Okay, my son will be two next month and he's always been a very, shall we say, energetic little person. But, he's also usually pretty good. However, lately he's in a phase where he's been hitting my husband and me (especially me) constantly! We give him timeouts but it's to the point now where he asks for one after he's hit us. I don't know if it's a 'please give me a timeout, I know I've been bad' or 'what are you going to do now, give me a timeout?' type of question or what.
I know it won't last forever but any advice would be very helpful!
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7 comments:
I think you make an interesting point about the "I've been bad so punish me" thing. My little one misbehaves when she's tired or overwhelmed, like she WANTS me to give her a time out so she can have ME time. Maybe he needs more calming time? I'd look at the motivation for his biting. Attention seeking? Sensory seeking? Do you play bite him so he thinks it's okay? stuff like that? Good luck!
I haven't got to this point myself, but my SIL went through something similar.
She had to adapt "time outs" so that they were more miserable. She would make her son stand facing a corner the whole time. Another time she gave his favorite toy a time out so that he had nothing to play with. And I think she might have even made him walk up and down their stairs for a few minutes...the kid's full of energy, it helped wind him down so she could talk to him calmly.
But I agree. Maybe he's seeking more time with you???
You know, I thought it might be the attention thing, too. However, he continues to hit us through the whole timeout! What do I do, keep him in timeout indefinitely?!
Why is motherhood one of the most rewarding and one of the most frustrating things in this world?
I am a big fan of the time out in a portable play pen. That way my son is trapped with nothing to play with. I was curious how your son is still hitting you while he is in time out? One of the most important things to do when you give timeouts is walk away. I find that if my child even sees me he won't calm down. Put him somewhere he'll be safe and walk away, don't allow him to stay angry by hitting you. Also walking away shows him that he will not get attention by being bad.
I can see being hit in time out because my little one doesn't understand STAYING in time out! So, now when she hits, she gets sent to the crib for time out so she can't escape. it's worked a lot better. One thing our pedi mentioned at our last appt was to make sure time out is for select things so it doesn't lose its power, which it sounds like it might have!
A friend of mine would put toys in time out if they were throwing toys or hitting with toys or even just misbehaving, losing the toy to time out was the punishment and that worked really well for her. "If you hit, spiderman goes to time out and you can't play with him anymore" That sort of thing.
Yeah, I think the toy thing might be more effective because it's something tangible and not just a couple minutes in a chair. Thanks for the advice!
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