Help! How do I stop 16mo DD smacking!

[Limy]

Hi my DD has started smacking other children and myself, I keep telling her no and if she smacks me whislt I am holding her I insantly put her down. My sister and I share childcare so I am watching my Nephew today (20mo) and she keeps making him cry because of her smacking, I have moved her away from him, told her to give him a cuddle to say sorry but she just won't stop. Is she too young for a naughty step? Really need some advice as I am getting frustrated that she won't stop smacking.

I find two things that helped me in this situ

teaching gentle hands i.e. here is how we touch people, demonstrate, nicely, see etc. We are gentle to you, stroke you, hug you etc. Plenty of praise when she does this.

With, lots of fuss and attention and sympathy for the 'victim'. Lots of poor you, are you OK? Hug it better, kiss it better etc while totally ignoring your DD who then discovers smacking him gets him lots of lovely attention and absolutely none for her.

Between the two that usually has results reasonably quickly.

HTH.

We had to get on top of this rapidly with my ds as it was the dog and I didn't want any retaliation happening. He is brilliant now and uses gentle hands on animals and people alike (now 21mo). Obviously we supervise him with dog but the risky behaviour is now virtually never seen.

The dog was bemused by all the fuss and sympathy

Thanks it sounds a good idea will definitely try it. Bet the dog loved the attention!

The dog did!! But he is toy obsessed so he thinks hugs = wants to play with toy, so the whole process was quite protracted and tiring - but fun!!

The success depends on being very consistent too - as with most training processes. :)

Good luck, hope it works.