How do I get 13 mos old to stop hitting?

[YayJennie]

My son will take anything in the house and turn it into a weapon. Brushes, spoons, balls...he just loves to bang on EVERYTHING. Unfortunately, he not only bangs on his drums and his toys and the walls, but also me and my husband and my poor dog. How do I get him to stop hitting? I say no and show him "gentle" by petting instead of hitting, but his default is to just beat the crap out of everything around him.

I know it's developmentally difficult (possibly impossible) to actually get a kid to understand hitting hurts at 13 months old, but is there anything you can recommend? I'm surprised my poor dog hasn't bit my kid yet with all the beatings he gets I try to keep him from hitting, but he's doing it constantly and I can't always stop him. What can I do?

[greenbeanmama]

I'd say you're doing right by demonstrating gentle hands. And making sure he has enough toys that it's okay to hit (you mentioned drums, etc). Maybe show him gentle hands and then say, "If you want to hit, let's go play with mama's pots and pans." And remember that he'll outgrow it soon.

[lifeguard]

I also take away anything ds hits with. I'll let him have it back later or another day but once it's used as a weapon again it's gone.

I wish there was a magic solution but ds is now 18 months & we're still working on gentle hands constantly.

[curiouscanadian]

I happen to have more of a pusher rather than a hitter, but I find the two behaviours are very similar actually.

One thing I do is tell DS what he can do with something. For example, tonight he was banging his fork on his plate and the table, so I told him "Forks are for eating, not for playing. If you keep hitting the table I will take your fork away." Granted, he's 20mo. rather than 13, but your son will get it eventually and I think it's helpful to reinforce what they CAN do, not just what they CAN'T. I agree, having drums, etc. that he can hit, would be a good balance.

Another thing I started recently is making a point of telling him "I'm sorry" whenever I accidentally hurt him in any way (never would do it on purpose, but you know, it happens sometimes). My hope is one day he starts to put together that when I'm asking him to say sorry to someone, it's because whatever he did hurt.

You're definitley right that it's early for your son to "get" any of this, but it's never too early to start! (And it's certainly something we keep working on!)

[Pogo0685]

I'm subbing for notes, my son hits also. My poor animals take beatings and I try so hard to catch him in time before he hits but sometimes I just can't. He also hits me all the time while nursing for like 2 months now I have been saying hitting hurts all done and he really just doesn't care

[JMJ]

I've been working on this with DD. I stop her by grabbing her hand and moving her away. We try to talk about things in the positive as much as possible. "Gentle with Mommy, please." Sometimes, I have to hold her hand to nurse her to sleep at night, and if she doesn't want to hold my hand, I put an arm in her way so that she can't hit me. I also give her appropriate things to hit as some other moms have mentioned.

I think that at this age, their impulse control is pretty low. They get fixated on something that they want to do, and they don't have the ability to move their own attention to something more appropriate. They just get stuck on, "I want to bang my truck on the window." Telling a young toddler to stop, they might be able to immediately stop the action, but they really can't move on without some help.

We as parents need to be able to offer alternatives. If the toddler still wants to go back to hitting, we need to offer another alternative or just establish a boundary that can't be crossed. I do this a lot by putting chairs in front of objects or my arm in front of people. This gives our kids as much freedom as possible to accept or reject solutions and to choose any action besides the inappropriate one.

[RosemaryS-F]

We taught ds to "hit out" that means, he can act like he's hitting hard, but only into the air. Also, you can hit (....) but we don't hit people. It worked for us, and you're catching it at the right time!