My sweet baby boy is a bully. He is only 19 months old but he makes his 6 year old sister cry at least once a day. He is hitting her and scratching her pretty often. And she is scared of him now.
Have you dealt with a rough, bully of a boy before?
Is your toddler hitting everyone in the family?
It is so foreign for us. Our daughter has always been sweet and gentle too. Many times our toddler is hitting out of frustration. He can’t communicate well. I get that. But, hitting and scratching? No one is doing this to him. So, I don’t even know where he’s learned it.
Here is what we’ve been doing to try and curb this bad behavoir. We don’t hit his hands because we honestly, it didn’t make sense to say “No hitting” with a swat to the hands. Instead, we grab his hands together and with a firm voice say, “No hitting.” We then tell him be nice, be gentle, love sister, hug sister, etc… We also model the behavior we want to see. We ask him to do the correct behavior too. When he hugs her or kisses her we praise him abundantly.
Will this work?
I sure sure hope so. We’ve been doing it for about a week. I think it is having an effect. I’ll keep you updated.
No one tells you parenting will be this hard. Can someone send me a parenting handbook that works?
Funny thing is my boys never hit, the little girl however whoa! She can pack a punch!
How funny, Julie! Aren’t kids so different from each other? It is amazing. What did you do to curb your daughter’s hitting?
We went through many hitting stages, and now that they’re older, they are back at it again…I guess having 3 boys close in age is just asking for it, lol!
But I think what you are doing in best. Also taking him out of the situation, maybe Bella is in his way or he wants a toy she has. Watching what he’s doing right before hitting, may help his hitting make sense.
And I agree, hitting his hands only reinforces the hitting…you can’t say don’t hit and then hit them!
There are times she definitely instigates it. She gets a time out pretty often for bugging him. But other times, his hitting is totally random. It is just getting out of hand though.
We use time out in addition to what you are doing. My youngest is going through this phase too but his siblings are a lot older. I think he is just trying to flex his muscles and try to get them to do what he wants, even though it isn’t the behavior we want him to do. It is annoying but we always make him tell his brother or sister sorry and make them give hugs and kisses too.
I had to use a time out last week in addition to this. He hit his sister with an object on top of her head. It was pretty painful for her. So he had a timeout, where I had to force him to stay seated in his time out chair. He screamed the entire time…
I realize now that my Princess was the easy child all along.
Keep up the good work. I have noticed times when my own ” tiger that I hope to tame” just can’t handle a “big world”. Its just too much. My tiger also likes to communicate his frustration with temper and biting. If he tries to do it to me cause he’s not getting what he wants Ive started putting him in his bed and leaving him to cry for about one minute (or less, not more). As i pick him up out of the bed – sometimes hes still crying but hes more cooperative and i return him to the scene of the battle and repeat my instructions until he complies. If hes dishing out the deadly bite to his big brothers over petty stuff… i try to simplify his world and narrow his choices down to what he can handle. How? I sit down with him for a short cozy time with a warm sippy cup and read him a story. Then I put him in his play pen with an activity that I choose and he stays there for a while ( yes he puts up a fit at first but I outlast him and he accepts it after a while). Big brothers get a reprieve. After a while he’s ready to reenter the bigger world without bullying those he loves. Or if not then its time to eat , take a bath, go to bed, or otherwise. So is it working? As you said, we hope so! I appreciate your tips and advice. Keep it coming.
I am thankful that my Little Man is not biting. But, yes, I do like the time out in the other room idea.
On another note, his sister prays for him every day during Bible class. It is so sweet. She loves him so much.
We grabbed the hands together very firmly and said “No! We don’t hit.” If that was proving ineffective on a given day, it was then accompanied with an uncomfortable pinch or squeeze on the hand as we told him no. Sometimes restraining the child’s arms briefly or putting them down for a nap even when it’s not nap time is necessary.
I had to put him into a time out chair and hold him there physically. He hated it. But I kept saying, “We don’t hit or we get time out.”
Hard stuff, right? What is funny, is when it was just my Princess we didn’t deal with hitting. She was just so sweet.