# What are your solutions/consequences for hitting and taking?



## MissSJ (Oct 23, 2005)

I know many of the parents here use different methods for disciplining their children within the gd spectrum. I am curious what you do in your home when a child hits (another child, an adult, a family pet) and when a child takes something from another. Please include the age(s) of your child(ren). Thanks! 

SJ


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## mommy2abigail (Aug 20, 2005)

I was just going to post this! I nanny for another 3 year old and it's an issue between her and my 3 year old dd most every day. So far, my solution is to comfort the victim, tell the offender "I will not let you hurt any one." And then encourage them to use their words to figure out a solution. When one takes a toy from the other, I remind them that when the first person puts the toy down to ask if they are done before snatching said toy. The only thing I can't figure out is when I don't see what happened, like who had the toy first ect.


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## RollerCoasterMama (Jul 22, 2008)

My son is pretty active and sometimes gets carried away. But luckilly he's also got a strong streak of empathy, so we usually go with emphasizing the owie, saying sorry, giving the person (or cat!) a kiss, and if it continues, then we move to a time out in addition to all of the above. (The time out doesn't always help the acting out, but it gives him time to relax a bit away from the overstimulation that usually brought it on.)

We've had hitting and biting issues, but really working with him on empathy has helped. Even more than that, a calmer environment has done WONDERS. At home, I watch for the triggers and change activities before they take over his control. And we had to change daycares to get the calm he needed. It's a night and day difference on weekdays with our new daycare!!!

He's really active and likes to throw things and jump and it can get to hitting and things, so we try to channel the energy into things that are fun and don't get anyone hurt---oh, and I don't have much breakable within 4 feet of the ground---it lets him bounce beach balls all over the house and burn off energy.


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## One_Girl (Feb 8, 2008)

My dd is five now and has never been much of a hitter, we have a zero tolerance policy on that and always have, if she does hit we go home immediately or end the playdate immediately. She did go through a rough stage with the cat around age four and after a lot of talk about being gentle to the cat and talking about how the cat felt and then letting her experience the cats displeasure I settled on giving one warning and then making her leave the room where the cat was. When she takes things I remind her to share and give the toy back. When she was younger I would tell her that it wasn't her turn yet and tell her that I was going to help her give the toy back when she refused. Now that she is older she does it on her own.


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## Arduinna (May 30, 2002)

Well my kid is 18 ( since you asked for ages) and it isn't an issue anymore







but at the ages of your kids 2 and 4 we sat near her and showed her how to pet the animals and if she looked like she was attempting to hit we would try and block it and show her again. If she was really in a hitting mood we would remove the animal and tell her she could pet it later when she was ready to be gentle. With people we just blocked the hits ( if possible) and reinforced gentle and then used redirection.


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## DevaMajka (Jul 4, 2005)

Ds just turned 4yo recently. I feel very strongly about hitting. Hitting is a really rare thing for him.
My ds hit his friend yesterday. I'll tell you how I dealt with it:
They were in the hallway. When I first heard the hit, I yelled "HEY!!! Nuh-uh!" in a loud attention getting voice. When I use this voice, everyone involved typically freezes for a moment until I get close enough to be involved.

His friend's mom was there, and she was comforting her ds. I picked up ds and said something along the lines of "First of all, we're going to deal with the hitting. Hitting is not ok. You can't hit people. People deserve to keep their bodies safe (I didn't really know how to word it better). Friend looks sad. What can we do to try to help?" (I've honestly expressed my feelings and thoughts about hitting before, so I skipped a lot of that this particular time).

Ds says he doesn't know. I ask him if he wants me to help give him ideas, and he says yes. I tell him that he could apologize to Friend. He does.

Then I tell ds "You were upset because you thought Friend was going to ride your bike, right?" ds says yeah. I say "There are ways to deal with that that don't involve hitting. What are some things you could do?" He says he doesn't know, so again I ask if he wants me to give him some ideas, and he says yes.
I tell him "You can tell Friend that you don't want him to ride your bike, right?" ds: yeah. Me: "And if it's still too much for you to deal with on your own, you can come to me and ask me to help, right? And I'll help you figure it out."

Friend is still upset, so I start talking to ds about ways that we can help his friend feel better. Ds suggests going to play, and friend agrees but it doesn't seem to really help calm things. Then I suggest maybe watching a video until everyone feels calm, and that worked.

(the situation leading up to this was Friend was insisting that he was going to ride ds's bike. Ds felt very strongly that he did not want friend to ride his bike. Friend had his own bike there. Ds recently learned to ride without training wheels, and his bike is a big deal to him.)


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