I need help w/ hitting

aforst

DS hits...a lot.  If he get mad, he will walk around the house hitting inanimate objects.  He will hit the table, the chair, etc.  He also hits DH and I when he's angry.  He is hitting at daycare too. We do time out, but it doesn't seem to phase him.  He will barely stay in his "time out" location.  I hate that he does this and I wish I knew how to get him to stop. We have tried grabbing his hand and getting down so we are even with him and very sternly saying "NO Hitting."  Nothing seems to work.  Any other suggestions?

rlthomas7

We had the same issue although for us, he hit when he got excited. Like he was just so excited about something and he'd just hit and hit. I found that time outs and getting stern with him actually made him do it more, because he thought it was a super fun game to hit, run over to time out, get out of time out, hit again and run right back. The angrier I got or the more stern, the harder he'd laugh and squeal in delight.

So I focused on "gentle." Showed him how to touch the cat or a person gently and really overdid the "oohs" and "ahhs" of gentle. Somehow that actually worked. He loves showing how gentle he can be. Loves to really pet the cat while looking at me and tilting his head to be all cute. He can still get excited and raise his arms to hit me, but if I say gentle he just barely touches me and tilts his head and grins, or comes in for a hug.

During a tantrum, he probably would still hit if I went in close to him, so for a tantrum I just let him thrash on the floor until he's done.

kgb1411

I don't know how great my parenting advice is, but we started doing time outs with hitting and biting.  We say "no" twice, and if he doesn't stop, then we do a time out.  We take him to a specific corner.  He screams and cries, arches his back, gives the bewildered "how could you do this to me" look, etc.  We count to 30, let him finish having his tantrum, and take him to play something else.

We only had to do this frequently for about a week or so.  Unfortunately, I think that the main effect was that DH and I got much better at pre-empting the behavior and saying "no" b/c the time out is so traumatic.