Do I speak to the doctor about this or is this normal? 3 year old hitting

[wingingit987]

I’m starting to become worried about my 3 year olds behavior. Especially how aggressive he’s becoming I seem to be getting the brunt of it.

During tantrums he will kick, bite, pinch and claw at me. These tantrums over the last week 4 have been happening multiple times a day mostly when we say no. Which I think is ordinary. However I'm concerned with how angry he is getting. He growls at you and will literally claw at you.

We are doing time out and lots and lots of praise for any little good thing but I’m really struggling with the hitting. We do sticker charts and that isn’t working.

I literally feel that I'm being beaten up my my 3 year old. Today I've been punched kicked smacked scratched and pinched multiple times.

I'm continuously on the verge of tears.

What happens just before these episodes? How is all his other development? How long do they last? What stops them?

Move him away from you if he hits. It’s ok to pin their arms down and restrain while you are moving them to somewhere safe.
Attentively have you tried distraction instead of saying no? Let’s go an do a puzzle or ooh look is that a bird/plane outside.
Is he tired or unwell?
3 is old enough so say sorry when the storm has passed. To say sorry to mummy, kiss the owe better and hug. Also it’s ok to say no very firmly and say that hurts me. (Which you are probably already doing)
That’s really tough though
You could speak to your health visitor initially.

www.google.ch/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/going-beyond-intelligence/201701/toddler-tantrums-hitting-kicking-scratching-and-biting%3famp

How is his language development? I think this sometimes happens when they can't express themselves and get frustrated. Voicing what you think he's upset about might help eg you're disappointed because you wanted a balloon, you love balloons, you can't have one and it's hard isn't it? Etc.

If my 2.5yo does this, sometimes I make an exaggerated sad face and say ouch, you hit me, it hurts. He usually stops, starts crying and cuddles me.

I think if you can remain calm when he does this, it helps. Otherwise the emotion can escalate a bit and the DC gets upset about you being upset because it feels unstable to them.

Talking to him about it when he's calm might help, along the lines of you were cross earlier, what made you cross, sometimes we feel tense and angry when we're cross but hitting doesn't make it better, what else could we do next time you feel like that etc.

To answer your question - my kids have done this from time to time but not multiple times a day. If you suspect SEN of some sort I'd get it checked out.

Give him a fun punchbag for his room and practice gloves, (and explain when he is calm) that he must express himself safely when he is cross, he can go and hit his bag but nothing else.
If he hits anything or anyone there will be sharp consequences, ie no tv/games/outings anything immediate you know you can stick to and immediately implement.
Put this on a big kitchen poster and explain in simple language repeatedly.Ie

When l feel cross, l go to my room and can hit my bag until l feel better.
If l hit mummy or anyone else l will not watch tv today ( or other consequence)
Read it with him several times, do pictures if he cannot understand.

Have an action he must learn instead of hitting out when out and about, could be 10 jumps, practice at home, again consequence if he hits, or scratches.

Both you and Dh/DP must be consistent in your language and action every time....
Get tough, do not get upset, expect him to be a nightmare, for a while, practice your calm reaction endlessly in your head until you can stay strong, when he throws a tantrum have a plan you follow, ie distract in low calm voice, tell him to do his action until he is calmer, do not cry or shout or indulge, be calm and indifferent, to his behaviour...lastly this too shall pass but quicker if you are consistant!

I don't think it's normal at all. That's not to say that he will have a label or is unable to grow out of this but his reactions are not a normal reaction if it's happening multiple times a day.

My 4yo has been spitting at us, but also at random parents in school playground. Going to rely on an older sibling to collect my 6yo from next week. It's one thing it happening in your own home, whole different scenario when in the community.

You have my sympathies, OP. It's had me in tears too.

When I say tantrums I mean he will
Cry for maybe 5 or 10 minutes when we say no to something. No you can't have a biscuit he might cry I want the biscuit for like 5 minutes we just ignore it distract it.

The hitting isn't random he literally only hits me and it's always when I've told him off he doesn't randomly come up and hit me. There was some issues with hitting and pushing at nursery but the nursery had said the room was like that at the moment and there putting things in place to stop this. Key worker said he's most likely copying this behavior from other children, we have never seen him punch before till last week.

We were referred to speech and language therapist a while ago he was dibbling a lot still does but they were wondering if it was to do with speech. She was happy with all of his speech when we saw her and now he's a little chatterbox.

Pushing and Hitting has been an issue on and off in the past like it started then stopped and then started again. This hitting me and the new behavior of crying starters around 2 weeks before Christmas.

He has 6 month old brother and while he can be rough and we need to remind him to be gentle he may squeeze him when he's over excited I've never seen any aggression towards him.

OP, I would suggest calling your Health Visitor team if you are concerned about this rather than the doctor.

I contacted the health visitor for the same issue with one of my twins, she told me that after the baby phase people tend to stop calling the health visitor but when they do, this hitting or kicking or biting issue is the most common reason they are contacted about 3 and 4 year olds.

She came out and spent some time with us and talked me through some techniques I could use to help calm without aggravating.

Re crying for things, the more you can set boundaries and establish expectations, the less point there is in him whinging eg you get one biscuit a day around 10am with your morning snack, there is no point tantrumming as that's what you get.

With a six month old sibling it could just be delayed jealousy, sometimes they don't see a baby as a threat but once the baby can sit and move a bit, they seem less like a different creature and more like competition. 121 time, lots of kisses and reassurance, treat him like a baby every now and again.

Can you give some examples?

Instead of a straight up no can you say things like, 'not right now because I have to wash the dishes, but we can after dinner' or something else that isn't a straight up no but explains why he can't have/do it right now and when he can? Sometimes phrasing things differently or explaining why something can't happen can really help.

Is he hitting and punching you because you're trying to get him into time out? If so then give time out a big miss, because it's making his behaviour worse not better. If that's not when it's happening then work out what's making him lash out - could it be that he doesn't cope with transitions (ie having to stop an activity he is engaged in to do something else) if so then give him plenty of warning between activities and lots of advanced warning of what's coming up - this was essential for my ds with ASD.

@WinnersDinner

Why would you take your child displaying behavioural issues to a doctor?

No wonder the NHS is squeezed with people like you in this country.

On a side note maybe evaluate how you parent him, time out is often more harmful than time in. He clearly needs something otherwise he wouldn't be acting out so aggressively

Wow @WinnersDinner, I presume you are the perfect parent. What a horrible post.

@WinnersDinner
If you have any issues with your child's development you can go through your GP for referral.

Didn't anyone teach you if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all: especially to a mum who's feeling abit like shit and is asking strangers on the internet what the best way forward would be to deal with these issues. As you can imagine I've posted here as I'm struggling. T

@WinnersDinner

Why would you take your child displaying behavioural issues to a doctor?

No wonder the NHS is squeezed with people like you in this country.

On a side note maybe evaluate how you parent him, time out is often more harmful than time in. He clearly needs something otherwise he wouldn't be acting out so aggressively

She pays for the NHS so that she can access it when she needs to. There is no unreasonable reason to seek support. I assume she is considering speaking to the doctor as she thinks that this behaviour might be connected to something like autism, in which case the doctor would be a perfectly sensible and reasonable place to start.

The NHS is squeezed because it's poorly managed, not because people occasionally seek help with an issue with their child.

Maybe it's a kind of small childs jealousy, as you have a young baby too,, who will be getting a different kind of attention, and the older child will feel a bit miffed about this, and react as he is doing, to get more attention,in all the wrong ways unfortunately.

Are you a single parent?
If not what is he like with his dad?

I would remove yourself from the situation. Put baby gates up in every room and if he starts becoming aggressive go into the next room and tell him firmly that it’s not ok to hurt. As soon as he’s calmed go back in.

My DD had a phase of this at that age but she took her aggression out of her teddies. She seemed to just grow out of it but she has some additional needs and would mask them during school time and then her emotions would explode at home.

@WinnersDinner just fuck off with your judgemental atritude, the OP is stating its behaviour that's started in the past couple of weeks, she's wanting to learn how to handle it and nip the behaviour in the bud right now. If you've never dealt with this type of behaviour before of course you seek help! It's propel like you that make mothers feel like they can't talk to people in real life!

@Tal45
Yes

Today we were at the park quite a big park for the first half of the morning he was fine loving it behaving being kind to other children great. Then he ran off so I sat him down to explain to him you can't run off as it's dangerous and I can't leave baby alone ect. When I was trying to talk to him he's trying was gouging at me. Eventually I calmed him down we talked and he went back to play but he was gone my then he went a pulled of a little girls hair obviously I don't believe there's any distracting in that so I removed him from the situation same thing basically trying to grab me kicking gouging. I put him in time out we had a snack talked about using kind hands then he went back to play he was ok for a little bit then did it again so we went home.

This hitting other children doesn't happen all the time. It's more that he's rough so we're teaching about being gentle.

Do not give him a punchbag as per PP. All it does is give sensory feedback which will encourage the behaviour. (I realise the advice is different for children with diagnosed conditions but this isn’t what the OP is talking about). Mine was similar at that age, and this isn’t what you want to hear, but a parenting course on behaviour really helped me and my partner deal with this more effectively and even prevent incidents in the first place.

[quote WinnersDinner]@AnyBenny

Not perfect, but my children don't aggressively hit anyone so at least I've got that going for me

Oh and I don't bother medical professionals with my poor parenting decisions [/quote]
🤣
Please leave my post. I was asking for support.

As I have wondered in the past was if he was showing signs of autism and I have previously spoke to the doctor. Also someone is family members have asked me if I think my son has learning difficulties or adhd while I think adhd is to young to diagnose I don't think it's unreasonable to talk to a doctor if I thought there was a developmental issue and behavior can be linked to development.

After reading through the nice supportive comments I will call the health visitor.