Hitting at nursery
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No advice really, but we are in the same boat. She’s from a calm home with lots of love, affection and attention, but hits out as soon as something annoys or upsets her. I console myself by thinking they’re dealing with such big emotions at this age, with no concept of rationality at all, so the smallest things can cause big reactions (like hitting, pushing etc.) We’ve realised it’s happening mostly when people/kids are in her “space” as she’s a bit funny with people getting too close to her. So we’re currently working on using our words instead of our hands. So if another kid comes too close to her she can/should say “please can you give me my space”, or “please can you move away” instead of hitting them. Seems to have worked in nursery today but not sure how long it will last!! 😬 I think all we can do is keep reiterating and repeating it til it goes in! It’s a horrible feeling though isn’t it! 😔
My daughter is a great one for scratching and has been for a few months. No idea why, although it does seem to be lessening a bit now, which I'm wondering whether is linked to her speech improving.
My son has done this previously on the odd occasion and also did it with us occasionally when frustrated but we calmly just explained that we don’t hit we use our words and that hitting hurts us. I also used to say mummy/papa don’t hit you so it’s not nice that you hit us) They did similar explaining in nursery and he hasn’t hit another child in a really long time. She’ll grow out of it esp when you keep reinforcing you don’t hit/hurt someone. Usually it comes as a result of frustration so maybe getting to the root of that may help. Also I got told by a senior staff member at nursery to not keep reminding them of their hitting because it makes them do it again to show what they did. In the moment explain and then move on. He did get scratched recently by another child at nursery over a toy, a friend of his and after making sure he was ok (the scratch was near his eye) I just asked if they made up, which they had. Kids will always test boundaries esp at a young age!