Done With Your Toddler Hitting Everyone Around? These Tips Will Help

Why Toddlers Hit?

After several embarrassing moments like my boy pulling another boy’s hair at the playground. Or kicking the same boy’s dad while I was trying to apologize. I knew we needed to make fundamental changes to the way we discipline him to stop all the hitting.

After reading a dozen books on toddler aggression, I realized this is a very common behavior for this age. Many parents deal with the same issues. But interestingly, triggers can be completely different from toddler to toddler.

And while triggers might be different, it all comes to one main conclusion.

Toddlers hit, throw things, kick, bite:

Knowing the Triggers

• Poor diet – this is a very common trigger for kids’ aggression. Avoid processed food, sugar, artificial colors in your child’s diet up until 2 or even 3-years-old (the older the better). This will make a huge difference in raising a calm and happy toddler.

Even a small cookie can make my boy overexcited and aggressive especially in the evening. The easiest way for us to keep him away from all the unhealthy food is not eating it ourselves. All our guilty pleasure sweets that my husband and I crave every now and then are hidden from our son. And we eat those only when he is not home or is asleep.

• Lack of routine – following a set schedule with your kids makes things safe and predictable for them. Routines are especially helpful in the mornings and evenings. Knowing exactly what to do my boy gets ready for preschool without nagging every morning. And we’re usually out of the door without any drama.

• Not enough sleep or being tired – if your child has an off day because of shorter than usual nap it’s the best to postpone the nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. He’ll most likely get overexcited and tired, will be acting out and no one will be able to enjoy their time. As his parent you can predict what’s coming and act accordingly.

• Speech delay – toddlers get very frustrated when they aren’t capable to communicate their needs. If you realize this is the main reason for your toddler’s violent behavior see how you can encourage your little one to speak. Or even seek professional help if needed.

Setting the Ground

What Doesn’t Work

Things to Try that Do Work

Every child is different. What worked for us might not be the best approach for your toddler. Try using the methods below one by one or better yet a combination of all and you’ll see improvements. The key is to be consistent.

This is the method that we used and worked with our son. I have to admit that it took a lot of patience and perseverance from our side. But things got much better after several harsh but firm instances of using consequences.

First of all, we had a serious conversation with him that hitting or hurting anyone in any way is something he’ll have to face consequences for. And that’s because he’s a big boy and understands that as his parents we cannot allow him to hurt anyone, including us. So if we play at home and mommy does something during the play and he doesn’t like it, if instead of using his words, he hits – the play will stop. No tears, screaming or apologizing will help.

The same goes for playgrounds, birthday parties, visiting friends and relatives. There’s one rule: If he hits, we have to leave.

What’s important is that he knows it’s not a punishment. I always come up to him, give him a hug:

“I know you’re upset for some reason and want the things your way. But you know hitting hurts and to keep everyone safe, we need to leave now.”

It was really hard to do this the first couple of times. The frustration and crying were at their peak when we had to leave the playground or stop playing his favorite game because he’d just hit me.

But he learned the lesson. After a few times, he started to hold back his aggression and even praise himself:

“See, mom, I wanted to hit but I didn’t.”

“I’m so proud of you, sweetie. I know it was hard! You really wanted to win. But you can’t win all the time. So you need to learn how to lose too.”

• Punching Something Else

Sometimes the struggle will be way out of your child’s ability to manage it. I realized that at times even if my boy really wants to cope with his emotions he’s just too little to do that efficiently and needs to get physical.

So as an alternative, when he’s too upset and just needs to punch something – he knows he can punch the couch, or a pillow, or just run to a different room and get aggressive there by stomping his feet or screaming as loud as he can.

He knows he can’t hit anyone who has feelings as it can hurt – people or animals are out of the question. Everything else – as long as he doesn’t hurt himself – is fine. This helped him blow off the steam on so many occasions.

• Introducing a Special Toy

In my quest for different solutions on how to stop toddler hitting, I somewhere came across the idea of a “special toy”. Knowing your child’s interests will make it easy to choose that one, VERY SPECIAL toy that he’ll get only if he stops hitting, biting or whatever aggressive behavior your child is showing. This works particularly well at home when the aggression is directed toward the parents or siblings and happens quite often. So this is how it works.

Choose a nice toy (something your child has been asking for for a long time) and one day explain to him that as a good behavior and not hitting anyone for the whole day he’ll get that special toy to play for an hour. Make a big deal out of it before the day of gifting itself, so that his anticipation grows.

• Reading Kids Books

Children learn so much from picture books. Any topic is always better communicated to a child through a book and a role-play in an imaginary world. Reading books on how to tame your anger and cope with different emotions made wonders with my boy. These are our favorites.

One Last Thing

How About You?