Hi, I'm Jamie, and my son hits our dogs.

[jamierai]

Please help me come up with a solution. I'm a longtime reader but firsttime poster and a subscriber to the mothering hard copy magazine.

My son Caleb is just nearly two. He hits. A lot. He calls it "gah"ing. He "gah"s the other children at playgroup, and tells me that he is going to do so on our way there. I've tried a lot of things - telling him that it makes the other children and their parents feel sad and angry, taking him away to sit on a bench and talk to him about it, asking him to apologize to the other kids, etc. Nothing works.


BUT. That's not my biggest concern. My biggest concern is that he hits my dogs. And my mom's dog too.
He walks over to them and just hits them, for no reason. They're not doing anything, have done nothing to him, etc. There's no pattern or rhyme or reason to when he hits them. The other day, my mom's dog was laying on the floor asleep and he was playing with a mop. He walked over to the dog, lifted the mop, and cracked the dog across her entire body. She is 13. One of my dogs is 15. Not only do I feel awful for the dog, but I'm terrified that he's going to get bitten.


If you've made it this far, thank you.

[Shahbazin]

As far as playgroups go, could you have it that when he hits, you pack up & go home? He'll be real upset the 1st few times, & it's awkward for you to keep him busy doing something else for a while, but if he sees that the inevitable result of hitting is missing out on playgroup (which also removes him from hurting the other kids), it makes hitting not so fun.

With the dogs, could you take him to another area to play, or just head him off when he's getting near an unenclosed dog? (& crate or put a playpen around a dog who wants a nap). I don't usually post in this forum, but saw you had a number of views & no suggestions yet - if one of my girls (2 1/2 & 3 1/2) hits the other on purpose or is getting rough with our older dog, they are asked to apologise & play gently, or she will be set in her Pack N Play bed (or room or whatever you have) for a few minutes until she can calm down & control herself. Not wanting to be away from where stuff is happening is a powerful motivator for settling down, & if one is upset, she will sometimes want to just go to her bed for a while to calm down, or if put there by me, will tell me "Mamma, I'm ready to be nice now. I want out."

[griffin2004]

regarding the dogs, 100% supervision (so you can intervene when he's heading for a dog) or 100% separation until your son gets a handle on this; dogs, especially dogs of that age, are entitled to protection; they don't understand that he's 2; they just know that they're being caused pain and are being struck with sticks

[Auroara Bobcat]

New to posting here myself, but my son also has hit our dogs on many occassions and it upsets and worries me because it is just out if the blue for no reason. What I have been doing is making him sit on a wooden stool (hard and not too comfy) in the middle of the room sitting on his hands. And explain to him that his hands are only to be used for playing nicely and he will have to sit on them when he uses them to hurt others.

[mizzoh]

i feel your pain! my son ( 3.5) is a hitter and always has been. he hits me, the dog, dh... i don't really have any advice on how to stop it - nothing has worked for us. we tried telling him to hit pillows if he wanted to hit, hitting is wrong and it hurts. we bought books about being kind to pets. nothing worked. my only suggestion is to keep your son and the dogs separated unless they can be closely supervised. if he tells you he's going to hit the dog, then i would remove him from the dog asap. we got a puppy just before ds turned 3. it was a nightmare. we had to keep them separated much of the time. it sucked, but it was the only thing that worked. now, 10 months later, he's still often rough with the dog, but things are so much better now that ds is older.

[Latte Mama]

Watch for subtle cues and separate if needed. My DS will occasionally get rough with my cats but I'm immediately there. Now, I can see/sense when he's about to hit and I stop it before it happens. My cats are old and they just can't take it.

He's great with them 99% of the time so it's not a big issue at all. He learned "gentle kittty" pretty quickly but if he didn't I'd separate the cats. They don't deserve to be hit and neither do your dogs.

[mom2tatum]

We started having the same dog hitting problem around 18 mos. Still have it, but its more a method of communication for him and I . He is almost 3.5. It means "mom, get off the computer. Mom, get off the phone. Mom, I don't like you nursing the baby for so long without paying me any attention, I can only play alone for so long, OK?" haha.

So? Hmmm. Well, I know what cuts down on it in general - giving him enough attention - I mean playtime, reading, lots of 1-1. When he is left to his own devices, the dog hitting gets rowdy again. At age 2, though, it was much easier to deal with for us - we would just tell him we couldn't let him be in the same room as them, and then take him in another room to DO something with him, not a punishment, but a natural consequence with short explanation - I cannot let Toby be hit by you. I need to move you in here, or upstairs, or whereever, depending on situation. If he hit him WITH something, then take the something away, again with short explanation. He has only ever hurt the dog twice, and it wasn't so bad. A yelp, whimper, cry, lasting a few seconds - thats what I considered hurt. And, it really made him not want to hurt him anymore, I think. Anyhow, if I absolutely cannot give him attention at that moment, I remove the dog - the ONLY reason we kept our baby gate up at the top of the stairs. And I always explain that. Because I don't want him thinking him hitting = dog getting "punished". Sometimes, after that he will do other wild things to grab my attention, but at least the dog isn't the victim!
You'll figure out what works best...but it is so common for those of us with dogs and little ones.

[WestCoastDiva]

It sucks and it takes a lot of patience and a lot of quick intervention and then re-direction, but it is totally normal!

I have a 2 year old as well, and it is only because he is baby #3 and I now have previous experience from my older two that I have enough patience to help him through this stage right now. He is always, always after our dog and I have *no* idea why, so I just make sure I am always close or one of them (either Noah or the dog) is always within eye contact. I don't ever leave them alone together right now, because I don't trust Noah to not hurt our dog and from there what will the dog do if Noah is left to torture him yk?

As for playdates, yes we have the same thing and if Noah hits, or grabs someone's face (what he does right now to greet others, they don't find it as amusing as he does ), or pushes I immediately pick him up to come and sit by me, or play with or beside me with something on his own. I explain that what he does hurts, and always show the gentle alternative, etc etc etc, but really, he is 2 and I know a lot of what I say falls on deaf ears.

At 2 they are still totally ego centric, so IMNSHO you can talk until you are blue in the face about what others feel like, how it hurts yadda yadda yadda, and that is all good, but remember he is 2 and according to him, the world revolves around him and that is developmentally normal.

Just keep repeating to yourself for the next year "He is 2, I will get through this. He is 2, I will get through this."

He needs a bit of hovering and quick intervention/redirection a lot for the next year or so. They are *just* starting to scratch the surface of learning of how their actions affect others, but at this stage of the game, they don't really 'get it', at least not the way we want them to.

Just my two cents.

[buttercups.nest]

What about keeping a super close eye on him and when he's about to hit, stopping him and firmly telling him that that behavior is not acceptable? I didn't think my daughter would get it but she does! (not with hitting but other behaviors)

[themammy]

Hi Jamie

Ds did this, starting around 18 months. I found it helpful to tell him that there is nothing wrong with [I]feeling[I] like hitting, we all have frustrated feelings/angry feelings/whatever rising up within in us. But it is very wrong to actually hit the dogs (we have two). If I saw him going to hit (and keeping him close to monitor him was vital), I would intervene and give him a wooden spoon to bash the floor or the wall and encourage him to go crazy with it. It really helped him to get those feelings and that need out of him.

Now I find we don't have to be quite so literal with it, i.e. we don't have to replace unacceptable hitting with acceptable hitting. Now we do the crazy dance. If he has these negative feelings rising up within him and he needs to get them out of him in some way, we just go mad dancing like lunatics. It's great because it always breaks the mood and brings humour to the situation. We do it together - so he has my full attention. And he can wriggle all that negative stuff out of himself. He's 2 & 1/4 now. The major dog-hitting phase passed really quickly, maybe six weeks or so.

As for hitting other children. My ds was on the receiving end of a child who repeatedly hit. I know some children go through a difficult phase with this. I think it's really important to engage with the mothers of the other children, admit there is a problem and ask for their help in managing the situation. If all the adults in the room are looking out for your ds, it will be less stressful for everybody and it allows you to talk in advance about how you want the siuation handled.

In my situation, the other mother refused to recognise a problem, even though over the months her ds bit and drew blood from my son, scratched his eye and tried to hit him with a metal trash can. I found it really tough because his mother did very little (nothing) about it, but if I tried to intervene, she accused me of picking on her child. All she would say was that her chld was slow to pick things up. It seemed as though her child was the centre of the world (naturally), but the rest of us were merely supporting actors in his play and didn't matter if these "less important" children got hurt over and over. Our friendship didn't last.

I just wish we could have actually dealt with the problem at the start before it got truly upsetting.

[tubulidentata2]

Originally Posted by themammy

Now we do the crazy dance. If he has these negative feelings rising up within him and he needs to get them out of him in some way, we just go mad dancing like lunatics. It's great because it always breaks the mood and brings humour to the situation. We do it together - so he has my full attention. And he can wriggle all that negative stuff out of himself. .

Wonderful idea!!!! I'm going to use this for other discipline issues.

We got a Great Dane puppy when DD was three. A forty pound puppy and a toddler don't play well together when the puppy is in the biting/jumping phase. DD, for the first time ever (we have an older Dane) began hitting and tail pulling both dogs. I found that *my* treatment of the dogs was the biggest influence on her behavior. When I was complaining about the puppy, or generally snapping at the puppy for all of the biting and pouncing on DD, DD was more likely to hit. We began talking about our feelings. I explained that I often want to hit the puppy but don't because it hurts her. I suggested we hit a stuffed animal instead. She said she didn't want to hurt her stuffed animals. So I asked her if she could think of another way to let out her feelings. She suggested drawing her mad feelings. This worked really well. We had to come up with other outlets (clay, pounding toys, playing piano, etc.), but these work. Now (she is 3.5) they sometimes have issues when the puppy tries to sit on her or shove her (puppy is now 105#), but if I start giving the puppy a lot of attention and asking DD to help me give the dogs love, she is great with them.

[_betsy_]

We have three cats.

I have a 3 yo and a 10 month old.

2 of the cats pretty much avoid the kids as much as they possibly can. The third, though, well, he's old and blind in one eye, and loves people and attention and just wants to be with us all the time. He's a real lovey, people-oriented cat.

When one of the kids isn't as gentle as they should be with the cats, like pulling a tail or fur or hitting, we heap attention on the injured party. "Oh, Mickey, you poor thing! Are you OK, Mickey? You poor kitty, the baby hit you! I'm so sorry, Mickey, are you OK?" Lots of attention paid to the cat. A simple "Hands are not for hitting" or "Gentle hands" to the child.

My 3 yo hasn't been to a cat in well over a year. When she did have a slip up when she was younger, she'd come over and help me care for the injured party as well. She'd say something like "Uh oh! Oh kitty, poor kitty, OK kitty?" She got it pretty quickly.

Works to heap the attention on an injured kid, as well.

DH sometimes wears glasses, and around 18 months or so, DD1 was fascinated with them and kept trying to smack them off DH's face. After the 3rd or so time, when getting angry about it or whatever didn't help, I tried the heaping attention thing on him, and DD1 got it.

It took several times for DD1 to understand with this method, but she's very, very gentle with the cats now.

[jewelsJZ]

We dealt with this too. My son is now 5.5 and he has been great with the dogs for about 2 years now. When he was hitting, here's what we did, and we did it for a long time:
Always supervision.
Lots of modeling, petting the dogs nicely, talking to them, "Oh, you like nice gentle pets on your back, you are wagging your tail and this makes you happy."
We also started to give him responsibility for the dogs, with our supervision of course, but this helped the dogs to see him higher in the pack order and I think lessened the chance that they would bite them. They never did. We started with letting him hook their leashes on before we took them out, scoop food into their bowl, tell them to sit and give them a treat. We made a big deal out of how much they liked it when he did these things, look at how happy they are, etc. We also said "dogs are not for hitting" and "dogs are for petting" whenever he would hit.
We also separated the dogs from him by gating off our kitchen and dining area. They had that space and ds had the living room, hallway, etc. One dog took well to this arrangement but the other one whined and carried on. She hated being separated from me and dh so that was hard, but she was the more docile of the two dogs and tolerated ds much better so we let her out.
As for the playgroups, I was also given the advice to pack up and leave whenever ds hit. This was hard for me because the playgroups were my time to get out of the house and socialize with the other mommies. But I did it anyway. We left a lot of playgroups/playgrounds/mall play area situations. Looking back, I don't know that it was particularly effective for my ds. He was upset that we were leaving but he continued to hit the next time. What was more effective was closer supervision and constant reminders of "gentle hands", "friends are not for hitting", etc. I said this so many times and I was so tired of saying it but eventually he stopped hitting or grew out of it or whatever.
My point is, it will stop. My son was very verbal, too. It's not that he couldn't use words to express himself but he chose not to for whatever reason. We also constantly reminded him to use words and gave him words for what we thought was the issue. He often hit because he wanted something from another child, although other times it seemed random.
Hang in there, OP, it will stop eventually.