Why read: If you wonder how to stop toddler hitting using a gentle parenting approach these proven tips will help you without having to use the punishment.
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I watch my 3-year-old son slap my mom in the face at the dinner table and I’m stunned about what I do now.
When I see a tear shedding down my mom’s cheek, I feel my face turning red with the blood flow going up my head. I love my little boy immensely but that’s my mom. And something that seemed so innocent before, is not anymore.
A second later my head is spinning from all the contradicting emotions. I am angry, irritated, but also understanding and empathetic. All at the same time.
And while I sit there contemplating my actions I hear my dad’s voice:
“Please don’t discipline him. Not now at least. We don’t want him to get into a bad mood and our dinner get spoiled”.
You see, this is not the first time my boy hits someone.
This has been an ongoing issue for us recently. He doesn’t spare anyone: I might get a slap here and there, his dad, his grandparents, other kids, and even strangers.
Previously we’d give him a nasty look or try to explain that hitting or kicking or biting is wrong. But looking at my mom now I realize that this has gone out of control.
But it’s so damn hard to be consistent and firm with others around!
Especially with the grandparents that see him once a year for a short period of time. We are spending the summer at my parents’ house who live hundreds of miles away from us across the ocean in Armenia. So it’s only natural that they don’t want to witness any tensions or lessons of upbringing under their roof. After all, they only have two short months to enjoy their grandson.
And it’s not like my mom’s crying of pain. That was a tear of unexpectedness. A second later and she’s all happy again playing with him at the table.
It’s Never a Good Time
I know we need to be firm with him. I know he is testing the boundaries and if this continues things will get worse. I know all the theories but when it comes to practice, it seems it’s never a good time. Plus, he is a smart little kid. He knows we’ll most likely give him some slack if he does his karate moves around his parents, in a public place, during a gathering of other people. This is how things go in most cases:
- He hits someone,
- I approach him right away to have a little talk;
- He starts weeping and saying he is sorry and won’t do that again,
- I can’t stand seeing my son so upset,
- I just gently ask him not to do that again and hope for the best…
The best never comes… Things get worse and worse. Now when I greet people and I’m with my son, I warn everyone that he might hit so stay away. Should I walk around with a sign in my hand saying: “Beware hitting child”?
Why Toddlers Hit?
After several embarrassing moments like my boy pulling another boy’s hair at the playground. Or kicking the same boy’s dad while I was trying to apologize. I knew we needed to make fundamental changes to the way we discipline him to stop all the hitting.
After reading a dozen books on toddler aggression, I realized this is a very common behavior for this age. Many parents deal with the same issues. But interestingly, triggers can be completely different from toddler to toddler.
And while triggers might be different, it all comes to one main conclusion.
Toddlers get aggressive because they don’t know how to deal with their emotions.
Toddlers hit, throw things, kick, bite:
- out of anger or frustration,
- to get attention
- when they are tired or hungry,
- when they are overexcited,
- when they can’t express themselves in words.
Helping Your Child Deal with Intense Feelings
Coping with big emotions is not an easy task – even for us, adults. But we all need a safe harbor to blow off steam every now and then.
If you were to yell at someone in frustration who do you think it would be? Your boss or your husband? The answer is obvious. And yes, the people we love the most and trust the most are actually the ones who often see the ugliest sides of us.
When you lose it with your loved ones, you know you hurt their feelings, you know you do a wrong thing. But isn’t it sometimes so damn hard to control yourself? You don’t need lectures on how bad you reacted when you were at your lowest. And you don’t want to be yelled at in response either.
The same with our kids. Your child might understand that hitting is bad and it hurts you. But he doesn’t know how to control his emotions. YET! Kids get there closer to 7-years-old. And before that, as parents and the people, they trust the most we need to be that safe harbor for them.
Of course, we aren’t robots either. And sometimes we can lose it too. But as adults, it’s easier for us to stay calm and react the right way with our kids. Rather than, the other way round.
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Knowing the Triggers
Quite often it’s possible to expect and prevent the violent behavior of toddlers. All we need to do is pay closer attention to the main commonalities that can set our child off.
- Poor diet – this is a very common trigger for kids’ aggression. Avoid processed food, sugar, artificial colors in your child’s diet up until 2 or even 3-years-old (the older the better). This will make a huge difference in raising a calm and happy toddler.
Even a small cookie can make my boy overexcited and aggressive especially in the evening. The easiest way for us to keep him away from all the unhealthy food is not eating it ourselves. All our guilty pleasure sweets that my husband and I crave every now and then are hidden from our son. And we eat those only when he is not home or is asleep.
- Lack of routine – following a set schedule with your kids makes things safe and predictable for them. Routines are especially helpful in the mornings and evenings. Knowing exactly what to do my boy gets ready for preschool without nagging every morning. And we’re usually out of the door without any drama.
- Not enough sleep or being tired – if your child has an off day because of shorter than usual nap it’s the best to postpone the nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. He’ll most likely get overexcited and tired, will be acting out and no one will be able to enjoy their time. As his parent you can predict what’s coming and act accordingly.
- Speech delay – toddlers get very frustrated when they aren’t capable to communicate their needs. If you realize this is the main reason for your toddler’s violent behavior see how you can encourage your little one to speak. Or even seek professional help if needed.
Mistakes Parents Make
So I started to observe my boy to understand where his aggressive behavior was coming from. My son started to speak at a very early age so I knew he was articulate enough to express himself.
Of course, the issue when you’re a 2 or 3-year-old is that you don’t understand why you can’t get something and get it right away.
First, I realized that at some point one of us must’ve made a joke out of his hitting so for some reason he thought it was funny. Maybe one or two playful kickings around with his dad or grandfather might’ve seemed funny and innocent. But we didn’t realize this would become a pattern.
Secondly, he’d get aggressive when said “No” to or if someone would disagree with him. Again, our mistake. As our first and only child, and first and only grandson for his grandparents from my husband’s side, up until his 3rd birthday he was growing up surrounded with lots of attention. Everyone would agree with him on everything. He’ll receive lots of praise even if praise was not due. He would always get whatever he wanted right away.
And this is the problem many parents have. Up until our kids become 2 or 3, we treat them like little munchkins that can do pretty much whatever they want.
But then we expect them to understand way out of their age. Behave well in public places, not express their emotions. We give them a lecture on good behavior one day and expect them to know all about the good etiquette of a gentleman or lady.
Setting the Ground
When you realize things are starting to get out of control and it’s time to address your toddler’s aggression, take a pause and set a proper ground.
Decide on the strategy and get everyone involved. When working with your toddler on his emotional state it’s important to be on the same page with everyone who takes care of your little one. Discuss everything with your husband (wife) so that you both use the same method. This might be more difficult with other caregivers but still, try to get everyone on board.
Be a good model. We serve as an example for our children. If we can’t regulate our own emotions. If we easily get irritated or angry. Why expect something different from the child who sees our emotions go over the board on a regular basis? Fix whatever is bothering you in your life to be the calm and happy parent your child needs.
From my own experience, when my boy was 2-years-old, I somehow turned into this angry, easily irritable person. Since we moved to the US from Armenia with my husband, we’d been renting and changing places almost every year. First, we lived in Boston and changed apartments every year there. Then we move to Silicon Valley. My husband is an IT engineer and would change his job almost every year for more challenging opportunities. And we’d move and change our rental apartment to be closer to his job. During one of those moves, I was 8 months pregnant. Thankfully, our friends helped us with everything – packing, unpacking, cleaning the new place. But I was so sick of this gypsy life. All this brought to very strained relationships with my husband. We’d constantly fight and yell at each other. And having our son in the middle of all that was of course not healthy for his emotional development. So we knew this had to stop.
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What Doesn’t Work
I tried out so many different approaches with my son to see how I can help him grow out of the hitting phase. Or so I thought that it was just a phase.
Some methods were completely ineffective. Others were somewhat effective. And there were some that worked well and solved the problem for us.
Let me start with what didn’t work.
Punishing or Shaming
You might read in some books on parenting or hear from experts on toddler discipline that the only sure way to deal with toddler aggression is punishment. But I found punishment to be totally ineffective and moreover, emotionally distraught for both my boy and myself. At toddler age, kids don’t understand the idea of punishment.
They can’t distinguish between good or bad so act based on their emotions. They don’t intend to hurt or cause pain. When they show uncontrollable behavior they already are in an emotionally stressful state. By sending them to a time-out or using other methods of punishment, we don’t help them deal with their emotions. We leave them alone and more confused and scared.
You might feel it works at the moment. Yet, in the long run, punishment creates fear, distrust, and resentment. Plus you show your child that acting aggressively when you don’t like something is the right way to go.
Giving in
When our toddlers start to act out and show aggression many of us fear to confront their range. Their tears make us uncomfortable. Especially when this happens in public places or with other people around. So we give in and do whatever they want so that all the crying and screaming stops. I made this mistake myself in the beginning. But here’s the bad news: only 1 or 2 attempts are enough for the toddler to realize that crying and hitting cat get them what they want. It will take much longer to correct this behavior.
Photo by Enrique Saldivar
Things to Try that Do Work
Every child is different. What worked for us might not be the best approach for your toddler. Try using the methods below one by one or better yet a combination of all and you’ll see improvements. The key is to be consistent.
Staying Calm, Firm and Consistent
If you found this article early enough and your toddler has just started to show the first signs of aggression, here’s the best piece of advice.
Never give in! Never punish! Never lose your own control by yelling, hitting or biting back – believe me, sometimes you’ll want to do that too.
Kids always seek their parents’ attention even if it’s negative. If you react strongly to your child’s aggression he’ll soon learn that it’s a good way to get your attention. So it’s important to always stay calm – even when it’s damn hard. If needed grab your child’s hand firmly but calmly and say: “No hitting. That hurts.”
Check out this When Your Toddler Hits You Script from Psychology Today on how to speak with your child at the time of aggression. And always be consistent with your actions!
Using Consequences
This is the method that we used and worked with our son. I have to admit that it took a lot of patience and perseverance from our side. But things got much better after several harsh but firm instances of using consequences.
First of all, we had a serious conversation with him that hitting or hurting anyone in any way is something he’ll have to face consequences for. And that’s because he’s a big boy and understands that as his parents we cannot allow him to hurt anyone, including us. So if we play at home and mommy does something during the play and he doesn’t like it, if instead of using his words, he hits – the play will stop. No tears, screaming or apologizing will help.
The same goes for playgrounds, birthday parties, visiting friends and relatives. There’s one rule: If he hits, we have to leave.
What’s important is that he knows it’s not a punishment. I always come up to him, give him a hug:
“I know you’re upset for some reason and want the things your way. But you know hitting hurts and to keep everyone safe, we need to leave now.”
It was really hard to do this the first couple of times. The frustration and crying were at their peak when we had to leave the playground or stop playing his favorite game because he’d just hit me.
But he learned the lesson. After a few times, he started to hold back his aggression and even praise himself:
“See, mom, I wanted to hit but I didn’t.”
“I’m so proud of you, sweetie. I know it was hard! You really wanted to win. But you can’t win all the time. So you need to learn how to lose too.”
Punching Something Else
Sometimes the struggle will be way out of your child’s ability to manage it. I realized that at times even if my boy really wants to cope with his emotions he’s just too little to do that efficiently and needs to get physical.
So as an alternative, when he’s too upset and just needs to punch something – he knows he can punch the couch, or a pillow, or just run to a different room and get aggressive there by stomping his feet or screaming as loud as he can.
He knows he can’t hit anyone who has feelings as it can hurt – people or animals are out of the question. Everything else – as long as he doesn’t hurt himself – is fine. This helped him blow off the steam on so many occasions.
Introducing a Special Toy
In my quest for different solutions on how to stop toddler hitting, I somewhere came across the idea of a “special toy”. Knowing your child’s interests will make it easy to choose that one, VERY SPECIAL toy that he’ll get only if he stops hitting, biting or whatever aggressive behavior your child is showing. This works particularly well at home when the aggression is directed toward the parents or siblings and happens quite often. So this is how it works.
Choose a nice toy (something your child has been asking for for a long time) and one day explain to him that as a good behavior and not hitting anyone for the whole day he’ll get that special toy to play for an hour. Make a big deal out of it before the day of gifting itself, so that his anticipation grows.
But also make it clear that if he hits someone he won’t get to play with it.
The important thing is not waiting when your child loses control and punish him with not giving the toy. But trying to anticipate the hitting instead. So when you see the frustration or anger growing remind him that if he doesn’t hit or be aggressive he’ll get to play with his special toy.
Reading Kids Books
Children learn so much from picture books. Any topic is always better communicated to a child through a book and a role-play in an imaginary world. Reading books on how to tame your anger and cope with different emotions made wonders with my boy. These are our favorites.
Train Your Angry Dragon by Steve Herman – This book is amazing. All the situations described in the book are very relatable. Plus the great illustrations and rhymes make it so much fun to read over and over again. My son loves the book! We’ve been reading it for over a year and he never gets bored of it.
As a good addition to the book, you can also get a red stuffed dragon toy – like the one in the book – for your little one. Toddlers love role-plays and having a dragon toy to recreate different situations from the book through play is another effective way to help them learn. By the way, all 34 books in the My Dragon Books Series are wonderful and teach a great deal. Check out some of the others too.
When I’m Feeling Angry by Trace Moronae – Another brilliant book (and one of our favorites!) which teaches great calming down techniques for kids. This book is also part of a series of books on different emotions – anger, sadness, happiness, to name a few.
We have a big list of other beloved books on coping with different emotions. If you’d like me to put together a blog post on all these books, please let me know in the comments. And I’ll sure do.
One Last Thing
Fast forward, a year later my boy learned how to control his anger or frustration for the most part. Even if he loses it on rare occasions, it mostly happens with us – his parents – or his grandparents, i.e. the people he trusts and loves the most.
A day ago, my son hit me when I told him we had to stop playing his favorite board game as it was time for bed. Normally he doesn’t react that way. But we’d had an eventful day, he was extremely tired and was losing control. All I did was look at him in surprise and with an upset face. I didn’t say anything. He turned away and went into his room. 5 minutes later he came back and gave me a hug:
“Mom, I’m sorry I hit you. I just really wanted to keep playing. But I know it’s time to go to bed now. Can we continue tomorrow?”
“Of course, sweetie. I know you didn’t want to hurt me.”
I gave him a hug and told him how much I loved him.
How About You?
Do you have any other strategies on how to stop toddler hitting? Please share in the comments below.
Tamara Tsaturyan is the owner and writer of Thriving In Parenting, a website focused on providing simple tips for busy parents — easy and healthy recipes, home decor and organization ideas and all things P A R E N T I N G.
