What if my Child Hits?
Two-year old Marcy went over and smacked her 8-month old sister Polly. “Marcy!!” Her mother called. “You must not hit the baby! It gives her an “owie”! But Marcy kept doing it. In fact, she seemed to be hitting little Polly more and more! Mommy started picking up Marcy and taking her into her bedroom. In fact, she put her in her bed and told her she couldn’t come back in until she could be nice. But still the hitting continued—in fact it got worse!
Obviously, what this mom was doing was not working. This mom was matter-of-fact, which is good. She kept her cool and reasoned with her little girl. She didn’t hit her daughter back—that wouldn’t teach her not to hit!
But Marcy was hitting to get attention. Many times an older toddler resents all the attention that the new baby gets, and wants more attention of her own!
However, look at all the attention Marcy got whenever she hit. For one, her mom called her by name. Everyone loves to hear their own name! We reward our children by using their names. So we should, often. But not when they misbehave! Marcy was getting all the time and attention her mom took to teach her. And, she was getting to be held, all the way she is taken to bed! That’s lots of attention she gets each time she hits.
My mother in law taught me that we should never use the bedroom for punishment. We want bed to be a happy place, not a negative place, and we don’t want out children to lash out in their beds, for example with masterbation.
Give Attention to Good Things
Consider a different approach: Marcy hits little Polly. Mommy goes immediately over to Polly. “Polly!” she exclaims, I’m so sorry that you got hurt! Are you okay? She holds baby Polly and comforts her for several minutes. She and Polly might even walk out of the room and close the door. When Marcy knocks or calls through the door, Mommy says one sentence: “Are you read to be nice?” Ok then. And that is the end of it.
Marcy stops the hitting, since it is not giving her the attention she craves. Mommy gives her extra attention when she is kind to Polly: “Marcy, you are being so soft with Polly! Good job!” She looks for other times to praise Marcy Mommy watches for good things she can praise Marcy for, when she shares or is gentle with baby Polly, or learns a new skill like hopping.
Teach Them
At another time, such as Family Home Evening, Mommy and Daddy teach the whole family about being kind to each other, and about being soft with our touch. They teach about Jesus and His loving kindness and that we want to be like Him. (When a child has been naughty or is being punished is not a good time to bring up diety. We don’t want them to feel that God is mad at them!) Little Children are innocent, but they do have natural man tendencies and bad examples from other kids at home or at nursery or on TV, so they need to be taught.
I had a neighbor who was Japanese. Mikao had an extra energetic son, Davy, who occasionally hit her. “See these hand?” Mikao would ask her little boy, as she took them in hers. “These are kind hands. They are soft and good.” It was a positive approach to teach appropriate behavior to her little Davie.
Another friend of mine, I’ll call Susan called me one day about the hitting at her house. “It’s become a habit,” Susan told me. “When the kids are frustrated they will automatically lash out by hitting. “What should I do?” she asked me.
I remembered meeting a different mom, I’ll call Tanya, whose family also had a bad habit, and shared her story with Susan. Tanya’s family had started saying “Stinky Butt Head” constantly! Introduced to this phrase by a little friend, they latched on to it and called each other Stinky Butt Head all day long. In fact, the siblings laughed and egged each other on, to say it more and more. Soon, every other minute, they were saying it, and nothing she did—not even soap in their mouths—made a difference.
Finally, Tanya had an idea. She told her children, “I am going to set the time for 5 minutes. If we can all go five minutes without saying these bad words, we will get a prize. Now, with a treat at store, the kids had pressure from the other siblings to not say it. And when the timer rang, they all got a treat—unless someone messed up—then they tried five minutes again.
“Now let’s see if we can go seven minutes,” Tanya asked, and another treat was earned. This mother had to be diligent with her plan for awhile. And she had to stock up on treats. But it worked. Gradually, she weaned them off of their bad habit.
That approach may work for other bad habits, even hitting. It is focusing on the positive, and engaging everyone. If you continue spreading the rewards further and further apart, it extinguishes the behavior. Susan decided to try it with her hitting problem, since it gave attention to Not hitting rather than hitting.
May we all focus on the positive and extinguish the negative. Even if there is a hitting habit at your home. May we water what we want to grow and leave the weeds to gradually die.
