Feedback about Hitting/Throwing

[MyCupRunnethOver]

Hi I am still super new to GBD. We have been having a very difficult time with my DS (almost 2 yrs) throwing his toys at DD (8 months) and hitting or pushing her down. This is what I tried today:
If he threw a toy he got one warning "if you throw it again you will lose the privilege to play with it. If he threw again, I reminded him again "if you throw it you lose it" and I took the toy and put it away. We ended up with about two handfuls of toys today taken away.

Then when he pushed his sis down... I told him that if he pushed her again he would lose the privilege to play with her. He did it again... so I put her on a large blanket with toys and told him that he was not allowed to come on the blanket because he could not treat DD with kindness. I told him when he was ready to try again and play kindly with her he could. He then proceeded to run all over the blanket laughing at me. I have to admit this made me angry and frustrated. :mad

I then set up a baby gate btw our living room and kitchen. I told him again that he was not allowed on the blanket. He ran all over it again. So I told him he needed help staying off the blanket so I put him in the kitchen. I told him he could play with the pots and pans in there until he was able to stay off the blanket. A minute or two later I asked if he would like to try again. He said yes so I let him back into the living room. He then stayed off the blanket. And later I asked if he was ready to be kind to DD and he said yes. So I removed the blanket rule and they played well for the most part the rest of the day.

So my question, is what I am doing GBD or is it punitive? I am struggling to understand what I am doing here sometimes. Any feedback would be helpful and suggestions about what to do to prevent hitting/throwing.

[Kiara.I]

It sounds like he's trying to engage with her. Please work on teaching him what TO do. What games can he play with her? How can he interact with her?

Also, where *CAN* he throw? You can redirect the throwing to an appropriate object/place. At our house they can throw balls--in the hallway. Not the living room, not the kitchen, but the hallway, they can. And not cars, not blocks, but balls. So I can pick them up and move them to the hallway and play a throwing game for a few minutes.

Also, toddlers need large motor activity like running and pushing and throwing and stuff. Is he getting a lot of space where he can do that? If not, you can do things like have him push the laundry basket around the house (maybe with your DD in it?) as a game. Make jumping games for him. Is he getting wrestling time with you? Maybe work in some wrestling for him.

[Chaos Coordinator]

here is what i would do.

1. take away the hard toys. an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. we went like a month with only stuffed animals, nerf balls, and bean bags. i let him keep the books out as well but they mostly stay in his room. my intention was not to punish him, but i had a newborn in arms and was unable to stop him from throwing and he was obviously unable to stop himself, so i just removed the option.

2. send him to play outside. we have a lovely yard. weather permitting, when my 2 yr old son seems to have more energy than he knows what to do with, i send him outside to chase the dog and jump on the trampoline. sometimes i give him a spray water bottle too.

3. put the smaller one on me and prepare some food. to keep him alive, mostly. my 2 yr old is rather wiley about 80% of the time. has been since conception ;)

4. engage the 2 yr old. start an art project. have him help with chores. read books. play a game. the ants go marching 1 by 1 hurrah! hurrah!



giving the 2 yr old ways to interact with the baby are good in theory but in practice well it may or may not go over well. 2 yr olds tend to use parallel play, which means that they "interact" or "play with" other children by simply playing along side them. my 2 yr old attempting to interact with his 4 month old brother just turns into him laying on him, sitting on him, crawling on him, etc....which is okay to an extent (i have the happiest baby ever. he cracks up at weird stuff that scares the life out of his mama!) but could very quickly go awry. interaction between the two of them requires me being on the situation like a hawk, intensely focused and ready to intervene at the blink of an eye. which is not super easy to do when i'm sleep deprived from the constant night wakings between the two of them :giggle

what will work best really just depends on YOUR children and your situation of course. hopefully some of these ideas are helpful :)

[MyCupRunnethOver]

Also, toddlers need large motor activity like running and pushing and throwing and stuff. Is he getting a lot of space where he can do that? If not, you can do things like have him push the laundry basket around the house (maybe with your DD in it?) as a game. Make jumping games for him. Is he getting wrestling time with you? Maybe work in some wrestling for him.

Thanks for your suggestions. I had DS pull DD down the hall in the laundry basket today...it was a great success! I realized yesterday we didn't leave the condo and he didn't get much physical activity in. So today so far I have encouraged that more and he hasn't pushed DD down once!:rockon

---------- Post added at 01:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 PM ----------

my 2 yr old attempting to interact with his 4 month old brother just turns into him laying on him, sitting on him, crawling on him, etc


Yes! DS enjoys wrestling DD and sitting on top of her:scratch. I agree preventing it means I must be right there. I think I will start either wearing her more in the wrap or bringing her into the kitchen if I must leave the room to do something. She can always play with pots and pans in there with me.

[bolt.]

If he threw a toy he got one warning "if you throw it again you will lose the privilege to play with it. If he threw again, I reminded him again "if you throw it you lose it" and I took the toy and put it away. We ended up with about two handfuls of toys today taken away.
At 'almost 2' I don't think he understood your warning... but I'm sure your consistent actions spoke louder than words. Well done. Next time try simpler language from the first -- be more concrete: "Any toy that gets thrown, I will put it in the box. See the box? It is for toys that get thrown." And confirm understanding, "What toys will I put in the box? What happens if you throw a toy?"

It may even be a good idea to do a demonstration with one of your 'toys' -- toss something of yours (like a spoon or something) across a room, then pantomime "Oh no, I threw the spoon. The spoon got thrown! It has to go in the box. Now I can't have that spoon any more." This is the teaching phase. It's not a way of correcting the child once he has made a mistake. It's a way of defining in childish ways exactly what the mistake you are talking about is and what it is going to lead to. It should be pleasant, fun and playful -- not stern in tone.

Then when he pushed his sis down... I told him that if he pushed her again he would lose the privilege to play with her.
With personal aggression, I don't give a 'next time' -- because I consider that more like moral training than just skill-building.

My strategy would be to immediately rush in and firmly grasp the child's hands (or whatever body part had been doing the aggressive thing). I'd get close, down at his level, make eye contact and use a firm no-nonsense (but not angry) voice to say things like, "You are not allowed to push Sissy. You must respect Sissy's body. Your hands may not push Sissy's body. It is your job to make your hands respect Sissy's body. It is your job to not let your hands push Sissy."

Then I will often have the child talk to their own hands, to confirm and re-enforce the idea that it is his job to control his hands. So the child would say to their hands, "Don't push Sissy." (and the hands can nod or respond 'OK' or something).

If it happened again shortly, I'd say things like, "You are having trouble making your hands respect Sissy's body. You are not allowed to push Sissy. Since you are having trouble controlling your hands, you need to sit on the couch with me, and your hands can hold this book. Then Sissy's body will be safe from your hands."

At other times, when things are happy and calm, it is important to teach a child this age (using very concrete terms) a reason why other people's bodies must be respected. The reason is that Sissy is a person. Don't assume that he already knows that. He is a very young child, and Sissy doesn't look a lot like the other people that he thinks of as 'people'.

So teach by asking fun questions, "Is Sissy a toy? No-o Sissy is a person!" Then go on to good solid rules about how he must treat all people. He must respect people's bodies by not pushing, hitting, snatching, ear-shouting, biting... etc. (Also, continually affirm 'It is your job to make your <body parts> respect people's bodies.' This is a very empowering thing to a young child.) Again -- this is teaching time. It should be cheerful, not confrontational in how it comes across to the child.

He did it again... so I put her on a large blanket with toys and told him that he was not allowed to come on the blanket because he could not treat DD with kindness.
I suggest that you always have a baby-only blanket available. It's just a place where she can have her own space. It doesn't have to be about how Bro is behaving (or even if it is, that doesn't have to be made clear to him) it's just nice to have alone-space for each child.

Using happy teaching at calm times, make it clear-and-concrete that he can never go on Sissy's alone-blanket. Then use it whenever Sissy seems over-stimulated, or whenever Bro seems a bit wound up and likely to make a mistake.

(Also, you might want to think about an alone-space for Bro, such as his room, or a playpen that he can get in and out of by himself.)

He then proceeded to run all over the blanket laughing at me. I have to admit this made me angry and frustrated.
He was trying to cheer you up. Kids are like that. It's not defiance or anything, he's just trying to make his world happier by being happy.

I then set up a baby gate btw our living room and kitchen. I told him again that he was not allowed on the blanket. He ran all over it again. So I told him he needed help staying off the blanket so I put him in the kitchen.
Because you hadn't calmly built up his stay-off-blanket skills when he was calm and happy, it wasn't likely that he was just going to "get it" in the moment. However, it was perfectly fair to help him by using a physical boundary when he couldn't abide by a non-physical boundary.

However, it possibly wasn't wise to leave him semi-supervised in a room like a kitchen, and you couldn't leave the baby unsupervised either... so maybe it wasn't the best solution.

And later I asked if he was ready to be kind to DD and he said yes. So I removed the blanket rule and they played well for the most part the rest of the day.
That's great!

Question: when you removed the blanket rule, did you also remove the blanket? (He's not going to cope well with the blanket meaning 'keep off' only sometimes. Perhaps you have more than one blanket, and only one of them needs to mean 'keep off'?)

It really sounds like you are doing great at solution-finding and using consequences non-punitively. Those are great skills!

The whole strategy will be most effective when you add-in the teaching times for the things you want him to begin to do (separate from the times when a behaviour needs correction in the moment) and the preventative stuff like getting his big energy out, finding activities that work for his urges, and giving him a lot of positive relational attention.

Also... standard advice to newbies... make sure he's well fed on good stuff every 2-3 hours. He's going to have a much easier time managing himself and making good choices if he's not dealing with the hungry-grumpies.

[MyCupRunnethOver]

If it happened again shortly, I'd say things like, "You are having trouble making your hands respect Sissy's body. You are not allowed to push Sissy. Since you are having trouble controlling your hands, you need to sit on the couch with me, and your hands can hold this book. Then Sissy's body will be safe from your hands."

I suggest that you always have a baby-only blanket available. It's just a place where she can have her own space. It doesn't have to be about how Bro is behaving (or even if it is, that doesn't have to be made clear to him) it's just nice to have alone-space for each child.

Using happy teaching at calm times, make it clear-and-concrete that he can never go on Sissy's alone-blanket. Then use it whenever Sissy seems over-stimulated, or whenever Bro seems a bit wound up and likely to make a mistake.
.

I really like your idea of having him talk to his hands and empower him that he is in charge of what his body does. And that he needs to tell his hands to respect others (sis). Def. giving this a try today and having some one on one time to teach in the calm moments. Also a great idea/reminder. Also seems like a great opportunity to teach that other people should respect his body as well.

I LOVE the idea of having a baby only blanket all the time and a quiet space for DS. This is a terrific idea.:rockon I am working on it now to create both spaces (having to get creative we live in a very small overcrowded condo). This totally makes sense that both would need some alone time though. I know I do!

I really appreciate your feedback, ideas and encouragement.
Thanks!