Disciplining 2 year old

[Roxyrocks]

Hi all,

I'm currently completely at my wits end with my 2 1/2 year old.

She's lashing out frequently- hitting, pinching and pulling (main targets are her 6mo brother and me)

When we tell her off and explain She's hurting people she just laughs and says we're making her sad if we shout at her

Just before she lashes out she sometimes verbalises the thought ie "I hurt mummy, I hurt brother"

Really struggling to know how to put an end to the behaviour as so far she has found all efforts hilarious. I've tried shouting, calmly explaining and time out

Thanks

Not going to take any notice of this. My son doesn't get knocked around at all.

Laugh all ya want. 😊 you don't know me or my son.

I got smacked no ramifications here. And my son is loved, cherished and cared for. You have no clue

You think it's okay to smack a toddler who isn't even two yet. That's the ramification, perpetuating the cycle.

Wow genuinely find it horrible that people smack a 2 year old.. I don't understand how it teaches them not to hit by hitting them?

Quite @JustanotherMNSlapperTwat

It doesn't. It teaches them that hitting is ok if someone does something you don't like.

I salute the advice given by @Mischance

This is awful. She's two and a half so one third of her life has been taken over by your pregnancy and second baby. She's going to have huge feelings about that right at the age when she also has very limited emotion recognition and cannot label let alone respond to her feelings.

It's your job to look for patterns and triggers, work to help her verbalise how she's feeling and offer safe appropriate ways to express herself. Remove all potential weapons and put physical boundaries around the baby when needed. Give loads of positive attention. Prevention and compassion is the goal. Not asking for new ways to punish her.

My eldest is 2 and went through a stage of hitting her little brother a few months ago. We moved her away from him every time. Explained that it wasn't nice to hurt people. Read her hands are not for hitting more times than I care to think about. She got there eventually. Now she tells the other kids at nursery that hands are for saying hello and giving high five's not for hitting.
I'm an 80s kid and I got smacked a few times when I pushed my luck too far. I honestly don't think it did me any harm (although there are many on this thread who would disagree) and I know there are still plenty of people who choose to use a smack as a means of discipline,it's just not how I want to parent my kids.

Can't believe people are advocating smacking a two year old. Behaviour in children is all a form of communication she isn't be bad. She doesn't need discipline she needs love, attention and clear boundaries. I was smacked as a child and I remember that the feeling it brought up in me was to smack or hit that person back as hard as I could even if I didn't as I was too scared.

Sorry should have said doesn't need punishment rather than discipline. I don't think 2 year old should be punished,

First comment aswell 🙄🙄 let's teach our child not to hit by.. Hitting her! Isn't it a genius idea!!!

Couldn't make it up 🤣

Have I stumbled into an alternate Mumsnet.

Seriously people are recommending to SMACK A 2 YEAR OLD???

fucking hell.

Your wife giving you a bit of lip,? give her a little smack in the face, works wonders. It's only a few times and isn't that hard and won't do her any harm.

But it will silence her, she won't be so keen to share her negative emotions with you and make her a bit scared of you, so it works!!

Amazing advice.

Exactly, worked for hundreds of years so why not?

smack

Pipe down woman... Nobody asked for your opinion.

... Works wonders...

Except you think it's ok to hit a very small child for daring to express a negative emotion in the only way they know how because the adults around them didn't recognise the signs that got the child to breaking point and the punished them physically.

You'd never do something similar to get a child to stop laughing. You'd find a positive way to help them calm down, probably by doing the trick of acknowledging the feeling and then redirecting. Eg "wow, you're having su much fun, wasn't playing with those balloons great fun? How about we read a book now and calm down a bit?"

But for some reason, you think this isn't the way to deal with the feelings of frustration? Hmmmmm I wonder, do you find it difficult sometimes to say how upset you are,m with someone.... or angry or frustrated etc or do you tend to keep quiet?

if so, I wonder why that might be... 🤔

Sad isn't it.

Smacking is such lazy parenting 🤦🏽‍♀️ have you tried a naughty step?

So thanks to a massive de-rail the poor OP hasn’t received many posts with supportive targeted suggestions and understandably hasn’t been back to the thread.

I hope you are ok @Roxyrocks , pick through for the posts actually addressing your issue.

@Roxyrocks when my son was around this age he got very into whacking me, pulling my hair etc, he just loved the reaction. It really hurt! He would also pretend to "hurt" his toys - he's 8 now and not a psycho I promise lol. Very gentle in fact. I think at that age they can get caught up in the excitement of hitting and provoking a reaction and exploring that they have the power to do so. What worked with my son in the end was actually holding his hands and stroking them on my arm or shoulder and saying things like "gentle pats and touches, gentle pats and strokes." I think this worked because it focussed on the desirable behaviour and made it interesting to him, rather than on what he shouldn't do, and also made it very clear to him what we meant.

Oh and another thing that worked, which I think I read on here, was to take the attention off him when he started hitting and for anyone in the room (mostly my DH) to focus on the person he hit, so for my DH to come up to me and make a fuss of me saying "poor mummy, that must have hurt, are you ok" etc. Removes the reward they want without overly shaming them or focussing on the bad behaviour.

I can understand why she’s not come back. You come onto a parenting site for help, the last thing you expect to hear is physically abuse your child, that will keep them in line, choose violence, works every time.