# 5 year old hitting, namecalling



## mightymoo (Dec 6, 2003)

I'm looking for GD suggestions for my 5 year old who has taken to hitting and namecalling all the time. She often responds to any negative response from me (e.g. "no, you can't have that") by hitting me or calling me a name like "Poopy" or "Stinky".

Here is an example, the other day she came up to me and asked for something which I said No to (I forget what, maybe to watch TV). So she hit me. I remained perfectly calm during this exchange (though I'm not always able to), I said 'Please don't hit me' *hit* 'Why are you hitting me?' *hit* 'Are you trying to make me angry? *hit* and so on.

She also hits her brother when he doesn't behave the way she wants. I'm getting really frustrated since she has this attitude alot of the time, normal I'm sure, but I'd like some suggestions for dealing with it. Just the other day I went to BJs with her and my mom and she spent the entire time hitting me and calling me names because I didn't agree to buy her a $300 waterslide. (Not something she should have come to expect based on past experience)


----------



## Magella (Apr 5, 2004)

We've found that with aggression (verbal and physical), the most effective way to address the problem is by helping our children learn the emotional, communication, and problem-solving skills they need to handle their strong emotions and conflict with others without aggression.

For us, responding in the moment begins with active/reflective listening, and validation of the child's feelings.

Quote:

Here is an example, the other day she came up to me and asked for something which I said No to (I forget what, maybe to watch TV). So she hit me. I remained perfectly calm during this exchange (though I'm not always able to), I said 'Please don't hit me' *hit* 'Why are you hitting me?' *hit* 'Are you trying to make me angry? *hit* and so on.
So, here I see her hit, and you say "don't hit me" and asking her why she hit. We've learned that this bypasses the very important step of helping our chidren put their feelings into words (and important skill to learn), and also bypasses validating their feelings (also important: your feelings are real and valid, even if I don't like how you are expressing them). So we've had to learn to first listen and validate. If there is physical aggression, we'll say (firmly, but calmly) "stop" (and if needed physically prevent further aggression), then say "You're angry/frustrated/disappointed/etc.?...Because...? (or what's up?)" And we stay with this until we have an accurate understanding of what dd is feeling, and what her concern is. (Note: there is a difference between a concern and a solution, and often both children and adults put a solution on the table first. So, maybe she says she wants you to buy a water slide, and maybe that is her actual concern. But her actual concern/issue may be that she is tired, bored with shopping, feeling irritable, or any number of other things. Just like saying "I want pizza" is a solution. The concern may the child is hungry (a concern to which getting pizza is one solution), bored, saw/smelled pizza and it smells really good and the child is craving it, and so on.)

Only after we've listened, validated, and understood the child's concern do we put our concern on the table. Again, making sure it's a concern. You want cake. You saw it on the counter and it looks good, so you want some. Thing is, you haven't eaten since breakfast, and I'm concerned that if you eat cake now you'll be too full for lunch and then you'll get cranky because you haven't eaten any healthy food. When you get cranky you have a harder time getting along with everyone.

Then we can problem-solve, inviting the child to be part of the solution: I wonder if there's a way for you to have cake now, but also not get cranky because you haven't eaten healthy food since breakfast. (This was an actual situation one day in our house, and dd came up with the idea to eat half a sandwich now, then have cake. I had no concerns about that, so that is what she did. And she didn't get cranky.)

This whole process works best as a proactive approach. So we try to identify triggers for aggression and work with our child to solve these things ahead of time. So, if she freaks out in BJ's one day, and that's not typical, we get through it with this approach as best we can then try to identify what the triggers were so we can avoid a meltdown like this next time. We can go through the entire above process with our child (which really helps the child learn), or we can just troubleshoot by ourselves. Was it really the water slide? If so, we can make a plan for shopping the next time: talking about what we will and will not buy, what we can do if we see something we want but can't buy it right then, etc. If the trigger was being bored or tired, we can be proactive about that too: choosing better times of day to shop, finding ways of making shopping more fun, checking in on how tired dc is or what her mood is like before we go to make sure that it's a good time, etc. We can do the same for aggression in general: I've noticed that lately you've been hitting and calling people names a lot. What's up? And we can identify triggers, both with our child and on our own, and work to prevent aggression.

What I like about this approach is that, though it's a slow process (not an instant results kind of thing), it really helps our kids learn good skills that will in the long run really help them learn to resolve conflicts and handle their emotions well. The learning is in the process. And though when it's typed out for reading it seems like a long, wordy, unwieldy approach, once you've practiced it for awhile you find that it really isn't.

And sometimes, we only do the first step in the moment: "stop. You're angry. (listen, reflect) You're angry because____. I hear you." This alone goes a long way toward helping our kids learn ways of communicating other than hitting.

And yes, we do talk directly about hitting and name-calling, but we find that it's best to do this outside the moment. (Again, in the moment we'll say "stop," or even "I won't let you hit me," and intervene to stop/prevent it-making it clear that hitting is not something we approve of.) So later we can say "earlier, you were hitting me and calling me names. I've noticed this is happening a lot lately, what's up?" We listen, and talk about what was going on, then we can say "...I hear ya. Thing is, I don't like to be hit. No one does. Hitting hurts and isn't safe. Let's see if we can come up with ways for you to say what you're feeling and wanting besides hitting (or ways for you to have very strong feelings without hitting)." And we can talk about how other people are likely to feel when we hit them or call them names, how we value treating others with respect. We can talk about what dc could have done differently, brainstorming ideas then talking about them. We also talk about coping skills-things like taking deep breaths to relax/calm down, taking some space away from others to calm down, engaging in a calming activity, noticing how we feel physically and emotionally and choosing activities wisely (so for dd, if she's really tired and/or cranky, playing with siblings is probably not the best choice (it's hard for her to stay calm). A better choice may be to do something that helps her relax and recharge, like reading for awhile in a pleasant spot), asking for help, and so on.

Beyond that, we find that it helps to be very open about our own feelings and how we cope. It helps to use a wide variety of feelings words, and talk about what they mean-for example, how does tense feel? And how do I cope with tense? We also talk about the kids feelings a lot, making sure that we talk plenty about the positive feelings as well. Another key point is to talk about how the state of our bodies can impact our mood, and how we can manage that.

There are two very awesome books that have really helped us. One is _The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children_ by Ross Greene (2005 edition). This one is, imo, highly valuable both for parenting explosive (easily frustrate, chronically inflexible) kids as well as for parenting more typical kids. I find it to be extremely valuable in parenting all of my children, only one of whom is explosive. The other is _Raising A Thinking Child_ by Myrna Shure, which is all about helping preschoolers and young children learn the emotional, communication, perspective-taking, and problem-solving skills they need to handle frustration and resolve conflict. There are lots of activities to use outside the moment of conflict, as well as examples of helping kids put these skills into action during the heat of the moment.


----------



## mightymoo (Dec 6, 2003)

This is all great in principle. It is what I try to do already. It doesn't work. DD gets angry when you try to empathize, she gets angry when you try to brainstorm, she does not suggest alternatives. The more I engage her, the more names she calls me and eventually escalates to hitting.

Just attempting to have a calm discussion with her at eye level is impossible in these situations.


----------



## Magella (Apr 5, 2004)

I hear ya. My dd1 is one who also doesn't do too well talking about feelings in the heat of the moment. That's why we do so much proactive, outside the moment of conflict stuff. The heat of the moment-when dd is very upset and aggressive-has not been, for dd, a good time for communicating or teaching.

I will say that the active listening does keep her calm now, but it took a long time and a lot of experimenting with styles/tone/words in order to find a way to interact with her that she was receptive to. Literally, sometimes one word is what she needs. Like "angry" said with feeling, a tone that sends the message that we get it-_angry_. (I thought the one word idea was really weird, condescending, etc. but tried it, what was there to lose?, and dd was very, very receptive to it.) Sometimes, though, she's just not in a place where any interaction is going to make a difference--and can actually make things worse. So we try to catch her before she's gone over the edge, so to speak.

I will say that giving the aggression less attention and less energy, while increasing positive interactions with her at other times, has been helpful.

Also, there was a period of time when if she hit (so this didn't apply to verbal aggression) we'd have her sit down somewhere (in the same room as us) until she was calm. Sometimes we'd be able to help her calm down (by reminding her to take deep breaths, doing them with her). Mostly we'd just be there, calm and neutral, not interacting much but being present and letting her know we would talk when she was calm-help her work things out when she was calm. And yes, we would physically prevent her from leaving the room (to prevent her from pursuing siblings--usually just by standing in the way of the exit) and keep reminding her (neutrally, and in as few words as possible) that it was time to sit and start calming down. We told her about it before we started doing it, talking about how important it is to calm down before we can solve a problem/work things out/talk with people.

It's hard.


----------



## transformed (Jan 26, 2007)

Any suggestions when you are trying to engage your 5 yr old and talk to him but you have a 10 month old either crying or just making really loud noises, and/or a 3 yr old who also needs help communicating her feelings all at the same time?










Seriously. Every.day.

Exact same situation as the op. My ds also calls all the kids on the playground names. And he has been bullied recently by the neighborhood kids in our new apartment complex.

I think we are going to get kicked out of a playgroup at some point.


----------



## mightymoo (Dec 6, 2003)

One thing I will say is she has improved quite a bit in the last 6 months - she almost never hits me now, she does still hit her little brother, but she's gotten smarter at finding ways to antagonize him without hitting. But overall she's a much easier to parent child than she was.

It does seem though like in the last 6 months she's become much more able to cope with her feelings - while we still have our moments, she's a much more cooperative child overall and understands what is okay and what is not okay, etc. I can't say its really something I did as much as her growing up, but its always good to know it won't last forever. I have to remind myself as my son is now in the throws of it all.


----------



## Destinye (Aug 27, 2003)

Well at least I am not the only one going thru this! I ordered _The Explosive Child_ from the library, thanks!

I have used flower essences and homeopathy for DD when she has had various issues (and she is having one now for sure) and it really does help a lot normally. For hitting and anger I use Cherry Plum and Holly mostly and others as needed, the homeopathic remedy depends on her personality/constitution. Anyhow am going thru a similar issue with DD who is almost 5 and hope they will work for this particular issue, will let you know!


----------

