How to get toddlers to stop hitting? That's today at Live On Purpose TV.
So you know how when you're watching these videos, there's that whole list of
suggested videos over there and at the end there's some that come up as well
and one that came up for me recently I was really impressed with, this is Lori
Petro, she has a channel called Teach Through Love and you can link to that
right up here in this corner. She's doing some really great things around
parenting, this is a mom and a blogger who's taking questions from her audience,
kind of like we do here and and addressing those on her channel. So Lori,
nice job with that and you had a video up about how to get toddlers to stop
hitting. I've got some ideas about that as well and I love what Lori said in her
video about how hitting is an age typical. Now I'm going to say age typical
rather than age appropriate which is another term that you'll hear sometimes.
It's an age typical behavior for toddlers, they do it, it's common. Now that
doesn't mean that it's adaptive or it's what we want so obviously we're going to
do some things to see if we can get that to stop because the hitting has to stop,
right? This is not going to be helpful for your child or anyone around them if
they continue doing it. Keeping in mind that it's age typical though, it's a
little easier for us to understand what to do about it. You'll notice that your
toddler, your child will go through developmental stages and phases when
they are about to accomplish a new developmental milestone or task like
talking or walking or one of these things that marks a real milestone for
them in their development. It is very typical to see a little bit of an
increase in irritability or aggressive behavior
or crying, that's really common. Remember they're going through some changes and
their little brain is trying to keep up with them but they don't have the
developmental skills or expertise necessary to handle all of that stuff
that's coming at them new and that causes feelings. Now this is true for all
people, it's true for you too, isn't it? As you go through a stressful time or
something that represents a lot of change for you, you start to feel a
little more emotionally sensitive, shall we say, and that's normal. Well these
little kiddos don't have the maturity to do the emotional regulation that's
necessary for them to control their behavior in a way that you and I as
adults hopefully are doing so notice that this is a development until process,
it's absolutely normal, it's still something that we want to
address and we will do that but don't get too tipped over by it because this
is kind of what we expect. If this has become enough of a concern that you're
watching this video which apparently you are then let's give you some steps that
you could use and I think the first one probably is going to solve a whole lot
of things right here and that is, put your own mask on first. Now if you're not
sure what I'm talking about here, you haven't been on an airplane lately but
if you get on an airplane and you know when they're getting ready to take off
and they're taxiing out onto the runway and they go through their
safety routine because they're required by federal regulations to do this, you
incidentally are supposed to follow along in your little laminated card,
hope you're doing that and as you go through the safety routine and you see
where all the exits are, they may be behind you, make sure that you're
checking, they always get to this point in the presentation where they say if we
lose cabin pressure, these oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling, they're
very attractive yellow things that you fasten on with a rubber band, they always
say if you're traveling with young children or someone who needs assistance,
put your own mask on first. Now why do they say that? Because our
tendency as a parent especially is, "Oh, I got to take care of this child. I'm
responsible for this child's welfare and safety." Yes, you are. Why put your own mask
on first? Because if you're out cold in the aisle, you're part of the problem,
you're just in the way at this point. Put your own mask on first and that allows
you then to step up and serve and help other people including your children so
I put this as the first step because if you've got a toddler who's hitting and
you want to intervene and you come at it with an attitude or a feeling as a
parent that you want to hit somebody too, I mean, monitor your own feelings and
behavior. You're going to be feeling things as well and for mom or dad to be out of
control just means that we've got a big mess, you're part of the problem now and
you're not helping anybody. Put your own mask on first means take care of you,
take care of yourself, put yourself into an emotional state that you're going to
be able to handle whatever's coming from your toddler and sometimes that's gonna
be pretty volatile because they don't have the maturity to regulate. Make sure
that you do, okay. That's what I mean by put your own mask on first. Just another
thought about that, if you need to do some focus breathing or if you need
to take a little walk or give mom a little timeout or whatever, go ahead and
do that, it's more important to do what's right than it is to do what's convenient
and sometimes when we get into our fight-or-flight mode, we just react and
respond to things instead of taking a very intentional purposeful present and
conscious kind of an approach to it so this first step is huge and even if I
didn't share the other three that I'm going to share with you, that would be
enough to put you in a position to really help your kiddo
and it models them a more calm presence which is what they're going to need some
exposure to in order to learn something else,
we'll come back to that in just a minute. Alright, so once you've got your own
mask on, here's what I would suggest you do next.. Set a simple but a firm limit.
This is not the time by the way, Lori mentioned this in her video, I
appreciated this particular contribution. This is not the time to have an
intellectual conversation with your toddler. First of all, they're not
processing it. Second of all, they're emotionally tipped over a little bit in
the time that you're intervening with them and they don't have any
comprehension of where you're going with principles and what's right and virtues
and no, we're going to instill those at appropriate times in an appropriate ways
but in this moment, when they're hitting is not the time to reiterate all of the
family values, this is the time to set a simple and firm limit. I'm not going to
let you hit me or I'm not going to let you hit, simple enough. Say that, remove
the child physically because you're still big enough to do this, when they're
15, 16 years old the game changes so we want them to learn it now, okay, because
you can move them and remove them from the situation where they're doing the
hitting, set this firm and simple limit. Okay, now let's move on to a third step.
Present a very calm, now notice that this is time back into step one because you
got to get your own mask on first, make sure that you're in a good place because
in this third step, you present a calm adult that gets to interact with them.
I love what Nicholeen Peck said about this and she'll be on the channel at some
point so keep watching, parenting expert who's written a book called Teaching
Self Government and Nicholeen said that you maintain a calm face, calm voice and
calm body. Just my saying that should trigger something for you, okay. Do you
feel a little more calm just because I presented that? Calm face, calm voice, calm
body, this is very important in the modeling
aspect as you're showing an example to your toddler about what it means to have
calm face, calm voice, calm body. It also allows you to do this next part more
effectively and what you're going to do is connect with your child. There is some
reason why they're hitting, okay, and remember toddlers don't have to have
as good a reasons as adults might have to have, it could be something very
simple like, "Oh I'm frustrated that my sister took my toy." or "Oh I don't like
that mommy is holding my baby brother right now
instead of me." If you can figure out what the reason is that this toddler is
hitting, it's a strategy that they've come up with to try to meet some need.
Well you may not agree with the strategy, that's fine, we're going to get to that in
step four but you can acknowledge the need so with empathy and again, using a
calm voice, calm face, and calm body and you've already set the simple but firm
limit and you've removed the child from the situation, now you connect with them
empathically where you show them that you're tracking and you understand what
their need is and then we go to the last step which is to address the strategy. We
want to model for our kids some strategies that are more appropriate and
more effective incidentally in getting what it is that they want and again, I
used the word model, okay, because they're going to learn a whole lot more from how
you do things than from what you say. Now we'll wrap the words into it too. You know,
sweetie, if you really want mommy to hold you, the best thing would be and then you
can help to teach them whatever the appropriate approach would be,
maintaining a calm voice, calm face and calm body and that's going to help with
the hitting too, isn't it? Can you see that? Awesome. Keep your own mask on first, set
a firm but simple limit, use empathy and a calm voice to connect with their need
and then model an appropriate strategy for them
to get what it is that they want. Toddlers hitting, sure it's
developmentally typical but let's see what we can do to stem that a little bit.
I'm glad your here.