to do "icky sauce" - she had a little boy who used to WANT time-out so that didn't work, and it seems like she tried everything for discipline and this was the only thing that worked. If he was naughty, he got 2 chances and on the third, he got icky sauce. A drop or two of tabasco on his tongue. It worked!
Not that I always do this but...I try to say affimative things instead of negative things like Shelly was talking about. For example when Jared hits then I say "Be soft" instead of "No hitting" or "Don't hit!"
Also, I've noticed that when he hits it is because he hasn't yet learned the ability to express himself otherwise. He'll be 2 next month but he still doesn't talk very much so when my daughter takes a toy from him (or he is frustrated) he expresses himself by force. I wonder if we teach our children in those moments other ways to communicate if it would be more effective than punishments. Instead of time outs we can role play a better way to respond than the hitting (or excessive crying in my daughter's case.) I don't think these behaviors will stop overnight but I feel like the more we teach our children appropriate behavior then over time they will learn to communicate appropriately. Also, it's hard to reason with kids but sometimes I say things like "Hey, does mom ever hit dad? Then let's be soft with our sister."
I've also heard that you can give all the attention to the one who was hit...the victim. You hug them and comfort them instead of displaying the negative attention (hey, it's still mom's attention) to the hitter (or biter or pincher...oh dear.)
Great comments so far!! I don't have much to add. But I totally agree with reinforcing what the child should do instead of pointing out the negative behavior. In some of my child development classes they taught that kids will do negative things just as much as positive because they are simply getting attention. Noticing and applauding her when she IS being gentle might help!!
My 17 month old is going through this now and I just softly put his arms down and distract him with something else. I kind of act like I didn't even notice because I think he doesn't realize it's wrong or hurtful, he's just playing. And if he doesn't get attention (positive or negative) from it then there will be no reason to continue.
On the other hand... my 2 other kids (3 and 5) do know it's wrong and they do it with the purpose to hurt and so they do get punished with time out and talking about what they should have done instead.
It's a hard line to walk! I guess it's about knowing your kids and their motives.
This one is really hard! My older girl was a serious hitter until she was a little older and able to control her emotions. She didn't really hit us, but in playgroup situations the punches would start flying because of frustrations, etc. I was actually talking to my husband about this the other night because it's funny that we were so stressed about it with our older, but our younger hasn't ever done this - fingers crossed!
We just kept working on it and talking about it. There is a great book, Hands are not for hitting, that shows lots of other great things that we can do with our hands. We read this a lot and we would just try to remove her from the situation, make her apologize and talk to her about what she could have done. It's hard when there's tons of kids around though! Good luck and I hope that it is a short-lived phase!
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