Need help with discipline - hair pulling, etc

One of my girls, Kara, is bigger & stronger than her sister Avery. She's definitely the dominant one. Lately, when Avery gets to close to her toy/snack/or for no reason at all, Kara will grab Avery's hair with both hand and yank her to the floor. Or she'll grab her clothes and shove her down. Usually, I have to pry Kara's hands out of Avery's hair, and try to comfort screaming Avery while holding Kara's hands and sterning telling her we don't pull hair, etc. How do you all deal with things like this? At 17 months, I don't think she'd understand the concept of time out. I need some ideas of how to appropriately punish her or make her understand that behavior is not acceptable. She's well aware that she's not supposed to do it, but ofcourse she keeps doing it anyway. Poor little Avery needs some relief. I can't hover over her all day to protect her.

Thanks!
Angela

 

We've had this issue in the past and it will crop up every once in a great while even now. What I would do is take Annika's hands, sign STOP! and tell her that we don't pull hair, it hurts. Then I would scoop her sister up and give her cuddles, while repeating to Annika that we don't pull hair, she gave sissy an owie. We also did this in conjunction with time outs as they have gotten older. Eventually, Natalie just got sick of it and pulled back. I do let them fight it out sometimes. I have had a couple of instances where they each had a hand full of hair and were pulling so hard that their little heads were touching, all the while they were screaming, "Let go ME!" I also try to get them to say "sorry" and give hugs after.

 

There are so many ways to discipline / punish / teach kids about what is right and wrong. You probably need to experiment what works with your kids.
Different things work here; mostly I say (i.e. yell) "NO! Biting hurts. No biting. Biting hurts" and then put DS in a time out in the corner. I don't talk to him in the time out, just stare at the wall above him. It drives him nuts. Then when done, i walk away and cuddle the person he bit. Again, no attention given to him at all, because right now for my DS, any attention is good attention; i.e. he is doing things just to get attention. So I try to give him as littel as possible when he is bad.
best of luck! i hope some other moms help with their ideas here too.

 

We did our first time out right around 18 months and it only took a couple of times sitting there for them to get it. Two months later, all I have to do is say "one more time, and you get a time out" and rarely do they do it again.

The first offense is to be taken away from the one they hit and be told it's not nice to hit/pull hair, that hurts your sister, go give her a kiss. She will walk over, give her an air kiss and we'll carry on.

It is SO hard because I have a very aggressive one too. She loves to hit and pull hair too.