21 MO DCG Hitting
 

One of my littlest ones in my care is hitting others that are much bigger than she. I give her a choice of using gentle hands or going to sit by herself. She usually stops for the moment but then does it again a minute later. Time-out does not seem to bother her. Thankfully she's so small and she can't hit very hard so it's not hurting the others...yet. Advice on how do to deter this from continuing? It's already a habit.

Shadow her and every time she goes to interact with someone take her hand, do hand over hand and touch the other child gently and repeat “gentle hands”. After a while just remind her verbally to do “gentle hands” but continue to shadow her. Lot and lots of praise for positive interactions. If she hits say sternly “stop hitting” and go back to hand over hand guidance.

It will take a week or so but I just went through this with a 16 month old and it worked.

Thank you
 

I try to remind her of gentle hands as often as possible and giving her positive reinforcement for gentle play. Glad to know I'm on the right track. I'll try to stay the course.