How do you discipline a 3 year old for hurting sister?

ans1999

My three year old is constantly hurting his 11 month old sister. I am so fed up with it. How do you discipline your older child? I have been doing time outs but it doesn't seem to change the behavior. He throws toys at her head, steps on her fingers (on purpose while giving me the side eye), etc. Today I took away his option of watching any of his shows. Will he understand this discipline?

shouldbworkin

I have SO been there!  What helped was to try to react with as little attention as possible.  I just said "uh oh, looks like someone needs a time out," picked him up and took him to his room.  Then I told him he could come out when he was ready to be sweet.  When he was ready to be sweet, I made him give his sister a hug and a kiss.  It also helps to have a positive reward chart and go a little overboard in recognizing good behavior.  Not sure about your house, but in mine, this behavior stemmed from #2 getting attention for starting to take steps, stand up on her own and eventually walking.  DS was so jealous of the attention and of her being able to do things that he could, that he really lashed out at her.  Sitting down with him every night to read a book one on one helped a lot too. 

Dimplz

I could've written this post exactly except substitute 11 month old sister for 5 month old kitten. It's beyond frustrating for me. Like you, time outs, taking toys away, yelling, sending him to his room, all of that, does NOTHING. Hopefully someone will come in with some good ideas.

 ETA: Like the poster above me! 

pincushions

We have resorted to taking away his toys immediately.

Not just the toy that he threw or that the fight was over but his "current" favorite toy.

Then I put him in his room in time out and tell him when he can be nice he can come out.

The toy is returned later in the day when I see that he is being nice to her.

We started this 2 weeks ago and I see improvements on how he treats his sister.

ans1999

The behavior chart sounds like a good idea. I think I am definitely going to try this! I think maybe I have been reacting too much to his hurting of the baby. We do have one on one time after the baby goes to bed at night. We are also moving to a new state in the next few months. My DH is already there working and he just left about a 1 1/2 ago. I wonder if this is leading to an increase in his naughty behavior?

melmax

My 3 yo is good to her her sister (11 weeks) 90% of the time, but there's 10% of the time where she hurts her on purpose and it's really upsetting.

Like the PP said, I try to give as little attention to it as possible.  She gets disciplined (TV turns off, goes to her room, etc) but I notice that if I get really mad and yell she's getting ATTENTION, which is exactly what she wants. Yes, it's negative attention, but it's still attention nonetheless. So I opt for low-key discipline even though that doesn't always work (b/c I get SO mad at her when the baby cries) 

ans1999

I had to give myself a time out today. I was so upset when he threw a big toy at the baby. She had an immediate bruise and I was sitting right there. I couldn't believe he did it!

shouldbworkin

ans1999:

The behavior chart sounds like a good idea. I think I am definitely going to try this! I think maybe I have been reacting too much to his hurting of the baby. We do have one on one time after the baby goes to bed at night. We are also moving to a new state in the next few months. My DH is already there working and he just left about a 1 1/2 ago. I wonder if this is leading to an increase in his naughty behavior?

I'm sure it has.  Transitions are tough on the little ones and he probably doesn't like having to share the only parental attention around right now.  The hugs and kisses helped a lot at 3 y/o b/c he hated doing it initially.  It was a big deterent to him torturing his sister, but it had some nice long-term results that I didn't expect.  They're pretty lovey now, as long as they're not torturing each other (sorry to tell ya, it never really ends).

LanaM

My kids are 3 years apart and Ethan did  this recently for a couple of weeks, he's 4. He'd hit and push his brother and I was very upset. To a point where I had to sit down with him and ended up sobbing through the whole conversation.

I also threated to hit E (4 y.o.) at some point if he hits his brother again. never had to do it, thank G-d. Not the best moment of my parenting, but I could not come up with anything else at the moment, I was too upset after E hit J and was laughing while J was crying.

It did not last long, thank G-d. But whenever he's being nice to his brother I try to reward him with something, or at least mention how nicely he's playing with his brother. We also started doing more one on one time with Ethan.

 Hope it'll pass quickly for you too! 

 

Seattle2Maui

We have BEEN there, my DS who is almost 3 does the exact same stuff to his 10month old brother.  It got really bad when DS2 started crawling, so bad we took him to the dr to discuss why he was so aggressive with no provocation.  He said that the milestones for DS2 would cause set backs with DS1 which has been very true, especially the crawling milestone.  We did a reinforcement chart, extra 1:1 time with special outings, and some time outs where he was removed from the family for not being safe for the rest of the evening (already close to his bedtime).  Being removed from the family made a big impact, more than I had expected.  We also POUR on the attention when he is kind and generous with his brother, I mean pour it on and it is really starting to make a difference.  Good luck it is really hard seeing the baby get hurt for no reason and I have been close on a few occasions to try the "lets see how you like it" style parenting, but thank goodness haven't.