My 2 Year Old Hits And Scratches..Any Advice?

[Unregistered]

I'm writing here in the hopes that maybe someone has some suggestions that we are not aware of.

My son turned 2 in November. He has been in the same daycare with the same 5 kids for a year. They are all between the ages of 2-4. He loves daycare--and our provider reports that for the most part, he is a good kid, sleeps well, plays well, participates in circle time, etc.

However--when he gets frustrated, or just out of nowhere, he hits and scratches other kids--as well as mom and dad. We put him in time out, and ask for an apology and he does it, but we are always being sent home with a note from daycare that he is hitting and scratching. She does timeouts there, too.

I asked our provider if she thought he hit/scratched more than the average 2 year old, and she thought he did. She said he was more aggressive in this manner than other 2 year olds, but 2 year olds were impulsive, and this was how he dealt with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can nip this in the bud sooner than later? He is an only child, so he's not getting this from home, and I've seen him be the first to do it at daycare, so he's not always reacting to someone else.

[Cat Herder]

He is an only child, so he's not getting this from home, .

In my opinion, until you get past this statement nobody is going to add much input.

It is a red flag for most providers. It signals to them that you WANT to somehow place the blame with the provider. The conversation ended before it began.

It is obvious by your post that the provider is coming to YOU with these concerns. She has already looked for triggers and escalation behaviors. She is telling you that she is NOT having these issues from any of the other kids.
It seems you are not quite hearing her, yet.

The next step will be to look at the triggers that are causing your child to hit you at home.

It is hard as a Mom to admit sometimes it IS our child misbehaving.

I have an old video of my son mocking a bus driver to prove it.... I would have testified in court it did not happen, it was NOT in his nature, he KNEW better....then I saw the tape. KIDS are human, after all. ::

By next year you will be engulfed in another issue, so don't stop the world on this, just work with it as you can. It will get better with consistency. Two year olds are smart cookies.

[Unregistered]

ok...WOW

First of all...as far as the "he is not getting this from home"--our daycare provider is the one who SAID THIS TO ME. She mentioned that, implying that he was not reacting to another sibling getting in his way.

Absolutely in no way was I placing blame on our provider..but this kind of reinforces the us vs. them mentality I see on here..I was simply asking for advice on how to deal with it from people who have been there and done that. I have never had a problem admitting my son misbehaves..he is 2!

Good lord. I didn't realize that asking for help was going to lead to an attack on me asking for some advice, or someone pointing the finger at me assuming I don't think my son ever misbehaves.

[Cat Herder]

Wow....

Sorry I replied.

[Blackcat31]

First of all...as far as the "he is not getting this from home"--our daycare provider is the one who SAID THIS TO ME. She mentioned that, implying that he was not reacting to another sibling getting in his way.

Absolutely in no way was I placing blame on our provider..but this kind of reinforces the us vs. them mentality I see on here..I was simply asking for advice on how to deal with it from people who have been there and done that. I have never had a problem admitting my son misbehaves..he is 2!

Good lord. I didn't realize that asking for help was going to lead to an attack on me asking for some advice, or someone pointing the finger at me assuming I don't think my son ever misbehaves.

No where in your original post does it say your child care provider said he isn't getting it at home. Your statement reads as though that is YOUR thoughts/feelings. A little elaboration goes a long way.....

....besides, how would your provider know if he is or isn't picking up this behavior at home or not? I get that she was implying he had no siblings to fight with so he wouldn't learn it in that context but there are other times/situations in which a child learns to hit or be aggressive.

Catherder was only trying to help.

[familyschoolcare]

OP

Your orginal post makes it sound like some/most of the time your child hits out of fustration. Given that he is two that might mean that he does not

know any other way to act when he is fustrated. He needs to learn apporiate ways to behave when futrated. I suggest you and daycare starting what I

call thinking time outs (yes he is old enogph for this). Put the child in timeout in a few mins maybe not even as long as you would ussualy leave child in

timeout, go to child as why are you in a time out. This is the part that can be hard to do, Do not accept the answer I do not know. If/When you

get that answer tell him you are in a time out because you .... and we do not .... Because ...., then say I will give you some more time to think about

this and walk away (the amount of time you leave the child is directly poputional to how old they are, a very young child like a two year old you

could stay with them for a few secound instead of walking away) then return repeat the question, repeat this process untill you get a age/develpmentaly

apportiate answer back. When develpomentaly appriate expect a reason for why "we" do not do that when develpmentaly apporiate except one or several

was that he could handel the situation in a manner that would not get him in a timeout, for very young children (ones that thinking of a different way to

handel is not developmentaly apporiate) give them 1 maybe 2 ways they could have haddel the sitution that would not have resulted in a timeout.

Your son is only this solving this problem (or starting to) could be as easy as teaching him to say "Hey you made me mad because you ...) or I am sad right now becasue ...

[RachelDaycare]

Good Morning,
When I first started reading the op I thought it was one of my daycare moms. I also have a two year old in care who scratches and hits. It is very frustrating to say the least. He has started to put himself in a chair after he scratches or hits. He knows he did wrong. When I ask him what happened he tells me.
What I have done if he is having a day where I see him use his hands unkindly. is to make his hands busy doing something else. Sometimes its playdough, he loves that, sometimes coloring, etc,...
Often times I will sit in my rocker recliner and say lets just sit and visit for awhile,it seems to bring the escalation down and gives him time to regroup.
I am a true believer in catching them being good, with gentle touches and using their words.
I know this is a frustrating time for you as a parent, but children don't wake up in the morning thinking how bad can I be today, that is where we parents and providers come in to give them better ways of dealing with things.
I find that sometimes my littles need their own space to play, so my four year old gets the table to herself part of the day to do arts and stuff, the two year olds get the living room to themseves to do two year old stuff without a big kid interfering
does that help, I hope so, cause parents and providers are a team that work together in the best interest of the child and it sounds like your provider is doing just that. Good for her
Rachel

[Unregistered]

My son did the same thing. Most of them do. At that age they can not communicate very well so this is just there way of trying to get your attention or tell you something. Once your child begins to communicate better the hitting should stop. When my son would hit I would calmly grab is hands and tell him we don't hit we use our words to try to get him to talk. Now my son is 3 and I can't get him to stop talking. Good luck!

[saved4always]

I'm writing here in the hopes that maybe someone has some suggestions that we are not aware of.

My son turned 2 in November. He has been in the same daycare with the same 5 kids for a year. They are all between the ages of 2-4. He loves daycare--and our provider reports that for the most part, he is a good kid, sleeps well, plays well, participates in circle time, etc.

However--when he gets frustrated, or just out of nowhere, he hits and scratches other kids--as well as mom and dad. We put him in time out, and ask for an apology and he does it, but we are always being sent home with a note from daycare that he is hitting and scratching. She does timeouts there, too.

I asked our provider if she thought he hit/scratched more than the average 2 year old, and she thought he did. She said he was more aggressive in this manner than other 2 year olds, but 2 year olds were impulsive, and this was how he dealt with it.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can nip this in the bud sooner than later? He is an only child, so he's not getting this from home, and I've seen him be the first to do it at daycare, so he's not always reacting to someone else.

I am watching a 1.5 year old who is the sweetest little guy. He can get a little rough though. A couple months ago, he went through a biting stage and he actually bit two of the other children who are here...both older than him (he is the youngest here). I put him in time out right away and made a show of taking care of the injured child. He hates time out. After that, I kept a close eye on him and would "catch" him before he would actually get his mouth on another child (usually seemed to happen during a "dispute" over a toy). I would remind him not to put his mouth on his friend and he would stop. Mom and Dad were also reading a book to him about biting to reinforce no biting at home (he's an only child so far, too ). So, it seems to have worked and he seems to be over biting. Now he has moved on to hitting (usually also over a dispute about a toy). So, we are doing the same things. Mom is going to look for a book about hitting to reinforce the rule at home and I put him in time out when he hits and console the injured child. Now I am watching for the warning sign that he is about to hit, and I try to catch him before he does it so I can "remind" him to be nice to his friend. HTH!

[meganlavonnesmommy]

I have a "hitter, pusher, biter, pincher", she is 2 1/2. I've had her for 6 months. I've tried everything, and she still does it. But its gotten a lot better. She was a lot worse when she first started.

It's all about communication. They get mad and they dont know how to use their words to explain their anger, so they bit, push, hit or pinch. It will get better as his speech develops.
In the meantime the provider just needs to watch him close for excalating frustration, and stop it before it happens. If it does happen, tell him you dont hit, and have him sit away from the play area for awhile. I try to teach my 2 year olds the phrase " I dont like that", so if they are upset about something, they can say " I dont like that", it can be used for almost any situation they are upset about, and teaches them to use words to communicate. The provider can also change situations that she knows are triggers. For me the little girl loves to play baby dolls, they were always fighting over the dolls and the baby bottles, so I bought extra so they dont have to fight over them. If they sit on the couch, I make sure she sits on the loveseat, and the other three children sit on the big couch. They are still near each other, but far enough away she cant reach them.
I also think it helps to have them in a small group. The girl I have came from two centers with large provider to children ratios, she was having a really hard time and asked to leave from both centers. She came to my home with a small ratio ( 7 kids total and 3 of them are gone at school most of the day), and she is doing so much better. The small group is so much better for her, she gets more attention from me, and has less kids to compete with.

Good luck, they will grow out of it eventually.

[ebonyannette]

Im not a provider Im a parent.

I havnet had problem with hitting until about 3 months ago (about a month after my sons school year started) he was fine for a whole month and then started hitting other children and pushing them,I even had a report of him biting one time.

With that being said, my son was a late talker, he can speak fine now BUT when it comes to his emotions he doesnt communicate them well at all. A boy hit him on the head with a toy and that was the one time he bit. He knows this is wrong and is not allowed however I believe he remembered he had just gotten in trouble for hitting so he knew he couldnt hit, so the only other thing he could think to do was bite, its like backing a 'possum into a corner.

I agree with the other posters, immediate action, letting the child know that you do not approve of this behavior, even at home. The "time outs dont work" thing probably just means you need another method. I make a loud noise when my daughter (1) is doing something dont like, I go "AAT!" and before she does whatever shes doing she pauses and looks around, then I tell her "no ma'am" and she will usually walk away. If she keeps messing with it I remove her from the situation and tell her "no ma'am".

With toddlers its repetition, so I may have to do this 3 or 4 times but she eventually looses interest or finds something else to do by then.

I would say continue trying time out along with a stern talking to letting him know "we do not hit".

As for my older son the praise/reward system has worked great, if he does hit, he looses his reward but has a chance to earn it back by good behavior. So if he wants to watch "Cars 2" when he gets home from school he cannot hit. It took him 2 days to get the idea and now that he has caught on it works really well. I also told his teacher so if he starts doing behavior she doesnt like she will tell him hes not going to get to watch the movie when he gets home unless he earns it back and it works.happyface

HTH!

[Unregistered]

This is totally normal, actually. I would just keep reinforcing that it's not ok to hit. Tell the provider the same thing. My daughter was a biter for awhile but we just kept on her and eventually she just grew out of it. It's NORMAL your kid isn't the ONLY one who does it and if anyone tells you that their kid NEVER did any of this stuff, they're full of it. Rest assured, this is pretty much just a phase.

(I'm a parent AND former provider)