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Help with my hair puller....
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I need some tips. Nate is a hair puller. It drives me insane. He loves it when I get all pissed and worked up about it. So I try not too, but dammit, it hurts!
I have tried praise when he is gentle. I have tried not reacting and just un-clenching his hands. He will also pull his therapist's and teacher's hair as well as kids in his class. It really hurts, and I feel terrible when he does it to others.
I usually tell him to pull his own hair. I JUST WANT IT TO STOP. I believe he is cognitively able to learn this. I just can't figure out how to make it stop.
Any tips would be appreciated.
WAY 2 Cool 4 School 
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Re: Help with my hair puller....
I don't know. Ever since DS hit the 2s I feel soo unconfident about dealing with behavioral issues. I am not into corporal punishment and I just feel a little lost. I try to ignore the behavior and praise good behavior all the livelong day.
Some would suggest pulling his until he stops pulling yours.
I will be watching this thread to see what methods people suggest!
This won't be the PC method (since it isn't positive reinforcement), but it worked for us when all the sweet talk and redirection failed miserably. I would try to avoid situations where she could grab my hair, but when she did, I would remove her grip, say "OUCH! NO NO! TIME OUT!" in a VERY stern voice and would put her in the corner for time out. No eye contact, toys, anything in time out. We did this every single time and the pulling has stopped. Now, if she motions to grab, I will ask if she wants time out and she will stop.
I feel your pain (literally).
DS2 likes to play with my hair. Sometimes he pulls it but mostly he likes to eat/suck on it. I do not get it. His fascination with it seems to come and go. I typically wear my hair in a ponytail so it isn't available for him. When he does pull on it, I open his hand and put it down at his side and tell him firmly that it hurts and we don't pull hair. He typically will do it again and then thinks it is some hilarious game. He gets two times with the same result. If he does it again, then he is told again and then I become unavailable. I am holding him when he usually does this, so making myself unavailable constitutes him being put on the floor or on a chair so he is not in arm's reach of my hair.
If he was pulling my hair constantly and hard enough that it always hurt, I would do as the pp and it would then become disciplinary and it would result in a time out every time he did it.
DS isn't much of a hairpuller, but we use a 1-2-3 Magic approach to pretty much every "offensive" behavior - whining, hair pulling, hitting, pinching, throwing toys at his sister, etc. There's very little talking, you just count 1 on the first offense, 2 on the second, and on the 3rd, say 3 and take/send him to time out for an age appropriate amount of time. We do tell him what he's being counted for, but very briefly so we would say something like: (first offense) that's one - we don't pull hair, (second offense) that's two, (third offense) that's three - time for a time out. When the time out is over we say you're all done time out - remember we don't pull hair.
I think the idea is great - children aren't rational at least not always and not in the moment. They know (usually) when they're wrong and often like the reaction they're getting. DS doesn't really have too many behavioral issues, but this approach has still worked wonders!
Thanks for all the tips. I guess it is time to start "time-outs". Ugh.
The hair pullilng is usually during or after a diaper change or if I am bending down to pick up the sippy or food he just threw on the floor from the high chair. SO it's not like we are doing anything "fun" when he does it. Maybe I just need to set him up....