Thursday, October 30, 2008

My hitting baby

My son is about 20 months old. He has a hitting problem.


He does not have many words at this point. He does often have a binkie in his mouth, and I realise this contributes to the problem. We usually take the binkie away at about 2 years of age, but I'm thinking of limiting his binkie use to just the car and bed now, so as to help this situation.

I guessing here that due to his lack of words, he is frustrated at his communication skills. When he is frustrated he hits me. Yes, usually me. I'm am amazed that when I see him frustrated, even with another family member, he will run over to ME and hit me! As of late, he has been more free with his hitting and is also free with hitting his father. How nice of him to spread the hitting, eh?

I have been simply using a firm voice, telling him no, while I grab his hand and stop the hitting. He will often lean down and kiss my hand, as if to tell me he's sorry. At first I thought it was adorable, yet the hitting continues, so I'm beginning to think he's just trying to placate me with the "kisses".

So have you had a hitting child? Was it due to frustration? What worked for you? Please let me know I'm not destined to have a violent child in the future (I'm thinking not, but at times it is hard to deal with)?


Praying you all have a great day~

2 comments:

Julie said...

One thing that helped us with Jonathan was if my husband was home and caught him doing it, he would firmly take Jonathan up, sit him in his lap, make him make eye contact and say, "We don't hit mommy. We never hit girls. We especially don't hit mommy." Then a corrective you-know-what. It almost completely stopped the hitting in a few weeks time.
DH calls it his man to man talks. :)

Anonymous said...

I am a nanny to 14 month old twins, a girl and a boy. My boy has a serious problem with pulling his sister's gorgeous curly hair. Right now, we are saying "NO" in a stern voice and putting him in time-out for one minute. This was suggested by the pediatrician. At first, it didn't seem like time out was working. He had a grand time sitting in the chair. He smiled, danced, and tapped his feet. We stuck with it, and now he is upset when he is put into time-out. He realizes he is missing out. He is also responding more to verbal warnings. If I see that he is about to do something, I give a loud "NO", and he will almost always stop what he is fixing to do, whether it be pull hair, bite, get into something that is off limits, etc. Although I am a firm believer in a swat on the bottom or hand when needed, these aren't my children and the time-out is working very well. Hope this helps!