3.5yr old hitting

[Motherofmonsters]

Hello,

I'm really stuck with DS and his hitting. He hits in anger, play and I'm sure just because. His sister 15months gets the brunt of it He is currently being assessed for sensory issues but it's slow going.

I've tried gentle hands, talking about emotions. He know his emotions etc and will say I'll be sad and crying or I'm angry. It seems to have had an opposite effect on him to be honest.

I've tried time outs, but he ends up purposely hurting himself. I try to ignore it or acknowledge it but he has to finish his time out.

I'll ask him why he hits, he did it earlier and he said it was because he missed the cat. He had just seen the cat and had stroked him.

If he hits me with something it gets taken away until the next day. This ends up in epic screaming but I don't give it back until I've said. If I say I'll take away tv time he will just turn the TV off

I don't know what else to do, it's constant.

I replied to your other thread - my child with ASD was very similar at that age. Not that I’m saying your child necessarily has ASD. Mine was touching/hitting others constantly, sometimes in anger but often for no explicable reason except he just wanted to or was almost using them as a fiddle toy. We left a lot of toddler groups in tears because he’d randomly walk up to another child and smack them or pull their hair. He deliberately walked into people too - that was almost trying to anchor himself in space. He’s completely outgrown it now. It took a lot of repetition of the rules, avoiding situations where he got overstimulated, a lot of alternative sensory input and also just him growing up. He was behaviourally and emotionally a year or two younger than his actual age - so he was like a one year old in terms of impulse control. He didn’t want to hurt but he just didn’t think before he did stuff. He couldn’t tell me why he’d done something because he genuinely had no idea a lot of the time.

He could identify and label feelings at that age - his and others. He could tell you what would make someone sad or angry. But he couldn’t emotionally handle “big feelings” like anger or shame, his or other people’s and couldn’t respond appropriately. Telling him not to hit because it made me sad or hurt his sibling caused absolute rage, mostly at himself because he didn’t want to hurt me and couldn’t handle his feelings around it. We took all feelings talk out of it - “the rule is we don’t hit”, we didn’t talk about why. We talk about feelings at completely unrelated times.

We got good input from an occupational therapist re the sensory stuff - not regular sessions but just some helpful ideas of things to try.

Thank you @theotherrudolph for your reply and on my other thread to. His behaviour has started to get to me more now.

Your son sounds so much like DS, I found it really reassuring to read that it's not just DS and me that have these struggles. Gives me hope that we will be able to get there with him to.

I will take the emotion out of it and see if that helps. I think he know what the gist of sad is to be able to label it but doesn't really get it fully.

I know this sounds like a cop out but the only way to stop hitting is to literally stop it ever happening.

I have 3 dc and the middle one has SN. He hits as an expression of his frustration/anger/anxiety/fear so any consequences are pointless because it is not thought-out, planned behaviour.

At 3 your son will have under developed impulse control. Therefore, you need to watch him like a hawk and always keep a reasonable distance between him and your dd.

I used to make ds sit on one sofa and my other kids on another. If I could see ds about to blow, I used to put him in another room but be very careful not to make him feel punished/bad. I would say something like "This is making you cross, let Mummy help you".

My ds is 11 now and almost never hits but it has been a long hard journey to get here.

@Motherofmonsters How is your DS doing these days? Any improvements with hitting? 🤞I do know well how you must feel. My DS(2.8) does the same& I am extremely stressed & upset about it as he also hits children at his nursery (it started a few months ago when they moved him to the 'next up' room). He also has s&l delay& mild hearing loss. Hard to tell if he is going through 'a phase' or there is something else also going on, he is still so young. He seams to ignore when we consistently repeat to him ' no hitting' I am really at my wits end.