1) Is it a natural consequence, when two children 4 and under are fighting over a (toy, book, spoon, etc.) to remove the item in question from both of them? Or is that perhaps a logical consequence?
That would be a logical consequence. Natural consequences happen without parents stepping in to impose anything.
2) Why are timeouts not GD?
Well, that's tough, b/c in some ways they could be. It depends on the child and how you do it. If my dd is feeling overwhelmed with something and I offer her a break to get herself calmed down, and she does in fact calm down- that could be GD. If she refuses to pick up her toys and I tell her she must sit until she does it, and she sits and screams and cries and whines for 5 min., that's not GD. I think rather than ask, "Is this GD?" Asking, "Is this respectful of and truly helpful to my child?" (or is it a way for me to punish them?)
3) How can I get 2yo dd to stop hitting everyone? She hits her brother the most. She gets a great reaction out of him, which is probably why she does it. He is not old enough to calmly say "no" and walk away for a while. When she hits now she goes to her non-stimulating bedroom for a minute.
I would work very hard to figure out why she is hitting, my dd went through a stage where she was hitting ds, and the reason was basically that it worked to get her the toy she wanted (actually, she was biting his hand, but the same principal applies). She knew she could ask him for it and he might say no, but if she bit him, he would drop it. Smart kid. With that situation, I chose (thanks to advice here) to simply show my raw emotion on the issue. This is a case where I thought yelling was appropriate, b/c that was my true response, I was horrified that she was biting her brother (but she was like 4 and definitely knew better).
For a 2 yo, hitting is completely normal (though still not ok), often the child does not have the words to work things out, or the patience. This would be the kind of situation where I would think an imposed time-out could be appropriate. She has got to learn that hitting her brother is not at all acceptable. First you could teach ds to tell her, in no uncertain terms that that hurts! And that he doesn't want to play with someone who hits him. Perhaps helping out ds when it happens would be good. So- dd hits ds. You could intervene by comforting ds, and then finding him something fun to do on his own, you can sympathize with the fact that he is not going to want to be playing with her at that point. Once you have ds happy again, you could have a little talk with dd.
Well- that's just my thoughts, hopefully someone else will chime in with something better. I must say though, these things do pass, and in the end, I rarely know where it was some fabulous parenting on my part :LOL or just that the stage ended (the child outgrew it)-which is more likely. Hang in there mama!
