Another GD WWYD

[ani'smommy]

I am just really really bad at GD. I never hit, but I do a fair amount of guilting and yelling.

DD is 3.5 and DS is 8 months. She loves him soo much, but frequently tries to pick him up (he's only 6 pounds lighter than her!). She kows she's not allowed to do this because she can't handle him -- he's strong and heavy, she's little and just can't hold him. She drops him. I think that's a pretty reasonable rule.

Anyway -- I just don't know what to do when she does this. I try to show her how it hurts him when she drops him, etc. She also does get to hold him in a safe way very frequently, so it's not as if I don't let her near him or anything.

She has also started hitting him. I know she's not mad at him; but rather she does it to see what our reaction is. And honestly, it makes me pretty mad, but I don't know what a good GD response to this is.

Help!

[TheRationalCrunchy]

Good reaction: "Huh. Well, sometimes everyone might feel like hitting something. The important thing is to make sure we're not hitting something that will be hurt by it! We can hit this beach ball [or insert your other favorite hittable object] instead next time you feel like hitting, but we will never hit a person or an animal!"

This works because it doesn't deny the urge of the child. Children sometimes just want to hit. Or kick. Or bite. They're biologically programmed to be able to do all these things, and if you look at the behavior of pack animal siblings, human children are downright kind to their younger brothers and sisters! Of course, we don't want them to hit younger siblings anyway, and that's good, but the urges are still there. Heck, who among us hasn't thought their boss/professor/rude family member could use a swift kick? Instead of saying "nope, you can never satisfy that impulse," redirect it to something safe.

[nathansmum]

I always liked Naomi Aldort's article on siblings dealing with jealousy of the other and acting out. My dd was around the same age as your little one when her big brother started kicking and hurting her and me - he also wasn't doing it out of anger, but as an attention getter. So I really came in with the attention and gave a lot of reassurance during the heat of the moment that kicking wasn't required if he wanted a cuddle from me (I totally let up on wanting to get the message through to him coz afterall he'd already heard it so many times and hadn't changed what was happening, I stopped removing him or ourselves from the room which in effect was making him more insecure at a time where he actually needed to know that he was still loveable). I asked him to just come to me instead. I also reassured him that my love for him was there always, even when I was feeding his sister, even when he was sleeping, even when he wasn't very nice to her etc - so I basically let him know that it wouldn't change. He soon lost reason to act out in this way. THat's not to say they don't scrap and fight, but it's now not driven by a need to control me in regards to my love for each of them.