Hitting siblings

[RavenStar]

What do you do when your child hits their sibling? Our youngest is only 1 year old and is often just exploring/playing when she gets hit.
I've tried talking it through with 4 year old DD and asking her what she can do instead. I try to intervene before it gets to that point. But sometimes it happens so fast. So hard to watch a little one getting hurt.

[ChetMC]

It's Hard

It's a really difficult situation. Not much makes me angry, but I get really upset when an older child hurts a baby. DH does too.

I wish that I had more practical advice. Most of my experience is with toddlers hitting babies though, not older children hurting a baby.

Our five year old does hit sometimes. She started hitting around the time she was four and a half, but she only hits me and our two year old. It's a restrained hit too, she clearly knows it's wrong. She's just searching for something dramatic to do when she feels powerless in a situation. For her, we've been trying to point out that hitting doesn't make any sense and to focus on what would be a good thing to do instead. However, she is still in control when she hits. You can feel that she's holding back to make sure that she doesn't really hurt the person.

Out two year old DS will hit our five year old, but only when massively provoked. We just remind that hitting hurts and move on. This is something that he's going to outgrow. Without blaming the victim, we do try and get five year old DD not to bother DS so much and things are steadily improving.

I think it's always important to figure out why a hit happened and to address the root cause. Our older DS for example, will hurt the baby so I will pick up the baby and take him away (so much for comfort that victim first). So we worked on getting two year old DS to call for help and ask for somebody to just come and take the baby away instead.

[elmh23]

My kids are 5, 3 and 7 months old.

When it's the 7 month old hitting, I tell the kids to back off of him and go play somewhere else. For some reason, they never do this on their own and always complain to me first.

When it's the older two, I send the offender to their room for a cool down. Then after a bit (no set time limit, it all depends on what happened) I'll go in and talk with them about what happened and how to use words. My 3-year-old has a speech delay and is just figureing out using his words instead of his hands, so I'll also go over it with my 5-year-old to help her hear him before it gets to that point.

[omelette]

We've been having this prob too. Mine are 4.5 and 1yr (next wk). The eldest is often hitting, pushing squeezing the little one and it infuriates me. As a pp said not much gets to me but this makes me see red. We've talked about it, come up with other things to do, using words to ask an adult to move the baby if he's bothering him, sending him to his room to think about it/cool down and none of it works over here. He states it's b/c he loves baby so much and I've tried explaining that we don't hurt people we love or make them cry intentionally. I've tried talking about how he plays with his friends and what's appropriate and that that applies with baby too. It doesn't work for us.
The best thing is when my eldest hits it's usually b/c he's starting to get frustrated so I drop what I'm doing and get on the floor and play with me guiding the play to include both the kids. It's not always easy and doesn't always work and it often means dinner isn't ready on time but it seems to be the best trick I've come up with so far.

[RavenStar]

Originally Posted by ChetMC

It's a really difficult situation. Not much makes me angry, but I get really upset when an older child hurts a baby. DH does too.

I wish that I had more practical advice. Most of my experience is with toddlers hitting babies though, not older children hurting a baby.

Our five year old does hit sometimes. She started hitting around the time she was four and a half, but she only hits me and our two year old. It's a restrained hit too, she clearly knows it's wrong. She's just searching for something dramatic to do when she feels powerless in a situation. For her, we've been trying to point out that hitting doesn't make any sense and to focus on what would be a good thing to do instead. However, she is still in control when she hits. You can feel that she's holding back to make sure that she doesn't really hurt the person.


I think it's always important to figure out why a hit happened and to address the root cause. Our older DS for example, will hurt the baby so I will pick up the baby and take him away (so much for comfort that victim first). So we worked on getting two year old DS to call for help and ask for somebody to just come and take the baby away instead.

I agree. When she hits our baby it makes me so angry and sad at the same time. I just keep thinking how our 4 year old didn't grow up with someone hitting her. It really breaks my heart.

Big sister knows that it's wrong and it usually comes after being frustrated. It's when our baby is going for one of her sister's toys or takes something. We've had a lot of conversations around it.


It also usually happens with our 4 year old wants my attention...i.e., I'm on the phone or doing dishes, etc. I think I just need to avoid those things during the day when I'm alone with them.

[RavenStar]

Thanks elmh23 and omelette for sharing your stories! It helps to hear other people's experiences.

Omelette: That sounds very similar to what we're dealing with and we have almost the exact same age spacing. I think I need to stop what I'm doing and get involved more often. Thank you!

One thing that gives me hope is that DD1 does apologize afterwards on her own sometimes. I know she gets it on some level.

[omelette]

Originally Posted by RavenStar

It also usually happens with our 4 year old wants my attention...i.e., I'm on the phone or doing dishes, etc. I think I just need to avoid those things during the day when I'm alone with them.

This is my son too. As soon as I'm on the phone things start to happen or when I'm making dinner. I've avoided phone calls when home alone and like I mentioned stopped what I'm doing to get on the floor to engage them both in an activity. We do lots of pots/pans, wood food and mixing spoons while trying to make dinner that way I can play and cook a bit at the same time.
Spontaneous dance parties work great too. I crank some music, ds1 loves to dance, ds2 bops along a bit and it gets some crazy energy out while were all having fun.
Hope you find something that works for you guys. It really is a trying time.

[lookatreestar]

here it was the younger constantly hitting and badgering the older one. i have curbed a lot of it with a lot of geeeeeeeeeeeeentle, this is how we be gentle!! type stuff. but he doesn't have a lot of words, and gets so frustrated! dd will only lash out if he did something (first doesn't make it right, but still he is an instigator!!), or he just won't stop (he is persistent!)

eta, it is also not really related to pecking order/birth order it is totally personality. dd has always had an easy going personality in regards to stuff and how much she will put up with

[phathui5]

If someone who's over the age of, say, two and a half hits a sibling I put them in time-out. Set the timer for their age, talk to them about what they did, have them apoligize and hug the offended sibling. If they sibling who got hit is old enough to talk, I encourage them to tell the hitter not to hit them.

We have four children, aged 9, 7, 5 and 3. This has worked pretty well for us and hitting is rare around here.