what do I do when my son hits and hits and hits

[seamama11]

Please give me any insight and advice. I am at my wits end with my almost three year old. He has always been a touchy feeling kid, and when he was a year old he would just walk up to kids and hit them. That seemed to go away or not be such an issue until the past few months. He hits us throughout the day, when he doesn't understand what we are talking about, when his younger sister takes his toy, when he senses anyone being upset or too happy, he is highly sensitive. I have tried the whole we are gentle thing, tried to give the attention to the person that was hit, tried the firm, It is not ok to hit, we dont hit in this family and nothing works.
Now his 15 month old sister is hitting too, and she often hits us after he hits her. Sometimes he does it when he isnt even upset or anything.
I have tried the whole oh when you want to hit.... do your kids hit, and if so what do you do...I try not to yell but I am starting to feel so mad about it. I hate to see the baby cry because she is hurt, I hate to have to constantly walk away, I hate it when he hits his friends.
we have a great family, so many adults around him love him, my dh is involved and wonderful, I spend all day with him. I just don't think he is going thru some crazy hurt inside that makes him want to hurt others.
PLEASE HELP!
S

[JayJay]

Well, it just sounds to me like he's gotten into a hitting habit

What I would do, is try to find some consequence to hitting that he does not like. Clearly, hitting his baby sister is not something you want to continue, and hitting other people is unacceptable - and will be even more unacceptable when he grows up a little more! So now is the time to do something about it.

Main thing is, I think, to get him to a place where he can be calm, and only when he is calm, talk to him about it. Along with that, perhaps making a calender with "star days" - he can earn a "star day" when he doesn't hit anyone all day long. A certain amount of star days gets him a reward. Along with this, talking about why one does not hit

If he were my son, and was three, I would pick him up and place him on the sofa, or on his bed, and tell him that is he is angry, he must punch or hit the pillows and not another person. Maybe designate a special pillow specifically for hitting!

With my DSS (to whom I am the only mother, his biomom having left him), we do sometimes have occasions where I have to stop him acting out. Sometimes he gets very frustrated at his older sister and a couple of times I have simply picked him up when he's been punching or hitting her in anger, and plopped him gently on the sofa, where he will sit and seethe, red faced, until he calms down. I kneel down in front of him - get down on his level, and gently tell him that hitting is not okay, and that he needs to sit there and calm down until he can behave properly. This he does, sometimes hiding under a blanket or with an angry face. About five minutes later, he's calmed down. I go back and we talk about why hitting isn't good. Then, he apologises to his sister and play continues.

All in all, I do believe that letting him continue to hit is not the right way to go about things. No need to hit or to yell, but with a combination of some of the above techniques, I think you can get through this hitting thing and come out feeling much saner

*HUGE hugs* mama. Perhaps some other posters will have something to add.

[seamama11]

Thanks for your ideas.
....anyone else...

[prescottchels]

If he's highly sensitive he may be hitting when he's overstimulated, not necessarily angry. So creating some time/space for him to be alone to regroup is probably a very necessary thing for him and maybe hitting is the only strategy he knows to get that alone time...? Have you read the Highly Sensitive Person books by Elaine Aron?
If this rings true for you, try to identify his signals of getting overstimulated and offer a quiet time/space before he gets to the hitting stage. And when you start learning his signals you can start telling him what they are so that he can learn them too. Over time he'll recognize them and be able to self correct.
Good Luck!
Chelsie

[mrskingred]

I don't know whether this is of any use or not, but my almost 3 year old ds has started hitting in the past couple of months. I'm working on it with his preschool (forest ethos) where he attends a couple of sessions a week and they have advised me to use "extinction". They want me to remove him or stop him hitting the child, but then to ignore him and to show concern to the other child, explain to the other mum etc. They also suggest that I avoid known trigger spots such as when we are waiting to go into school.
Until now I have been removing him, explaining why we do not hit, leaving etc but it has not helped and they think that the attention is making his hitting worse as well as stressing me out. Some of it is definitely due to frustration as he just doesn't have the language skills to explain yet.
Hopefully this new strategy will work.