Tougher Than Lion Taming: When your child hits your other child

Great article here:

Tougher Than Lion Taming: When your child hits your other child

"So just to clarify: 3-year-old girl kicks 1-year-old, and I am to hold my 3-year-old (after making sure the crying 1-year-old is fine, got that) and just sit with her until she feels better? No time-out, just hold her and tell her that I love her and that I know she is hurting too....so, no discipline, just love, i.e. more attention....more attention for kicking the baby."... Kerri

I know exactly what Kerri means. Someone kicks my baby? The lion-mama in me roars. The last thing I would feel like doing is lavishing love on the perpetrator.

Except that the perp is my three year old, who is also my baby. And who is clearly in a state of emotional dysregulation, or she wouldn't have done such a thing. She's sending me a clear signal that she needs my help, desperately.

So what's the best response? I think we can agree that our goal is to prevent future violence toward the baby, whether we're there or not.

At our best, we'd also want our response to help our three year old in her development toward becoming a compassionate, responsible person, but we can be forgiven if we'd settle for no more violence. Who cares about emotional intelligence when we're trying to keep blood from being spilled? Luckily, we don't have to choose. The best way to prevent a recurrence is to get to the root of our child's aggression--which helps both kids.

Let's take this a step at a time.

1. Prevention. We know the danger signals, and when we see a storm brewing, we step in to prevent it. Most of the time, there are warnings, if we aren't too stressed out and distracted to notice them. Separate children who are tired, hungry, cranky. Gather a child onto your lap on the couch for a pre-emptive Time-In and refill her empty cup. Commit to daily Special Time with each child, one-on-one, during which you build a stronger bond so she WANTS to please you (even more than she wants to wallop her sister.) Build lots of giggle time into your day, so kids can giggle out their tensions and worries. (Not through tickling, but through that alchemical reaction when fear dissolves into giggles as kids play.)

2. Stay calm. Aggression is always a sign that our child has moved into a state of fear and emotional dysregulation. The only way to help a child out of the abyss of fear and back into an emotionally regulated state is to maintain our own composure. I know, it's a tall order. In my view, this is the real work of parenting. That's why it's so important to find ways to de-stress and re-center yourself all day long. If your own cup is empty, you can't fill your child's cup.

3. Comfort your hurt child. Ok, so in spite of your best efforts, one kid hurts the other. Clearly, the crying one year old needs us first. She needs attention to her physical owie. She may also need your reassurance: "Yes, I heard your sister yell that she would kill you. She is very angry right now. Don't worry, I won't let her kill anyone, no matter how angry she is. You are safe. I will help her with her feelings as soon as I can."

4. Once your hurt child is recovered, tend to your other child. So here's the million dollar question. What's the best response to the three year old to prevent such incidents in the future? Conventional parenting would take a behavior mod approach of punishing her, hoping that in the future when she gets ready to lash out, she will remember the punishment and restrain herself. At the very least, a timeout would make us feel like we took action to address the situation, and it helps her calm down.

The problem is that punishment after the fact doesn't prevent crimes of passion. The defining characteristic of rage is that the thinking part of the brain isn't engaged, so we forget all the lessons we've learned.

Our child knew perfectly well that her kick would hurt. But her rage was so strong that at that moment she just didn't care. We've all been there. When we're in fight or flight mode, even someone we love can look like the enemy. We can't think.

So a timeout isn't going to prevent such an incident in the future. And a more "memorable" punishment will just make her seek more vengeance on that baby who caused her misery. (Not so good for the sibling relationship.)

But that doesn't mean we just permissively let our child wallop another person. No, we go to the source: her emotions.

We start by moving her back from the abyss of fear and into a zone where she feels safe, where at least someone is helping her regulate her actions. We say: "You are VERY angry. Don't worry, Sweetie, I won't let you kill your sister or anyone else. And I won't let you kick her or hurt her again. I am right here. You are both safe."

By contrast, our yelling would intensify her state of fear. Now, she is already beginning to calm down.

5. Help your child get to the feelings under her anger. Aggression is a red flag that our child is hurting. If we can seize the opportunity, this is the time to help our child with those emotions that are festering and brewing her anger. There are lots of examples on the Aha! Parenting website about how to do this. Here's one: What about those days when he's hellbent on misbehaving?

Remember, you're not soothing, at this point, you're helping her express her unhappy feelings. So you aren't doing what Kerri described above, "just sit with her until she feels better." This is not just a time-in during which you reconnect with your child. In fact, it's hard for kids to reconnect with us when they're so full of pain. It's like trying to fill a leaky cup.

That's also the problem with letting her calm herself down in a timeout. She isn't getting help with her big feelings, and her cup stays leaky, and now she feels like a bad person on top of it. So at the next provocation, it's "Take that, Baby!"

To help your child get under her anger, stay as kind as you can while you look her in the eye, which triggers all her uncomfortable emotions to come up. Say "Your sister is hurt and scared. You must be hurting so much inside to kick your sister and threaten her....What is going on?....Something is making you so mad and sad." When she tells you, listen. If she's old enough to express her feelings in words, that will help a lot. But the deepest healing is always beyond words, so your real goal is for her to get to her tears. Releasing them is like releasing all that pressure that's been building inside her, that causes her to lash out. Deep emotional healing happens in the context of relationship, when love dissolves fear.

6. Build your child's ability to control herself in the future. When we get upset and are soothed as little ones, our neural wiring is built and repeatedly reinforced so that we become able to soothe ourselves. This is not just a psychological learning, but a physical one. The brain and nervous system take shape depending on our interaction with the environment. We learn to regulate ourselves emotionally in the context of our intimate relationships. So after our child cries in our arms and "shows us" her upset, we soothe her. That builds the neural wiring for her to soothe herself and restore herself to regulation.

7. Help your child internalize self-discipline so she's less likely to lash out in the future. After your child sobs in your arms, she will have moved out of "fight or flight" and back into love. She will be able to reflect on her actions. Now's the time to talk.

If you can resist blaming and instead be as kind as possible, she will be more able to take responsibility for her actions, which is what will prevent her from repeating them. This is the holy grail of internalizing self discipline, but it doesn't work when it's imposed from outside with blame and shame. Instead of "Kicking is bad" try "You were so angry. It's ok to be angry, but it's never ok to kick a person. It hurts! What could you do instead next time you're angry?" Help her brainstorm other options: calling a grownup for help when the one year old pestered her, walking away, kicking the couch. Have her actually act out those scenarios, so that she develops muscle memory of them and is more likely to be able to summon them up next time before she loses control.

8. Help your child find a way to repair what she's damaged. Finally, she is ready to acknowledge that her kick hurt her sister, and their relationship.

A child who is raised with empathy will feel empathy toward her sister at this point. As long as she gets regular opportunities to express her feelings about her sibling, she will be open to your helping her reflect on this, not in a shaming way, but in an empowering way. "Your sister was scared and hurt. I wonder if there's anything you could do to repair your relationship with her?" Don't encourage an insincere apology, although you may witness a sincere one, accompanied by a big hug. And resist the opportunity to punish her with a "consequence." Instead, see this as a chance to empower your three year old to learn she can repair rifts, and to strengthen the sibling bond between your children. Both of these outcomes will make future sibling violence less likely.

Are we giving her attention for kicking the baby, which will make her kick the baby again? No. Timeouts and other punishments give the child negative attention, which actually reinforces the negative behavior. Our child learns that when he is emotionally dysregulated, he can just hit his sibling, and we will step in and force him to re-regulate with a timeout. But this kind of re-regulation just calms the child temporarily, it doesn't prevent such occurrences in the future; it makes them more likely.

Instead, we are giving our child help she desperately needs so she won't ever kick the baby again. It's a lot more work than a time out. In fact, I'd say it's tougher than lion-taming. But it works so effectively to raise a child who WANTS to behave and can manage her emotions to do so. That makes for an increasingly easy child and a delightful teenager. In the end, it's a whole lot easier.

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For 5 ways you can help your children develop a great relationship , check out my new audio: Friends for Life: Great Sibling Relationships.