I see SO many people looking for the same advice on hitting... - Page 3

[suprgrl]

Personally I think it is important to first acknowledge the child's feelings. "You are angry...." THEN address the hitting "I understand you are angry, but I want to be touched gently" "Tell Mommy what is making you mad" "Let's work this out" "I want to help you. It is not okay to hit/bite, but I can help you when you tell me about how you are feeling" For younger kids who may not yet havae the appropriate language abilities verbalize for them the feelings they most likely have.
If we focus so much on the fact that the child is hitting I think it may reinforce the idea to hit. It also avoids the real issue: the fact that they are overcome with feelings they don't know how to express appropriately. When they feel their feelings are heard and understood they lose the desire to express their feelings physically.

[That Is Nice]

Originally Posted by suprgrl

Personally I think it is important to first acknowledge the child's feelings. "You are angry...." THEN address the hitting "I understand you are angry, but I want to be touched gently" "Tell Mommy what is making you mad" "Let's work this out" "I want to help you. It is not okay to hit/bite, but I can help you when you tell me about how you are feeling" For younger kids who may not yet havae the appropriate language abilities verbalize for them the feelings they most likely have.
If we focus so much on the fact that the child is hitting I think it may reinforce the idea to hit. It also avoids the real issue: the fact that they are overcome with feelings they don't know how to express appropriately. When they feel their feelings are heard and understood they lose the desire to express their feelings physically.

I think this is a great post! I wholeheartedly agree.

[One_Girl]

Originally Posted by hempmama

I read the whole post. What I was saying is that hitting differs from many other socially unacceptable behaviors that we deal with by redirecting or validating (which is what you are proffering as a solution) in that there is a victim. Unlike, say, spitting on the rug, which I would deal with exactly the way you would hitting, another kid is hurt, and the ramifications of that need to be dealt with. I think you have to take that more into account.

And I also agree with whoever said overly validating anger helps kids stew- I read that the brain processes on both anger and hopelessness are really similar, and are self reinforcing.

I think the point of the post is that telling them to be happy instead of angry and give hugs or something is just not validating at all wheras telling a child to stomp their feet or say they are angry or some other form of expression is validating the emotion and giving an appropriate outlet that a child who is relying on hitting doesn't have and starting that at a young age. Overvalidating is definitely not good but not even acknowledging is just as bad because the child learns that they are not okay and they have to internalize their anger at themselves.

[TheRationalCrunchy]

Exactly. See, the big problem with ONLY talking to the child is that they then become totally dependent on you, or someone as committed to GD as you, when they get upset or angry.

If, on the other hand, they have some sort of healthy way of unleashing aggression/anger that doesn't involve harming another being, they can do it whether or not you're right there in the room. I don't believe in making MYSELF so much a part of the solution to a child's every problem that they literally need me for every interaction. I understand it's important to help kids verbalize things, but at 3 and 4 they need to be talked through and they need something more than talk unless mom and dad are literally always around.

[That Is Nice]

Originally Posted by One_Girl

I think the point of the post is that telling them to be happy instead of angry and give hugs or something is just not validating at all wheras telling a child to stomp their feet or say they are angry or some other form of expression is validating the emotion and giving an appropriate outlet that a child who is relying on hitting doesn't have and starting that at a young age. Overvalidating is definitely not good but not even acknowledging is just as bad because the child learns that they are not okay and they have to internalize their anger at themselves.

[prothyraia]

I think it's often hard to remember to validate anger when it's the root cause of violence being directed at you or someone you love. My first, primary, instinctual desire when someone causes me pain is not to respond with "I can see that you're upset...when you're upset, you can do _____". I certainly agree that it's probably the most effective response, but it's definitely not the easiest. I can only do that when the hitting/hair pulling/biting/pinching doesn't *really* hurt.

When it does hurt badly, my first impulse is either to protect myself, or to fight back, or to need some kind of apology/gentle action from my son in order to get back on his side (which impulse is strongest depends largely how much pain I'm in). I know other parents who I think are, on some level, afraid of that anger (and the violence that came with it), and that's where the desire to encourage the child to turn it into something else comes from.

For me it boils down to the fact that when I'm in pain, in that moment, I simply do not care that my son is angry because of ____, or that he needs me to connect with him and pay more attention. All I care about is that it's not okay for someone to hurt me. Perfect parenting? Not even close. Very human, and a natural consequence that holds true even as kids grow up? (what are the chances of getting someone to care about your feelings and want to help you after you smack them?) Most definitely.

[terrabella]

And it varies so much from child to child, and age to age. My two year old gets the "Hands are not for hitting."

There was a phase where I let my sons duke it out, because my mediation and cool down atempts, were actually making things worse. Some weird boyhood thing,THEY came out of it better if I let them just get physical, and became closer for it. It amazes me to this day, I don't get it, and I really hope my girls don't ever do it.

Now, at ages nine and ten, when they rarely get physical with each other, I stop them, validate their feelings, and yet point out that hitting is accomplishing NOTHING. And they of their own accord apologize, and go back to what they were doing side by side like nothing just happened. I swear the male animal makes me dizzy trying to figure it out sometimes.

Also, my boys being this age, I have begun to explain to them that there IS a time for hitting. For I've embarked on explaining self defense to them.

And I'm going yet down an entire new road again, with a two year old girl, and another on the way. They are 1: girls not boys, 2: three years apart, not 15 mos. and 4: completely different people. I have no doubt that I will have to learn to handle everything differently. I'm amazed that people actually manage to write books, because child-rearing is an everchanging and always evolving animal.

[allgirls]

Originally Posted by wendizbaby

I'm sort of scratching my head at some of these responses because I'm thinking that it is nearly impossible to expect a child to deal with anger like we expect most adults to deal with it (in a "socially acceptable" manner). Then I realized that I have a 2 year old and some of you might have much older children.
Wendi

I agree.....it is a process..they don't start out knowing..I'm in the fortunate position of having children who are older and younger amost 18, almost 14,almost 5 and 2.5. I am not raising the youngers the way I raised the older ones simply because I have honed my skills as a parent. I have talked about this to my oldest because I was particulary hard on her as a kid. One thing though, relationship building can start anywhere and I have focused on rebuilding where I fell short when she had her most difficult years. Without GD I think I would have lost her a few years back.

And my younger children and my almost 14 year old is not having the same problems that her older sister has..she handles things much better emotionally because I have built a stronger relationship earlier with her..and with the little ones it's even earlier.

What was I trying to say? Oh yeah, having older children has allowed me to watch the process. It has also allowed me to say to other adults in their lives, particularly teachers when the behaviour has been less than expected "you get paid stress leave, you get personal time, you get support from your peers when things go bad. If your husband suddenly left you you would be devastated and likely would be angry and not exempliary in your behaviour yet you expect a 14 year old whose father has abandoned her for drugs and is in prison to behave herself and handle it better than is expected of you" It really puts thing in perspective for them. I am always surprised when educators who work with teens give me the "I never thought of that" look.

and having that experience has helped me trust in the process which is HUGE because a lot of parenting revolves around "nipping things in the bud now" so they are not doing that when they are adults when the natural progression is for people to stop doing things they did as a child when they are adults if they are guided along the path to that growth by loving parents.

As to anger...I absolutely believe anger needs to be felt and validated. Expressed...well appropriately...as an adult for me that is simply say "I am angry about..." whatever it is and accepting that that's the emotion I'm feeling. It fizzles faster when I acknowledge it, feel it, express and move on from it. And that is what I am trying to teach my children. I'm getting pretty good at it now at 42..I am hoping they learn it earlier because it was never really taught to me that way. I didn't get to express it in anyway and even saying it was invalidated "oh, you don't hate her" etc. When in that moment, yeah, I probably did.

[JamieCatheryn]

I have watched my son start to learn self control bit by bit in the past few weeks about this. He just turned 2 and for a while if he was frusterated, tired, excited, anything, he'd raise his right arm and hit. Every time if he was about to hit us we'd grab that arm and tell him no that hurts us, I know you're feeling ___ about what's going on but let's do this instead. He learned mostly not to hit in a matter of a week. He switched to grabbing up anything nearby and throwing it. Again, if it was dangerous, breakable, or aimed at us we'd stop him, same deal. No doubt we'll have a ton of such phases but this one seemed to have gone well.

I think I got 3 things out of this phase.
1. His behavoir he started with wasn't wrong or bad, it was instinct
2. We stopped it and said it wasn't ok
3. We changed what was going on entirely and met any needs he had, not to dwell on the feeling but not to call it bad.

[joeymama]

Most of the time I have had issues with hitting from my ds2 weren't related to anger at all, in fact he was very happy to hit his baby sister in the head with that wooden block or to hit his big brother. And would giggle gleefully while doing so. I think that in the younger child (under 2) hitting has alot to do about having power, power to get a reaction, power to get what they want from their sibling, power to change the situation.etc. Pretty much up until he had the ability to verbalize what he wanted he used hitting as his main source of communication. We used the "gentle baby" phrase and then would move away from him to his "victim" (for lack of a better word) comforting them, expressing that his action had caused another pain/sadness. IMO, that action helped to build compassion and empathy in him. He still hits sometimes, but he feels bad for it and will try to comfort the person he hit weather it be me or his siblings I agree that children need to be able to express anger and shown that is is ok to feel ALL feelings, but they need our guidance and example to learn what to do with them, and what is appropriate in our society, it is not appropriate to hit another person because they are doing something that makes you angry, on the other hand as an adult it is not acceptable to punch the wall next to that person either, that is concidered violence. I really think that it is important to teach them to feel their anger and control it at the same time.

mommy to joey 1/14/05, kai 11/01/06 and Alexis 8/25/07 friend and wofe to harmony
:::fambed 22:::