Hitting, grabbing, throwing

vlevitt

DS isn't a mean kid, but he has taken to hitting me and DH in the face, throwing items at us, and others and generally taken an interest in grabbing my nose, mouth, neck, chin. It's annoying, and I'm concerned he'll do it to other kids and adults. My interpretation of it is that he's just pretty enthusiastic, and likes the reaction he gets from the behaviours. I think it's relatively normal, but it's still not ok. So far we've gently (and on occasion, not so gently) reminded him about no hitting or throwing objects at people. The latter is a more difficult concept as it's hard to across the idea that it's ok to throw a ball to play catch, less ok to throw a ball at someone's face. What are you all doing to "discipline" behaviours like this? He's still so little that explaining why it's not ok is difficult, but I do want him to know he can't continue this. Thanks for your input.

SingleMom31

Normally, we tell DD no and then distract her with something else. They do something similar at our daycare of telling her that she can't hit her friends, and then moving her along to something else. Generally, if I'm holding her when she tries to hit me, I'll put her down too while saying that she can't hit. She's not a big fan of the consequences (i.e. being put down), and she'll usually stop it to be picked up again.

kescalera

Killian, DH & SS12 all wrestle a lot, so does the dog. My boys are a pretty physical bunch but when Killian tries to hit or throw things outside of the appropriate rough-housing time, we will tell him No, make a very dramatic sad face and tell him Owie, that hurts, please don't hurt Mommy/Daddy/Bubba. If we're holding him we put him down and walk away for a few minutes. It took a couple weeks for him to draw the connection but now he will only lash out when he's throwing a temper tantrum and 95% of the time will come over to me when he's calm and tell me "I'm sorry, Mommy". 

We tried spanking at first but the hitting got worse (surprise!) so we started just holding his hands or giving him a hug but then he started a crazy tantrum period and we decided that long term "hugging it out" just wasn't going to work. Now we walk away, don't make eye -contact, don't talk to him or acknowledge him at all when he's in tantrum mode.