Hiting...how do you correct a 2 year old

nikkim76 · December 2011

Its really starting to pick up with both my DD. One will hit when told no more then the other. And this same one is a major tester! Sometimes she will hit her hand down on whatever is near her and grunt like she is saying " I am telling you I am doing this" ...I tell her no and why and/or I hold her hand and say we do not hit. I have tried the sitting on the couch for 1 minute but that doesn't work. Any ideas would be great! Just last week she was at least listening alitte when told no this week.. a whole new story..lol! I know this is a phase but would like some ideas. Thanks!

preheatedoven · December 2011

We use the naughty step in our house. If you hit, you sit on the step. Then you apologize to the person you hit. I don't force them to sit for a certain amount of time, but usually the act of getting up, walking to the step, and sitting there even for 30 seconds seems to work.

At this point my DS will immediately look at me, then look at the step, after he hits his sister. Then while he is walking to the step he will start saying "sorry, Hazel."

We use it discipline in general and it seems to work pretty well.

CaliDutchGrl · December 2011

Any advice on how to handle this with One year olds!

missfire · December 2011

For us, it's been about emotion coaching and giving them words for their feelings. They need to learn to recognize those emotions and express them without hurting other people. I usually say it as "I know you're frustrated/mad/sad, but we don't hit. You can tell me you're mad or you can stomp your feet, but no hitting. Hitting hurts."

DS1 also learned in daycare to say, when hit, "I don't like that - that hurts me," as well as how to say sorry and ask if the kid is okay, if he is the one who did the hitting.

The repetition of using the same words seems to help a lot for us too.

LottaLattes · December 2011

My older son was a little bit of a hitter when he was 18ish months old. I would gently take his hand and say (in a gentle way) "no hitting, it hurts (person or object)" If it was me, I would put his hand on me again and say "Ouch" and pretend cry for a second and say that it hurts. He randomly thought it was funny or sad, but he did stop after this (I mean, he would do it again later, but he wouldn't continue hitting at least). He actually grew up to be way more empathetic than my younger son who didn't really hit until he got older, which is different to explain, and doesn't hit to this day. Even when his little brother hits him. It's weird and I'm not saying my parenting necessarily did this but it did work in the day.

thiswillbe · December 2011

We use short time-outs (30-60 seconds, unless the kid needs longer to calm down), followed by an apology. We do timeouts in a specific spot on the floor-- maybe the couch is too much of a "normal" place to sit for the message to get across? Also, are you saying "no more" when they hit? I'm wondering if they are hearing "no more" and interpreting it to mean that hitting once is okay. Just a random thought.

We do the naming emotions thing, too, with redirection/suggestions about how to express the emotion.

justlld · December 2011

My babies aren't here yet, but I'm a preschool teacher, so I have experience with toddlers. One of the things that we're taught is that at 1 and 2 they're too little to really undersand "time out," but they should be removed from the situation. It's good to say that hitting hurts. You can also give more attention to the hurt child than the hitter, so they know that that behavior doesn't get attention. I hope that helps, obviously, I know that doing it in class is different than doing it with your own kids, but hopefully some of the strategies transfer.

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