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Last night Yasin got frustrated with me and hit me and this morning he gave Imran a whack!
I'm a bit concerned that he might have picked it up from the children at his child-care.
I'm not sure if maybe it's just something that some toddlers do spontaneously as they get older or if it's learned behaviour.
I'd appreciate any insights.
I worked in childcare and found that quite often toddlers learn that they can hit and get a reaction. i think the best thing you can do is to, obviously, discourage it right from the start. Telling him 'we dont hit our friends/family/mummy/brother' etc and leave it at that. Hes not to young to use time out either, tell him 'if you hit, you can sit by yourself'. everything needs to be black and white so he knows that whatever action he takes there will be a consequence and the consequence is always the same.
Also dont forget to praise him when he doesnt hit or refrains from hitting. children learn a lot from praise and sadly, it's often forgotten!
I don't know the answer to that one but I would think given his age it is something he has picked up from other kids. Mackenzie started hitting and biting at 18 months after she had been 'attacked' 4 weeks in a row at playgroup by a child who pounced for no reason. She still hits my DH and i occassionally and over the last week has come back to biting if she dosn't get her own way. We have always been very consistant with the dicipline for this behaviour - explaining that hitting is not behaviour we like and the naughty corner works well for us. In saying all this the hitting other kids really only stopped about 6 months ago. It's a hard one and I think one you might just have to ride out. I know the biting really got to me and I was relieved when this stopped. As I mentioned the biting has just started on again (on us only thank goodness!) but it's only an attempt, not a 'real' bite so to speak. I've spoken to other mums about the biting and the ususal response is they grow out of it and how many 4 year olds do you see biting. I know it's frustrating for you but apart from having a response plan I don't know what else you can do.
Aidyn went through a hitting stage (as well as throwing) between 1.5yrs and 2.5yrs old. We just had to firmly repeat 'no hitting) (etc) over and over again. And simply explain that it is not nice to hit, as hitting hurts people. It sunk in eventually.
Although I have seen kids occasionally doing it at daycare, I don't think that is where he picked it up, I think it just came naturally to him out of frustration.
Now he has moved onto pinching us occasionally - purely for our reactions I think, so I am trying to nip that one in the bud too.
Good luck!
I forgot to mention, when Mackenzie stopped hitting other kids when we were driving home from visiting friends etc she would say 'I was a good girl I didn't hit XYZ' and we would then praise her - like taralee said praise is very important. I also praise a lot for good manners - how often do you hear parents asking for manners to be used but never praising for them using good manners?
My DD is a month younger than Yasin and she's had the odd episode of this recently as well.
She gave me a wallop this morning (i was ignoring her whining and she wanted to get my attention - it worked but not in the way she planned LOL). She also gave Toby a thump a few days back.
She does go to day care but it's family daycare so there's only three other kids - and they're all quite a bit younger than her. And only one day per week anyway. The nearest in age is 19 months so I don't think she's got it from there. But I guess it's possible.
Kaitlyn started doing the same thing about a month ago .I spoke to daycare and they said that all the kids there are doing the same thing so I think they also tend to pick it up from there. We just kept explaining to her that when she hit us she hurt us and we would act (really overact!) about how it had hurt when she hit us . And now that I think about it she has not done if for about a week ..but it took a couple of weeks of persistance.