Please help me with a head-butting 2 yo

[Sasha_girl]

My ds is 27 months old and has recently started hitting and head-butting. He busted my lip earlier today head-butting me, and will ram his four year old sister in the back with his head after gaining speed running across the room. On top of being behavior I obviously don't want to continue it is also quite painful.

I've tried telling him that we use gentle touches and he alternates between continued defiance and broken-heartedness. He is not very verbal, so I know this is his way of handling aggression. When he's in the mood to terrorize his sister it seems impossible to redirect him (he's a Taurus and quite persistant).

Please help me! Otherwise he is such a sweet and good little boy, but certainly this behavior can't continue!

[Mallory]

Is it really in anger? I think there are very different way to handle a child who is angry and hitting or one who is just so intense about everything.

If it is anger I don't think that gentle touching helps. What he needs is a way to deal with that anger. Don't redirct him form the anger, just redirect it. Say "You are angry" Then give him something else to hit, let him stand on the porch and scream, give him some angry words to say -"I am ANGRY" "That makes me MAD", for some kids making angry art works "color a picture of how you feel", get some pictures of angry kids so he can show you which one he feels like. I would not focus on the hitting but on this emotion that he can't deal with.

On the other hand, I can see how he would see how fast he can run across the room and hit his sister just to see what happens. For this more exploratory hurting, I think you can talk about the gentle touches, but also give him some where to use those muscles- can he jump on the bed or the couch, pound some playdough or a peg board (actually these might work for anger too), hanging is one of my boys favorites off of a tree limb, my arm, the shopping cart handle.

[Jeddica]

Sorry, I have no advice for you, but I wanted to let you know that I have a head-butter too! At almost 3, his head is big and hard, and hurts! He does it for fun sometimes, and even when he's coming in for a big hug...and let me tell you, a head butt against a full-term pregnant belly is NO FUN!!
I also think it's a passive-aggressive thing; he knows it's wrong and we tell him it hurts, but he just laughs and goes for it again. We do what we can but try not to make a big deal about it...we have found that the less we agonize over some things, the faster they go away!

I feel for you!
Good luck
~Jessica