how do I deal with bad behaviour in a 21m old?

[EverybodysSleepyEyed]

DD is physically ahead of the curve but not much of a talker. She can make herself understood and seems to understand everything said to her.

She is generally laid back but she has started to hit her older brother. The first time he was up in her face and she lashed out (understandable). The second time he was giving me a cuddle and she obviously wanted him away so slapped him hard on the face - he had a red cheek for ages afterwards.

I picked him up and walked away and comforted him and ignored her (she followed us, crying). I then asked her to give DS a kiss and she shouted No and tried to cuddle me, she did this twice. My friend picked her up and distracted her a bit and then she gave DS a kiss.

Was that the right thing to do? I want her to understand that hitting is unacceptable but I'm not sure how to do it. I never had any of this with DS (well not until he hit 3!). Any advice?

Yes you're doing the right thing
Say 'no' firmly
Praise her when she's being good
Ignore the bad

Not sure what age we started with the naughty step but that works well too

Well she knows where the time out step is but she won't stay on it so I think she is too young

i'm not sure how much she understands. If I say she can have one thing only after she's got something else she looks at me blankly. Then I wonder if she is just very clever as she knows I'll give in! She already knows how to get her Dad to do her bidding!!

We don't do the naughty "step" as such with DS (age 2 years 1 month), as we live in a flat at the moment. What we tend to do is when he's done something naughty, tell him off and ask him to say sorry. If he says "no", then he gets picked up and placed either in the corner of the room away from us, with his back to us, or we put him on the floor of his room with his back to the door. We tell him he can come and join us again when he wants to say sorry. Basically then he'll either sulk for a few seconds then come back and say sorry, or we'll go and see him after a minute or so and see if he'll come and apologise. If he still says "no", then we repeat until we get him to apologise.

BTW - his "apology" is a hug, as he can't say sorry yet. We always tell him what he's done wrong once he's apologised as well, so that he knows. Sometimes the technique works really quickly, other times he'll reach full on tantrum/meltdown mode before apologising. We always try and follow it through though. We've been doing this technique with DS since he was about 18/19 months and are very happy with how well it works.

OP, I think you reacted in the right way (a firm no, giving your attention to DS, making DD apologise) but unfortunately some children do go through a hitting phase and it is very difficult to stop them!

My DS1 and DD never hit another child (not even each other) but DS2 went through a hitting / pushing phase for about 6 months (seemed like longer!), starting at around your DD's age. I tried various discipline methods, but I think at this age they are just too young for these methods to be effective. Even Supernanny doesn't use the naughty step until 2 years old. Obviously you should carry on trying to stop her, and eventually it will work, but IME there is no quick easy solution to this.

Thanks for the reassurance

I will keep doing as I did and see how it goes.

She's a good girl really!