littlemommy 08:29 AM 12-30-2011
DS (who will be 2 next month) is in the hitting stage. He hits the daycare kids, me, and DS. He mainly does it when he doesn't get his way or wants something that someone else has.
When he hits the daycare kids, they just sit there and whine or cry. Sometimes I wish they would fight back a bit so he can see that hitting hurts. I've tried redirecting, time outs, and giving the victim lots of attention. I hope this stage ends quickly.
daycare 09:13 AM 12-30-2011
at this age, hitting stage is quite normal. Especially with your own little one. Trying to deal with all of the other kids taking away his mommy, toys, house, and everything else.
When my son was about this age, we had just started doing daycare again in our new house. He was doing the same thing.
First I started with trying to watch him and stop it before it would happen. I wold catch him about to do it and then calm him and redirect.
When that didn't work, and the crime was already committed, I then would take his hand and kiss it and say nice hands please. Please use nice hands.
As time passes, he stopped doing it so much. It went from several times to day to a few times a week.
About 3 weeks or so into it, I then knew that he understood that it was wrong and I then changed my tune.
When he hit I would say, NO, hitting is not ok, we do not hit our friends. I would then remove him from the scene of the crime and move on to caring for the victim, giving them tons of attention. My son, the hitter, got zero attention and was not allowed to go into the play area until he was able to come and say sorry, give a hug, or something to that degree.
I think you just have to work with it in baby steps and show your child how you want them to behave. I don't think its a natural process to just behave like little angels. They learn to be little angles when they are given rules, guidelines, boundaries, consequences, consistency and love.
Good luck to you, I hope I was somewhat helpful......Oh yeah and try not to stress over it. It is a stage and as long as you keep on working on resolving it, everything will pass in time......