Reasons your Toddler might be Hitting you
They're acting their age.
You haven't got a "naughty" child. There's no such thing as naughty. You have a child with an under developed brain who is acting like a child (shock horror).
Imagine feeling boiling hot and not realising you had a puffer jacket on and not having any way to ask for help. How frustrated you'd feel?! That's what it's like being a toddler, but times that by ten different problems before lunch time.
Of COURSE they're going to lose it. They're acting out over something that appears TOTALLY illogical to us - so why are we expecting them to be logical and calm themselves down?!
Your child might be hitting you for all of the reasons in this post, but it doesn't make them a bad kid or you a bad parent.
But we CAN learn how to react to support them in the best was possible, without being aggressive or punitive.
Remember - they need us to model how we regulate our own emotions in order to learn how to copy us.
HOW TO HANDLE HITTING:
You haven't got a "naughty" child. There's no such thing as naughty. You have a child with an under developed brain who is acting like a child (shock horror).
Imagine feeling boiling hot and not realising you had a puffer jacket on and not having any way to ask for help. How frustrated you'd feel?! That's what it's like being a toddler, but times that by ten different problems before lunch time.
Of COURSE they're going to lose it. They're acting out over something that appears TOTALLY illogical to us - so why are we expecting them to be logical and calm themselves down?!
Your child might be hitting you for all of the reasons in this post, but it doesn't make them a bad kid or you a bad parent.
But we CAN learn how to react to support them in the best was possible, without being aggressive or punitive.
Remember - they need us to model how we regulate our own emotions in order to learn how to copy us.
HOW TO HANDLE HITTING:
1. Breathe. You've got this. It's not personal. This is an infant.
2. Move your body further away
3. Put language to what they're feeling. "You're frustrated."
4. Calmly state your boundary
"I won't let you hit me"
5. Gently catch their arms and turn their bodies away if they try again, and move your body further away.
6. Offer an alternative. "You can hit this pillow if you like.
7. LATER - TEACH. Children can't Learn when they're in a reactive state so just don't bother trying to teach something in that hitting moment. Later - talk about it. "When our bodies feel angry we can say "Mum I need help", we can run outside, we can breathe like dragons".
Share this with a parent who's seeing some big behaviours!!! And save this post for later to support our content.