Teasing and hitting

DD has taken to verbally teasing DS, not backing off until he just boils over and responds physically. He is not yet able to say "no" loud and clear and move away and make her respect that. Hitting or biting are of course no solution to not being assertive enough verbally, but I remember I was the same - despite being the older sibling I was not good at tolerating or responding to my brother's teasing and if I could not leave the situation I lashed out physically too as a child.

DS is pretty shy about voicing his needs and emotions, also with the teachers at daycare (who are very friendly and encouraging) and other kids. I am glad that he does not have that problem with me although he is often so soft-spoken that I have to kneel down and ask him to repeat things for me, not for general chat, but needs, requests, personal stuff like needing to go potty. He is a pretty sensitive little guy and easy to upset. Due to this he also has a hard time at daycare in their current small group setting and I am worried about the compulsory move to the larger group with older kids once they turn 3.

In general, they are in such a sweet phase right now but this teasing and hitting is spoiling it a bit and means I have to monitor and interfer in their playtime more than I like. So, this is something I need to work on with both children before it becomes a habit, but I am at a bit of a loss what to do except for talking about it - hurting with words, someone being sad, moving away from the situation, hurting with hitting or biting, etc. TO for the biting or hitting as the only consequence does not seem fair because I know she teases him so and he is already crying after lashing out because he is overwrought and keen to apologize if she will let him. I rather think he needs me to calm down and work this through than being removed from me in a TO. I am also not keen to do TO for the teasing, because we do not want to use TO much and TO does not work well with DD anyway.

Any advice?

 

I would keep talking about it with them, especially to your DD about the teasing. With your DS response to her teasing, I would not call it a time out and maybe call it cool down time (for both of them).
I have two sensitive and shy kids and one does go to therapy for social anxiety so she can work on her skills. One of the things that the therapist is teaching her is how to handle her feelings by taking deep breaths using bubbles...maybe that might want to be something you can try with DS to help him calm down.

 

Have you read 1-2-3 magic? Teasing would be a good behavior to count. You don't want to send a kid to time out the first time they do something that's just obnoxious (vs hitting, which would be an immediate time out in our house), but with 1-2-3 magic you count the behavior so they get a couple of chances to cut it out before they go to time out. I use it for obnoxious 6-year-old behavior and it really helps me stay calm.

I went through a period where I was overlooking some of the times my boy twin hit his older brother because frankly I felt he (the dear obnoxious 6-year old mentioned above) deserved it, but I found my boy twin's hitting was getting worse and worse. I did a solid month of consistent time out for hitting and I just realized I haven't seen the behavior in at least a week. I really thought it would never end but it did!

 

Thank you for your input.

Nancy, calling a cool-off period for both kids is what I am going to try first. I will also try and find a self-soothing method for him because he will have to deal with more teasing, not just from his sister.

Laura, thank you for your experience - that is exactly what I am afraid of: that ignoring it because she "was asking for it" makes the situation even worse in the long term.