Natural consequence for hitting (for 4 year old)?

[TwoTimesThree]

Anyone got any good suggestions? We are having a lot of success using natural consequences for poor behaviour (eg. if he throws something on the floor, has to pick it up before he's allowed to do anything else; if he messes around and wont' get out of bath, only time for 1 story etc). But I can't think of a good natural consequence for hitting so am thinking of making the consequence 'losing TV all day'. This feels like quite a nuclear option (he maybe watches 1 hour per tv a day) and also impacts on me as I rely on that quiet time to get stuff done!

Anyone got any idea?

Time out?

They get removed from the person they hit, or that person removes themselves. We don't do time out but when dd1 went through a hitting stage I would calmly say "we don't hit", remove myself to the kitchen, put the gate across, turn the radio on and make a cuppa. Slowly

The natural consequence would be to apologise sincerely. No playing, or doing anything else until he does.

Send him to the very boring naughty step for as many minutes as years he is old, and make sure you return him there every time he wants to escape, but continue dooing whatever you were doing as if nothing had happened while he is at the step. (Ie. Continue the game or eating the ice cream ;-))

I think you have to apply a logical consequence as well for this situation as opposed to just a natural. Hitting should be a time out (logical) followed by a genuine apology before they get to do anything else (natural).

I don't like time outs or forced apologies. For us, natural consequence for hitting is that DS is removed from the situation because hitting is unacceptable . So if we are in the park, and he hits someone , I do tell him to apologise . He sometimes does, sometimes doesn't. I don't go on about it. If he doesn't, I pick him up and take him away. He is upset that he can't join in, but he is told that hitting means he can't. Only had to do this twice ( DS is 4). Biggest help had been to tell things through with him, both before and after. I know he has a tendency to hit when frustrated, so I chat to him about how, if he does hit, people get hurt and we can't allow that. I also tell him that if he's feeling frustrated and angry then he can come and tell me about it straight away. Also - google the turtle method; it's quite helpful

There's some stuff about it included here: <a class="break-all" href="http://www.embracethefuture.org.au/resiliency/index.htm?www.embracethefuture.org.au/resiliency/emotional_skills.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.embracethefuture.org.au/resiliency/index.htm?www.embracethefuture.org.au/resiliency/emotional_skills.htm