Advice needed: toddler behaviour & holiday

[Babytalkobsession]

Hi, hoping for some advice as we've stopped seeing the wood for the trees on this one..

DS (2 in November) has been hitting / scratching / pinching for months. He's been a lot better at nursery lately, but had a bad day today and a bad day yesterday at a play cafe - pinched the faces of 4 little ones, unprovoked mostly. It's so awful.

Things we do is:

• always get down to his level & say 'no' in a stern voice.

-explain that it hurts and makes x sad / mummy sad -also make him say sorry, he does this by stroking the 'victim' -often do this 'chat' out of the room, bottom of stairs hoping that he'll learn he gets taken away from the fun

He laughs when we tell him off, literally never looks bothered. It's often completely unprovoked, he could be playing nicely next to someone, then scratch / pinch / hit for no reason.

We're going on holiday on Friday, sharing a cottage with friends and their two toddlers. So worried - their boys are sensitive and, understandably, the parents aren't going to tolerate my DS behaviour...but I'm at a loss as to what to do.

Any tips? I feel he's too young for naughty step and reward charts, he just doesn't understand.

Thank you

Well he certainly gets lots of attention when he hurts other children. Have you tried making a big fuss of the victim and ignoring your DS? Then counter balancing that by giving him lots of praise and positive attention when he is kind and gentle.
He probably is a bit young to really get the "making X sad" and saying sorry stuff, so focus on removing him quickly and quietly from the fun. It is a tough phase but he will grow out if it eventually.

I don't think you're going to be able to make any dramatic improvements by Friday. For the holiday, I would go with highly supervising your DS so that you can intervene if he looks like he's going for another child.????More generally I agree with the previous poster. Less attention and fuss around your DS if he bites/pinches etc, and more fuss around the victim. Praise your DS for any gentle and kind behaviour that you can catch, and try and aim for much more praise than negative statements. ????Also, I know you say it can happen randomly, but have a think about whether tiredness, hunger or frustration are playing any part.

Thank you both, that's a good point about the attention. It's been going on so long I think we've kind of tried everything but probably stopped being consistent. My DH and I get incredibly embarrassed when it happens out side of home so tend to over do the 'telling off' / sorry bit so the other parents see us dealing with it...

Not expecting an improvement by Friday, more just pointers on how we should be handling it when it inevitably does happen whilst on holiday. Feel really clueless and doubting all approaches we've been trying.

Thanks

I would let the other parents know that your DS is going through this phase, and apologise in advance if anything were to happen. Hopefully they'll be sympathetic as it is a common phase that children can go through. There are a couple of books that I found helpful to read with my DS, called "hands are not for hitting" and "teeth are not for biting". They have advice for parents as well which is useful. I used those phrases when he bit/hit instead of saying "no", which I found helpful.

If I was the other parents I'd be pleased if you said - please remove him if you see something and we are not there / quick enough etc

One of my close friends children is rough with my DDS and she appears not to do much about it and I feel I can't remove him if she is sitting there watching at the time. So I end up removing my DDS, the younger one spent half a day in her highchair in her own home last time they came here and they haven't been invited since obvs

I used to try and watch for signs and see if I could pre-empt, then redirect to something like a cushion, sofa, ball, etc. So I'd go uh-uh-uh! Careful. Hit the sofa. And then model it. If it's unprovoked then it could be excitement and that he's not really getting that it's hurting the other child, which he won't yet, so redirection is the most helpful thing to discourage it. If you don't catch it in time then use VERY simple language, with emphasis. "OUCH! Awwww, poor Ben." Use the kinds of words you say to him when he falls over and hurts himself.

Try not to be embarrassed. It's a phase lots of children go through and it doesn't mean that you're bad parents! If anything you want to minimise attention for him when it happens so make it very matter of fact. At that age I apologised for my child rather than making them apologise because they don't understand what they are saying, and the parents seemed to appreciate an apology from a parent just the same.

It might be worth mentioning to the other couples that your DS is going through a bit of a pinching/hitting phase at the moment and not to leave the kids unsupervised together, that you're dealing with it but you want to make sure you're on top of anything, IYSWIM :)

My dd2 went through a hitting stage at 2 too. It's quite common I think.

I think you have to watch like a hawk, which means a lot of hovering over and not much relaxing time I'm afraid! If your little one has been scratching faces I'd expect you to follow him around and keep his hands away from other's faces after the first time.