Hitting and kicking - help!
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@Annie thank you so much for this advice. I'll look that book up. Hope the rest of your pregnancy goes well too and hope your little boy's behaviour improves more x
Mr Chazz and biglittlefeelings on Insta are great resources for this as well as anything to do with toddler / preschooler behaviour. I’ve also just bought Conscious Discipline book but I haven’t read it yet. I think teaching them to name and express their emotions in other ways seems to be the way forward. Moving away and calmly but confidently saying “it’s ok to feel mad / frustrated. It is NOT ok to hit. I’m moving away to keep myself safe”. Later when they’re calm teaching them ways to get your attention like “if you want to get my attention you can say mama help! Or you can touch me like this” and guiding their hand. Big reactions like shouting NO can make it worse because any attention is good attention and big reactions can be exciting for them. Also it can make an already emotionally volatile child even more volatile, and they can’t learn when in that state.
@Agata thanks so much for this advice. It's very helpful. I've been giving him time outs for a few minutes and then giving him a hug afterwards and explaining why it's bad to hit and kick and hurt people. I'll try to start implementing what you've advised and see how it goes 😅
No worries lovely, you might want to stop the time outs, it’s not helping and likely making it worse. Focus on connection. Time outs are a punishment (isolation) and he won’t understand why or learn from it, he’ll just learn that when he makes a mistake or is having a hard time, he will be forced to be by himself. Increases emotional dysregulation.
My son is doing this too
@Agata thanks for this advice x
@Chelsea hope yours gets better soon 🙏🏻
I am no expert at all but just wanted to say my son has started doing this sometimes too, same thing only with me/us, and I find it challenging too. I have found the book How to Talk so Little Kids Listen to be a good resource in general for behaviours. Also one thing I’m trying is to help him use his words and name his emotion. We look at different books with photos of kids expressing different emotions and talk about what it looks like/feels like to be frustrated and what triggers it. I’m starting to see a little bit of progress, we’ll have to see where it goes. I’ve also got my second on the way, am 9 weeks. Good luck!