Hitting

singingsea · September 2014

I'm really needing some help. What are you doing for hitting/kicking? I usually crouch down and tell him "No that's bad/not nice. We don't hit." Then remove him from the situation. He just smiles and does it again.

If a child is advanced verbally and seems to know what they're doing would it be time to start time outs?

singingsea · September 2014

Also how long would you do a time out for? He's 19 months...so a minute?

SidraJedi · September 2014

I'm curious for the answer to this too.

Usually DD is using something to hit with. I take the object away tell her "no. No hit." And redirect her towards something else. If I do not redirect her and engage her in some other activity she usually continues to hit with her hand.

The worst part is that she will randomly start hitting and saying "no! No!" When we're in public it's embarrassing bc it looks like she's repeating behaviors she sees! I know she is just acting out trying to understand that hitting gets a response of "no"

Sometimes she responds without redirection. Like one time she hit the cat. I told her "no. Ouch. That hurts kitty." And she bent down and kissed the cat and pet her. She understands ouch. So I often throw that in there.

So yeah, sometimes telling her no and ouch works and other times she needs that redirection to follow through. I assume this is normal for her age. I am curious if there is anything more I could do.

djm31012 · September 2014

DS will not sit in a time out, but if yours will, I say 1 minute. I do the same as you. Get eye level, tell him no, and remove him from the situation , trying to refocus his attention elsewhere. He doesnt hit often...yet....so we will see if it gets worse.

kleigh926 · September 2014

Yes, I'd say you could try time outs. We've been doing them with DD for a couple months already. Sometimes I think she gets it, sometimes not. But at the very least, it removes her from the situation and helps to "reset" her behavior. We do 1-2 minutes.

mishka29 · September 2014

We just get very serious and say no, that hurts. No hitting. Sometimes she stops other times she smiles and tries again. But she's not a big hitter.

The other day she was playing with a friend who pushed her over. The first thing she did was wag her finger and say no, no, no. Lol. Oh daycare I love you!

Rynleigh · September 2014

I tell them that it HURTS people and it's NOT OK. I tell them that hurting people is "OWIE". I use a very firm tone of voice and tell them that if they do it again, they will have a timeout. If they do it again, I follow through and sit them down on the floor by our front door for 1 minute (I use a timer, for consistency). When the timer goes off, I remind them that they had timeout because they hurt someone, and tell them it's time to go play nicely and gently. I give them a hug and then send them back to do whatever they were doing. We don't generally have more than one or two timeouts per week per boy, and hitting isn't a huge problem for us. Jamie isn't quite as empathetic as Simon is, so it's taken him a little longer to "get it" with things like throwing toys at people or taking toys or sitting on his brother, but he's catching on. I started with timeouts for them at 18mo - they are put on the timeout spot and if they try to leave I put them back. I do not talk to them during the timeout. I just move them back to the place in front of the door until the timer goes off. I don't reset the timer when they move because it throws off the consistency. I did the same with my girls, and had hardly any instances of physical aggression with them. The boys are a little more work given that there are two of them and they feed off of each other, but consistency is important, imo.

tamarar5 · September 2014

E has been swinging, but more like frustration. He's hit DD1 a couple times when she walked into his tantrum, so we've said no hitting and let it go.

But today he hauled back and hit me in the face hard enough to split my lip over a tooth! My first instinct was to smack his hand and shout... but luckily it occurred to me before I acted, that slapping his hand in punishment probably want a great way to illustrate the "no hitting" concept.

I told him ouch, showed him my cut and the little bit of blood on my lip, and made a big show of being hurt, stressing the no hitting. I'm still not sure how much he really understood, but at least he stopped tantruming.

fignewt74 · September 2014

Since it is usually a reaction he is looking for, I try not to react too strongly. I just redirect him to something else.

I am starting to think from watching older kids, that sometimes it is good to give a reaction (my 3 yo neighbor will just keep acting worse and worse until someone notices and reacts to him) but with the 18-19 month old crowd, my pedi has convinced me that the reaction usually just feeds the behavior.

Rosebean · September 2014

I do the exact same as Rynleigh. Usually the threat of the time out has him double think his strategy. And like SidraJedi if he is using something to hit with, he loses it. But at this age, I think they understand more, so we are explaining why the toy is being taken away. But usually the warning he gets of "if you hit again, you will get a time out/ lose your toy" has him changing his tactics. If he doesn't, we follow through.

topolina1215 · September 2014

Thank you so much for posting this! DD just started hitting (more like flailing and swatting) this weekend and it caught me so off-guard, I didn't know how to respond. I told her it hurts mommy when she does that and to use her words so we can discuss how she feels (even though she can't really communicate that yet), but I'm very curious to hear what others have to say. And I'm so relieved that this is apparently normal at this age

Hitting

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