| Subject: 18-month-old starts hitting
Question:
Our happy and affectionate 18-month old son, who
doesn't talk but is using some sign language to communicate, has started
hitting his 9-year-old brother, it seems to get his attention. He spends
all his time with either his father or me since we choose to both work
at home and be with him. Sometimes he just walks up and whacks me with a
kitchen tool or toy. No one in our family hits each other. We want to
understand his frustrations and know his intelligence is keen. We want
to figure this out before it gets out of hand.
Name Withheld
Jan's reply:
"Thank you for your letter. I can empathize
with your predicament because I have worked at home since my son was
born. I know how difficult it can be to accomplish a time-consuming task
while a toddler needs your attention!
With the large age difference between your children, it is also likely
that your toddler is feeling frustrated at being unable to keep up with
his much older brother. With this type of unavoidable dilemma, it would
be important to validate his feelings ("You really wish you could
ride the big bike!") and to see that he has plenty of opportunity
to accomplish the things that he can do at this age.
One solution that worked well for me was to hire a
responsible teenager (she was homeschooling, so she was available during
the day) who came to our home to play games and do crafts with our son
while I wrote articles or did housework. (Don't ask her to do
housework, she would be there for your child only! Otherwise
he'll have more of the same frustrations he's having now, asking for
more attention from her.)
A similar solution that also helped was hiring
someone (again, not the same person as the child's helper) to do
occasional housework, freeing me to spend the time I would have given to
housework that day, to give my son the undivided attention he needed. On
the days when you are doing housework, be sure you aren't keeping to
unreasonable housecleaning standards. As the La Leche League leaders
often say, "You won't have a clean house and a happy child on the
same day."
The bottom line is that there just aren't
sufficient hours a day, and energy, to do all three jobs well:
parenting, business tasks, and housework. Something has to give, so it's
important to keep priorities clear. A child's needs must come first;
otherwise, it can escalate to a situation which requires enormous
amounts of time and effort! It's very commendable that you are already
seeking better solutions now.
Jan
Laura adds:
Toddlers are just discovering their own anger, and
the intensity of those feelings can be overwhelming. And they don't yet
have the words to communicate their feelings and needs, which makes it
even more scary for them. I think when they hit, they know they
shouldn't - and they are looking for reassurance that (1) we love them
unconditionally, but also that (2) we'll provide a safe space for them
to have their anger - that we won't allow them to hurt themselves or
others.
I guess what I'm trying to stress is that I think
a toddler can start hitting even if the parent isn't especially
overcommitted and overstressed. No parent can be perfectly available to
the toddler's needs, no matter what their other commitments are, or how
hard they try, particularly if they have more than one child.
But because the toddler's needs are instant and
omnipresent for them, the idea of waiting while Mommy tells someone else
to wait a minute is just too much. (For instance, a couple of times my
younger child has resorted to slapping me. Both times, I had just picked
her up and at that instant her sister came to me with an urgent need. I
couldn't just ignore her sister, so she became frustrated.)
I think between the ages of two and four the child
is learning how to wait for just a few moments, and this child is right
at the start of that process. His most likely source of frustration is
not getting his parents' (and older brother's) full attention; this
phase is very common among toddlers (especially younger children, who
have to compete for Mommy and Daddy's attention with older siblings).
As long as parents realize the child is almost
certainly frustrated about something and unable to do anything
but "act out" due to lack of verbal skills, and start
responding to the underlying need for more attention, I think things
will be fine. The most helpful responses are (1) lovingly restraining
him from hitting again while reinforcing his feelings of frustration,
(2) telling him hitting hurts and isn't OK, and (3) showing him how to
use gentle touch. As long as the parents work hard to respond to his
need, and gently and consistently work with him to show him safer and
more effective ways of dealing with his anger, he'll quickly get over
it. In our case, my daughter's slapping and knocking phase lasted all of
a few days, and now she's back to her very gentle-touch self.
Laura |
