My daughter just turned 17 months and I feel like she's been in the "terrible twos" for months, with it spiking this month! We've just gotten past biting and now she's onto slapping and hitting, pulling hair, laughs when we say no, runs when shes doing/has something she isn't allowed to.. and let me add that she's got an extreme tolerance to pain, this child gets shots and doesn't even move or make a sound, so obviously popping her leg does not work, she just smiles and hugs me... Looking for any ideas on other ways to discipline(I wasn't really liking the popping anyway, the more I thought about it the more I questioned "how can I tell her it's not ok to hit when we do?".
Re: 17 months and terrible twos?!!
Same with us, although DD is 21 months. She thinks hitting is a big joke, even when we say "Daddy owie" and then he fake cries. Actually, she thinks that is hilarious.
We do time-outs when she is screaming/crying/out of control, and we can't reason with her. So maybe try that in response to hitting? Tell her no, we don't hit, and then if she does it again, calmly say "Sorry you are choosing to continue this behaviour", and onto the naughty spot she goes. I had a great link for a blog post about this (not mine), but I believe it's at home. 1 minute for every year of age...shoot, there were more details that I can't remember.
I can pm the link from home if you'd like?
DS was in a major hitting phase about a month ago. Thankfully, it has passed, and he hasn't done it at all in the past couple of weeks. Some things that helped me:
1) I tried to see things from my child's perspective...a 17 month old is exploring their surroundings, and testing reactions from people. They don't understand yet that another person hurts when they hit them. What they do understand is that if they hit another person, that person will say something/yell/make a weird face. Toddlers like to control their environment, so if they know that by hitting, mommy or daddy will make a weird face and talk loudly at them, they will keep doing it. When DS would hit me, I would say very calmly (which is hard at at times) "We don't hit." Then I would take his hand, and say "be gentle", while stroking his hand up and down my arm. This turned into me being able to just say "no hitting, be gentle", and DS would stroke my arm nicely without me having to show him how.
2) You will probably have to repeat this process 100-200 times, but it really did work! The key is to not react, and show them appropriate ways to touch other people.
3) Another thing that worked was to figure out WHY DS was hitting. It was usually towards the end of the day, when he was getting a little tired, and I was probably not paying as much attention to him. (Especially during my first trimester of this pregnancy). The first time he would hit (and after showing him how to be gentle), I would make sure that we started a calming activity together, which was usually reading books. This redirected his attention towards the activity, instead of him trying to "get" my attention by hitting me.
GL!