Your kid is starting to hit you or their siblings and you need a peaceful parenting solution to make it stop.
Kids need loving discipline, and there are some situations, like tantrums and hitting, in which it is difficult to be firm and kind. Having a plan for these difficult moments will help you be calm and discipline effectively.
Seriously, this solution is gold.
First of all, what would be a peaceful parenting solution? What should it teach and what should it not teach?
What a peaceful parenting solution should teach
Hitting hurts and is not OK.
It’s OK to make mistakes.
When I hurt someone I should try to make them feel better.
When I hurt someone I should apologize.
My family loves me no matter what.
There are other ways to express my feelings.
What a peaceful parenting solution should not teach
If I hit someone I’m going to be punished.
Hitting gives me all the attention that I want.
I should feel terrible about myself because I did something bad.
My family doesn’t like me anymore.
I deserve to be left alone to handle my emotions.
What to do when kids hit
I have a toddler and a preschooler. They both have hit each other a few times, but I believe this is normal and we are doing a good job at keeping it to a minimum.
Why are my kids hitting each other?
As a first step, we have identified the most common precedents. It’s one of these two: they are too excited and are playing rough or one of them is invading the other’s space and the other one reacts hitting.
We try to minimize these situations by not letting our kids be overstimulated and teaching them about personal space.
The toddler only needs redirection, and we have explained to our preschooler that everyone needs space to feel comfortable, that we need more space with strangers than with family, sometimes we need privacy, sometimes we need a little bit more space because we are focused on something, and so on.
Here’s an article with some incredible ideas on teaching your kids to respect personal space that I think is great for children that are a little older.
When someone gets hurt
So how do we peacefully discipline a kid that hurt the other? We keep an ice pack in the freezer that they can reach.
All the attention goes to the one that has been hurt. We only pay attention to the hurt child until they are feeling better.
Then we ask the one that hit to go get the ice. A can go by himself, but if V hits A, then we go with him.
A is hurt and needs some ice to feel better, let’s go get it.
When they are better, we say
I think you should apologize, that will probably make him feel better.
We encourage them to apologize but don’t force them. Since V is too small to know how to apologize, we model for him how it is done.
Later, we discuss the situation, the feelings they had and come up with solutions for another time.
When noone gets hurt
Making all this big scene when no one is hurt would be very unnatural, and maybe even encourage them to whine for every little thing.
So in this case we say something like:
Hitting hurts and is not OK, I’m not going to let you hit your brother. I think you should apologize.
and then we go talk about it. We never let it go unnoticed.
What do you do in these situations? Do you have other tips to avoid hitting and helping your kids have a great sibling relationship?
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