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Don’t hit back
I don’t want my three-year-old to hit back but what should we tell him to do when another child pushes, hits or scratches him?
This situation requires two strands to the approach: what you ask your son to do and the responsibilities of the adult(s) in this situation.
When your son encounters aggression, he needs to feel empowered to say loudly phrases like, ‘Don’t hit me!’ or ‘That hurt! You’re not to scratch me!’ It is unreasonable if we expect our children to say nothing as well as inhibit any wish to retaliate physically.
It is the adults’ job, in a family home or a nursery, to tackle the situation that some children feel it’s fine to deal with the usual ups and downs of play by hitting out. If incidents happen in your own home, it is all right to tell a visiting child, ‘We have no hitting in this house’.
If incidents occur in a group setting, such as a nursery, you can encourage your child to tell the adult what has happened. However, if your son regularly has to deal with being hit or scratched, you need to talk seriously with the nursery staff. How do they handle these situations? What are they doing about helping the children who do the hitting to change their behaviour? Otherwise an unacceptable situation is being resolved by the better-behaved children tolerating being hurt.
Why not chat to other iVillagers about behaviour on the Parenting - Polls & Debates message board. Take a look at some of the LIVE discussions happening now on the board:
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