Twin hitting

We have 17-month-old girl/boy twins who stay home with a sitter or grandparents. They are both speaking and signing and understand everything we say and ask them to do. Our daughter went through the bitting stage early and quickly dropped it. Our son never did. Even when she would bite him, he would laugh at her. Now that she's no longer biting, she's hitting. At first it was just once in a while, but it has increased with frequency. Last night when I was playing with her, she continually hit me and laughing. I kept telling her no, grabbing her hand and arm but she would get right back up and hit and then laugh. She was not frustrated about anything as it was just the 2 of us playing. Our son was playing at the other end of the room, so it wasn't jealousy. It's become a game for her. How do you get a 17 month old to stop hitting?

 

Walk away from her. You can give her a chance/warning by saying "No. We don't hit." the first time she does it, then when she does it again repeat "No hitting." and add a short explanation; "Mommy can't play with you when you hit", get up and walk away. You can go back to playing with her after a minute, it's sort of like a reverse time-out, you need to give her the message that hitting=end of playtime. If she starts doing it to your son you can do the same basic thing by moving him away from her and focusing only on him for a minute. She will probably decide pretty quickly that hitting people is not so much fun.

The other thing you can do is work on gentle touching. This gives her a positive to focus on, rather than just the negative of 'no hitting'. So when she hits tell her something like "No. Hitting hurts. Touch gently." and then show her what you mean by touching her in a nice soft way. You can also take hold of her hand and move it nicely on your face/arm and say again "Gentle, be gentle." After a little while you should hopefully be able to head off any hitting you see about to happen by reminding her "Touch gently".

 

I like the no-play thing. We always explain to her why we say "no" and she gets it, but for some reason, she hasn't changed her behavior with this. I think that perhaps she did it to her brother and he laughed and now it's a game. (She's the comedian twin.) The gentle idea is good, too. We have a dog and they know "gentle" from playing with the dog. We'll try these suggestions and let you know how it works. Thanks.

 

Both those suggestions are what I would suggest too. We did the "Gentle" thing with all our kids. Liam was our hitter, and he learned pretty quickly what the proper way to touch was. I'd stroke his arm or his cheek and say "Gentle, be gentle" and then take his hand and do the same thing to my arm or cheek. It takes time, but it does work

 

i agree with pp. my 2-year-old was (& still can be) a big hitter, biter, scratcher, you name it. & a lot of times it wasn't out of anger, just doing it while i'm holding her or walking up to one of the twins & hurting them. i think there is a lot going with her about getting attention since she wasn't the baby for very long at all! i try to be really consistent (but it's hard when there's so much else going on). i put her down when she hits me and she hates that because she wants interaction with me. if she hurts others, i put her in this one particular spot in another room & tell her to come back when she's ready to be kind and gentle and can say sorry. she also sits there for screaming and tantrums. it does seem to work, but we have to stay on her. i just think she's going to need consistent discipline.
hang in there!

 

Thanks. She's hasn't hit since I posted the issue. I'm sure she will soon. I'll keep you posted.

 

I agree with the others who say to walk away or separate the kids. That is also about the age I started very short time outs for serious things like hitting, biting, etc. (I put the offender in their crib and leave the room for about 1 minute). Like you are saying, most of the hitting my boys do is "playing". But in my case, they BOTH do it, so sometimes they are smacking and hitting each other and laughing like crazy, but other times one will decide it's not funny and start crying. Therefore, I try and intervene on all forms of hitting to make the message clear and consistent that it's never okay to hit, even when playing.

 

My kids have both got into hitting for fun on occasion. I'm usually able to redirect them to a more appropriate way to have fun (People are for hugging! Let's give hugs! Let's go change your baby's diaper!). Saying NO HIT seems to make it worse since it's a game. On the other hand, they also have both hit me out of anger on occasion (you know, when I won't give them a lolly pop at 6am - mean mommy!), and at those times I put the hitter in their room for about 30 seconds.

 

I have just posted a similar topic about biting. I love the idea of 'gentle' touch leafing by example, will have to try it.