Hitting - help please!

My lovely boy has started hitting Well it started a month or two ago, but has just recently got worse. He's 16 months and is tall for his age, so looks older than he is. I 'know' it's a stage that a lot of toddlers go through but I can only think of one toddler out of sooo many I know who does it too! Do my friends just have really well behaved kids?!

At the mo I react straight away, grab him away from the kid and say "Harrison! No hitting!" and then take him back over to the child he hit and show gentle stroking on the arm, while I say sorry. However I sometimes think that my reaction might actually scare the child more lol, so not quite sure what I should be doing. I know I shouldn't, but I worry about what the other parents think about me and my child

He also sometimes hits with objects - like last night he had a dinosaur in his hand and wanted to give it to his friend (same age as him), so was holding it out and saying 'ta'... but his friend didn't want it, so Harry hit him on the head with it. Also when his friend had one of his toys that he wanted and wouldn't give it up (I guess Harry thinks he asked politely cos he said 'ta' and then tried to take it), he hit him.

He also just sometimes hits randomly when he's excited - but it's not really hard. I don't know if we should 'react' to those hits that aren't too hard to the same degree we would for the harder ones.

He's not selective over who he hits either - adults, big kids, kids same size/age as him, kids littlier than him. Though it's worse when it's in our own house as he's just started getting possessive over his toys, and cos he feels more comfortable in our own home.

What is the best way to deal with this? Who's had a toddler who hits, how did you deal with it and did it make a difference? Please help, I feel so bad that my lovely boy is acting in a way that is not so lovely!!

ETA: Just thought, we also say "Use gentle hands" or "be gentle" as well, after we've told him no...

Edited by arohanui

Ella is a hitter and pusher as well. Start around a similar age and she does it now. I agree it can be very embrassing and when she is playing with other kids I always have to be close by (now I am starting to read the signs and can stop her just before she is about to hit).

She is also going through a 'everything is mine' stage, which is where the hiting comes it- bascially if another person even looks a one of her toys she starting yelling 'mine' and starts to hit.

This behaviour started at daycare so I talked to a couple of teachers about it and they came up with an action plan and one of her teachers followed her around for the whole day to see what tiggered her behaviour. they came to the confusion a lot of time it just because she wants something to do and needs to be occupied ALL of the time, so they starting keeping a really close eye on her and when she started to get bored of one activity, they quickly moved her onto something else and they also got her really involved in helping with the babies (which she loved). They also removed her from the situation when she started hitting and made her give the other child a cuddle to say sorry.

when we are out, I always tell her 'no Ella we do not hit, use gentle hands' and she then pats the other child and now most of the time will give them a cuddle to say sorry.  I then say sorry to the child. Most of the time she hits when we are out of the house, so using timeout can be a bit more difficult.

She is slowly getting better, and I now found one friend her that is just as rough so me and his mum let both of them go for it and they seem to play really well together (a couple of her other little friends got a bit scared of it, so it wasn't such a great playdate).

Thanks guys, yeah he's been doing the biting thing too actually, gave me a shocker tonight

Tonight when Harry hit me I said "No hitting, give mumma a cuddle to say sorry" and he gave me a very sweet and gentle cuddle/kiss. Do you think it's worth trying time out at this age? Actually you know what, I'm sure he'll understand cos he now knows that if he drums on the fireplace his drumstick is confiscated, and if he drops his food on the floor he has to pick it up...... so maybe I've answered my own question, he might be ready for time out and I might give it a go.

Right, now to find friends who's toddlers are as rough as Harry so they can go and be rough together and none of us need to worry!

Hey Liz srry you've hit this patch with Harry! Jakes still at the cuddling stage (he overwhelms the poor kiddies with love!) so I don't have any advice but I hope it sorts itself out!!

arohanui wrote: Right, now to find friends who's toddlers are as rough as Harry so they can go and be rough together and none of us need to worry!

Ohh pick me pick me!!! Lucas knows how to stand his ground but he hasn't had a chance to interact with many toddlers his age lately- you're more than welcome to bring Harry over for a playdate once we've settled into our new place, its got a nice big lounge

So it sounds like it's going to be a long road huh Do you guys ever do time out when you're out? How do you do it? (our problem areas are the play area at the shops and when playing at people's houses... so far no problem at mainly music or gym).

BuzzyBee wrote: arohanui wrote: Right, now to find friends who's toddlers are as rough as Harry so they can go and be rough together and none of us need to worry! Ohh pick me pick me!!! Lucas knows how to stand his ground but he hasn't had a chance to interact with many toddlers his age lately- you're more than welcome to bring Harry over for a playdate once we've settled into our new place, its got a nice big lounge

Sounds brilliant - can't wait, and congrats on your new place!!

Jimmy is a 'clencher' not a hitter - he grabs onto things and squeezes them with all his might. When its your face or neck it really hurts! He seems to do this when he's frustrated, and I read somewhere to try to encourage your toddler to stamp their feet when they're feeling like that. So a few times when it happened I stood him up and pretended to have a little paddy and stamp my feet. He looked at me in amazement at first, but now he does seem to stamp his feet as a way of venting frustration - most of the time. The only problem is trying to keep a straight face during all this .

Love that pic of Harry underneath your forum handle Liz - he looks like such a character. I reckon that most people will understand that Harry is just going through a phase and that you're doing your best to prevent him from hitting, but he's just not quite old enough yet to understand why hitting is wrong.

 

He sounds really frustrated and is acting out by hitting. And you're right it is a stage but only if you deal with it and teach him the right ways to express himself, and that hitting is wrong.
I think what you are doing is a great start. Saying Harrison first gets his attention and focuses him on your message 'no hitting'. Prehaps you could add in there something like 'we use gentle hands in our family' or 'we use gentle hands with our friends'. That gives him the positive (this is what we do) as well as the instruction 'no'. Showing him how to be gentle is good too, after all, we all have to learn, if you think it is scarying the child then show him how to use gentle hands on you and himself, pets or even toys. I think it is important that they say sorry though.
Giving him another action that he can do to express his frustration is a good idea, I like the stamping his feet thing too.
If he isn't responding that day then apologise to the parent and child and just remove him from the activity. Everyone with toddlers understands this age and as long as you apologise are usually sympathetic.

Aww Andriea That sounds tough. Thankfully my boy is hardly hitting or biting anymore (I think it was out of boredom).

I have an idea of something you could try with your boy if you wanted to though....

Cos it sounds like he doesn't really 'care' about the negative consequences, you probably need to really focus on the positive. I do stuff kinda like this with the kids in my class who are on a behaviour contract, but different cos they're older.

He's at an age where he can really understand things a lot more. I'd decide on the ONE thing that's the most important to change, probably the hitting? Start with that. So you get a big piece of card and up the top write "Harrison (for example) will use gentle hands with people and things. If Harrison feels angry and wants to hit, he needs to stamp his feet instead to get the anger out". (or whatever you think is the reason behind his hitting).   Put it in the positive context of what you want him to do, and give him something to do instead (like kakapo said above).

Then you sit him down and talk to him about how you're really worried cos you've noticed he's been hitting alot, and that that's not right. And that you know that's not what Harrison is like, because Harrison is a kind boy. And that you want him to be the best that he can be, so you're going to help him, and together you're just gonna focus on stopping one thing - hitting. Maybe talk about how sometimes when he's angry he might feel like hitting, but how that's not ok. There's a better way to get anger out, and that's stamping your feet really hard on the floor, and practise it together.   Talk about how it's your new plan and how every time he stamps his feet instead of hitting, he gets to put a cool sticker on his chart to show everyone (and remind himself) how well he's doing with his new plan.

But if he hits, he doesn't get a sticker (talk about how that's sad, etc etc,)

I just had another thought - I see you've got 5 kids, do u think he's doing it for attention? They say that kids prefer negative attention over nothing, so maybe that's why he doesn't care about the negative attention? It might be worth removing him from the situation and fully ignoring him when he hits, and going 'oh that's really sad honey, you don't get a sticker cos you hit', and making a big fuss of whoever it is he hit. And when he stamps his feet instead, you make a huge deal about it and yahoo and dance around the room and give him big kisses and cuddles and tell him you love him and he's so clever and let him choose a sticker for his chart! Hehe.

Just an idea anyway

Sheena, something that's really helped us channel Harry's hitting energy is drums. I set him up a little drumkit of old formula tins, gave him a couple of sticks (chopsticks are good if you don't have anything else) and he spends ages drumming.

Now we do the "we only drum on drums" thing, and if he hits he gets a stern reminder, and sometimes we take him to his drums so he can have a good old drum