Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

My 18mo is grabbing and pinching LOTS. Any ideas for tactics to stop him?

7 replies

Icoulddoitbetter · 17/04/2011 12:13

This behaviour has got much worse recently. He's a happy little boy, and none of this seems to be done out of frustration or annoyance. He's had a habit for a long time now of grabbing other children, which I've always delt with by saying "no" firmly, explaining why it's bad, and making lots of fuss of the child he grabbed. But then a lot of my friends children have gone through this stage too so I wasn't too concerned.

In the last month or so he started to grab mine and DH's face really hard pretty regularly. He's always smiling when he does it, and it often follows a "kiss" that he's also started to do recently. He grabs my boobs too (I'm still BF and he'll do it when he' s finished), and this morning he grabbed and pinched my forearms really hard. Again, smiling all the time.

At nursery they've been addressing the grabbing other children in the same way we have at homje, which is good.

At the moment, we're saying "no, that hurts" very firmlyand taking his hand away (although I occasionally yelp as it can be really painful). We then take his hand, open it out, and get him to stroke gently where he's just grabbed. I tell him to "be gentle like you are with a pussy cat", as we're taught him to be gentlw with dogs and cats. So far, it's not working at all Sad

Any ideas gratefully recieved......

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Icoulddoitbetter · 17/04/2011 13:31

bump.......

OP posts:
spanky2 · 17/04/2011 13:41

That sounds like a good idea because he is still really young. My ds were older when they pinched and i gently pinched back so they knew it didn't feel nice. Ds2 squirted us with the hose last week, when I squirted it back he shouted " Stop, It's cold!" I replied "Did you think it was warm when you squirted us?" Tbh I asked for it he's abit naughty I should have never trusted him! Keep on with what you are doing. Actually you could say no firmly and if he does it again move him away from reach saying I like cuddles when you are gentle.

AngelDog · 17/04/2011 18:57

What you're doing is what I've done with my 15 m.o. so far. I think you just need to keep on and on and on doing it.

monkoray · 17/04/2011 19:03

My 18 month old ds is the same and I'm afraid we just do what you are already doing so no great insights, I think it just takes time for then to learn

Icoulddoitbetter · 17/04/2011 19:11

It's good to hear that I'm doing the same as you all with the same problem, guess we've just got to carry on as you say and wait and see.

Good luck to us all!

OP posts:
AngelDog · 17/04/2011 19:54

I heard a good way to manage your expectations. Think about how long it took for your DC to (e.g.) start walking or talking - all the different skills being practised over and over and over again until they finally get the idea. Learning social behaviour is similar - it takes lots and lots and lots and lots of repetition before they learn how they should behave.

I have small bruises over my breast/upper arm from a pinching frenzy - unfortunately DS could see the interesting marks and started prodding them to see what they were. Hmm

cottonreels · 18/04/2011 20:43

My 18mth old does the same. We also say 'gentle hands' and say it a lot around the cat (she sometimes pulls the cats tail). Mine also likes to hit me in the face and when i say no, she just does it again but faster! Im sure its partly game playing (for them) and partly language development...just another phase i fear...

New posts on this thread. Refresh page