The Answer to Hitting

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1:46Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I'm going to be offering an answer to hitting that applies also to other kinds of concerning behaviors that children have. It's not always so easy for us to grasp and really internalize, but it's much simpler than we may have imagined this answer. So I'm going to jump right in with this parent's note to me. She said, Hi, Janet, I'm not really sure where to start. I somewhat know what is going on, but I feel very overwhelmed and defeated by the problem I'm having with my almost two and a half year old daughter. She's the most wonderful, social, confident, smart, free spirited and adorable girl.

2:35Everyone in our community is obsessed with her and applauds me at how advanced she is socially, emotionally, and physically. I am pregnant with her soon-to-be little brother, and she has a half-brother who is with us every other weekend. Lately, she's been talking about pushing and hitting her friends, almost as if it's a joke. She knows that we don't like that she says things like this, and I can tell it's sort of kidding, but she does it all the time. The words she's using sound like they're getting more intense and violent. Like today, she said she was going to hit her friend until they had blood.

3:10In the past, when she actually has hit her friends, I immediately take her out of the situation and tell her we leave when we do things like that. What is interesting is she gets this tunnel vision when she's in that zone, and I can tell she doesn't even hear me when she's in the act. She doesn't do it much, but she talks about it a lot. She also says things like, go away, X, insert friends or a family member's name, all the time. I'm at a loss as to what to do or say in these moments. My husband and I keep saying, that's not nice. You don't hit your friends or anyone and things like this, but it obviously isn't landing with her.

3:54It makes me so upset because I don't want her to have thoughts like this, to think like this, or to think it's funny. Have you ever experienced something like this before? I'm picking at straws to try to find a reason perhaps, but today I feel defeated by it and I really need your help. Your advice in your books and episodes of your podcast have helped me tremendously and you are my North Star when it comes to parenting. Please help me. Okay, so like I said, I think I can help this parent with this very simple way of looking at this and responding. What children need when they are doing something like this, in this case, hitting and talking about hitting, they need us to understand where this is coming from.

4:39And it can be so much harder when our child seems to be like this daughter is, where she's so social and confident and smart and so advanced socially and emotionally and physically. But no matter how precocious a child might be in all these abilities that they have, they are just as vulnerable to dysregulation. They are just as sensitive, maybe even more sensitive than another child. But what's hard is that our expectation gets bigger, right, for these children, because they seem so together and so much more mature than their age would indicate. Therefore, we want to do things like just tell them, hey, that's not nice.

5:24Stop doing that and expect that they can do that. But children, especially a two-year-old, can't just stop an impulse like that because we've told them it's not okay. In fact, they almost always already know that it's not nice and it's not okay. And they're still finding themselves, in this case, mostly thinking about it and talking about it. I want to get into the beauty of that and the gift that that is also. But what to know about these behaviors is that our child is showing that there's something going on for them that's overwhelming them, that's overwhelming the system. And so they're actually saying, help me, help.

6:07I feel like doing this stuff. What's going on with me? Even though they're not saying it that way, that's what they're expressing to us. And that's what their behavior is expressing to us when it does actually happen. And with this situation, an intuitive child like this knows that her parent is pregnant with her soon-to-be little brother. And that, as you've all heard me say here, is a really, really hard situation for children. Some of them don't react as much during the pregnancy and it comes later. Some have a much harder time during the pregnancy when it's all kind of mysterious how this is going to go for them.

6:47What's going to happen when this baby comes and everyone's telling them it's going to be great. And they're a big sister and isn't that wonderful. But it's very mysterious, right? How is this going to feel when my parents are caring for this baby? What am I going to lose here? It's a frightening situation. And if a child has no reaction to that at all, and no reaction when the baby comes, that I would actually be more concerned about because there's no way that a transition like this, I mean, it throws us off as the parents. We already sort of know what to expect. But if it doesn't throw our child off at all, that's going to be odd.

7:31So this little girl is saying loud and clear, I'm off balance. I've got fear. I feel dysregulated. And I love the way this parent described it because this is so perfect. This is exactly what it feels like. And I mean, I think other adults can relate to this. I certainly can. The parents say, what's interesting is she gets this tunnel vision when she's in that zone. And I can tell she doesn't even hear me when she's in the act. So it's like when we're so in our impulse or we're so in our discomfort, let's say I'm worried about something or I'm thinking about something that's going on. And maybe I'm not even that upset about it, but I'm just thinking about it, thinking about it.

8:16One of my adult daughters was just talking to me about this today. We wake up in the night or we can't sleep and somebody could tell us, oh, everything's fine. Just go back to bed. just go back to sleep. But our body isn't letting us. It's like we're in this zone where it's a real struggle to calm ourselves down, settle our system so that we can do something like sleep, or in this case with this child, not think about hitting. And I think it's so interesting that she isn't acting on it that much, but she's talking about it, right? That's showing how hard she's working to try to communicate. I mean, she's not even two and a half.

8:59And she's trying so hard to communicate this feeling to her parent and not act on it. And I mean, that is amazing to me. You know, some children do this. They want you to know so they don't have to do it. So they can just communicate it by telling us, right? Which is what we all want, right? When our child is having a feeling, we would much rather them tell us about it than act it out. But they're not able, especially at this age, to tell us about it in a way that's, I'm actually feeling like this. This is how she's telling their parents about it in this perfect way, actually. I want to hit. I'm in it.

9:42I'm in this zone and I'm feeling uncomfortable. So get away. I'm going to hit. I want to tell my parents I've been a hit. Maybe they could stop me. She's not thinking that consciously, but she's trying really hard to get help. And that is the answer right there. Knowing that, seeing that. And then once we do, I mean, the hard part is seeing it and really grasping that this isn't my child just thinking that it's okay to do these things and I should just tell her to stop. It's her being in that zone that this parent talked about. Even when she's just talking about the hitting, it's like, I'm in that zone.

10:22What should I do? I don't want to hit, but I feel like hitting. Help me, see me, and let me know that it's okay to feel this way, even though I'm not going to act on it. But what do we do as parents, right? We do the opposite. We say it's not okay to feel that way. It's not okay to talk about this. I know that it can seem like our child is saying it lightly or that it's a joke. But when children have that little jokey thing in their voice, it's more that kind of uncomfortable. She's not actually enjoying thinking that's funny and a good thing to do. It's not. This is hilarious. She's telling us, you know, I'm not comfortable here.

11:05And I know I'm saying things that are kind of shocking. Just kidding, sort of. So really reaching across that divide of all these things that we think that we're supposed to tell children that this is terrible behavior and they should just stop and we got to put our foot down and all of that stuff that we're coming in with. Somehow we got to bridge that divide between us and our little child's heart or even our big child or adolescent child or our teenage child. We need to bridge that gap between us caught up in what we thought was right or what our parents did with us or whatever that is, to seeing, oh gosh, this poor little girl, this little two-year-old girl, she's telling us.

11:54She's trying to, at least. Sometimes it gets away from her when she gets caught up in that zone. But most of the time, she's telling us. And then how can we respond? There aren't special words to say or a special strategy to do. It's really to speak from our heart, but this heart of being willing to try to cross that divide between us and let her know, oh, whoa, you're saying you want to hit and you want to draw blood. Ouch. You must be feeling really uncomfortable. That doesn't feel good. And I would even say, then don't worry, we're not going to let you do that stuff. And we want to know more about, you know, you feeling this, not expecting her to give an answer, but putting your arms around her that way, figuratively, and maybe literally.

12:44If she really seems like she's kind of, you know, vibrating with this idea that she's telling you about of hitting or wants people to go away, then I wouldn't go up and try to hold her for sure. But just notice, whoa, whoa, yeah, you're feeling that. You don't want people near you right now. You're not feeling comfortable in yourself right there. What's that about? When I put those questions out to kids, I never expect I'm going to get some answer. I'm just putting it out to show that I'm open, I'm curious, and I'm not judging. I know you could also say, what's that about? Like, why are you doing this stuff?

13:25But that's why we have podcasts so you can hear me say, whoa, what's going on? Come here, Let me help you. You know that stuff's not okay to do. You must be feeling really rough to say that. What's worrying you, my dear? Bringing her to you. Not necessarily physically, but with your care for her. You're seeing her. And the comfort that you can have knowing this isn't some bad sign that she's going in a wrong direction. This is her having a very appropriate reaction to a huge transition in her life. probably the hugest one she's had yet. And you can bring her support and the comfort of not necessarily trying to calm her down even, but just that comfort of being seen and accepted for where we are.

14:15Letting her know, we're always going to stop you when you do those things. The parent says she knows we don't like that she says things like this. And I can tell it's sort of kidding, but she does it all the time. And the words she's using sound like they're getting more intense and violent. So what happens is you're not seeing me, you're not seeing me. I got to keep doing it all the time and let me up the ante here so that this child already knows that there's this thing about bringing blood. She's heard that from somewhere, maybe from her half-brother or someone else. But hey, what about this?

14:47Are you concerned yet? I'm not okay. I'm not feeling okay inside. Help. That can be a really good indication that we're not quite giving our child what they need there. And we can. All of us can. That's the good news. It's very much within our grasp. And this parent said in the past, when she said her friends, she immediately takes her out of the situation, tells her that we leave when we do things like that. Yeah, so that's helpful in a way, but I don't think we need to even tell her that we leave when she does things like that, because our action is going to speak that, that we need to remove her.

15:29and then in my mind I'd be thinking she's tired, she's hungry, she's something because usually these overwhelmed feelings whether they actually stem from the transition that's going on or something else a child exhibits them more when they're tired right that's when it's harder for any of us to pull it together you know the days we wake up and we've had a bad sleep everything is overwhelming our tempers are shorter with ourselves or with other people even it's much harder to be able to function at anywhere near our best. And for kids, of course, who are more sensitive and have less emotional self-control, this is a million times harder, right?

16:10And then my husband and I keep saying, that's not nice. You don't hit your friends or anyone and things like this, but it obviously isn't landing with her. Yeah. So that is a very sensible, reasonable response, right? And that's what we do as adults. That's what we all tend to do. And there's nothing to feel bad about, but it's something to look at because, again, it's this divide between us in the way that we're communicating because of the way that we're seeing this as she just needs to be reminded this is wrong, and then she'll get it. But what she's saying is, I know this is wrong. I'm worked up.

16:49See that and let me know that you're there for me. Have I ever experienced something like this before? Yes. Many, many times with my own children, with other people's children, children I've worked with, it's extremely common. What's not common here is how well this child is handling it and how much he's verbalizing the issue, which, you know, in this sense, is like disconcerting, right? For these parents. But if we really understand what's going on here, it's amazing. It's so positive. A lot of children do this, but it's amazing to do that at this age. I want to hit. I want to hurt. I'm going to do these things.

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20:10So I really hope this parent can realize that there's no need to feel defeated because there's no war going on. There's just your wonderful child that you adore that's telling you they need something more. They need help. And that all this communication and talk about hitting is like a really, really good thing and a gift. Because every time she does that, it's her trying to avoid actually needing to hit. The only other thing that I would work on here, besides seeing what's going on in the moment, is having some time with her where you're just sitting down with her and saying, hey, like this is a lot what's going on.

20:54And we're excited, but we don't know how this is going to be. And it's not always going to be easy. That's for sure for us or for you, because we're going to have less attention for you sometimes than you want. And you know, you'll be sharing your mom and your dad and your dog and your house and all of these things with this new person, this baby. And it's really, really okay to feel and normal. Like most kids feel sometimes like they don't like it. They don't like what's going on. They maybe don't even like the baby. They feel uncomfortable. They want to go hit or do some things they know they're not supposed to do.

21:38So not carrying on with this whole monologue with her, but bringing up these kinds of ideas, these acknowledgements of what may be some of the reasons that she's feeling so out of sorts. And you could even connect it with a child like this. She sounds very cogent. Like you could say, I wonder if this is why you want to hit sometimes because that happens with kids. That's really normal. And we always want you to tell us. So this is like going the opposite of how this parent's feeling right now. I know, and that's hard to do, but once you really digest this idea of what's going on, this will feel so good to say, hey, I want you to always tell me all your scariest thoughts and your feelings and when you want to hit, when you want to hurt.

22:29I want to know because then that's going to help me know that you're not feeling comfortable right there and that you need my help. I'm the one you could tell everything to and I will help you always. That's who I'm sure this parent wants to be for this wonderful girl that makes her so proud. Because imagine all the challenges she's going to have in life and all the sometimes ugly feelings she's going to have and things she wants to do maybe that are impulsive or her friends are doing it or things that she doesn't feel comfortable about entirely. Imagine her being able to tell you. It's a gift and it is somewhat but delicate.

23:11I mean, kids really, really want us to be that person for them because they need somebody that just loves them unconditionally like that to be able to share scary things with things that they're kind of uncomfortable about or mixed about. So they want this, but it's a delicate thing because if kids feel that they're judged when they tell us these things or do these things, they don't feel safe to keep sharing. And when they don't feel safe to keep sharing, then it makes it more likely that they're going to get dysregulated. So shifting the way that we look at this is a win-win. It gives us all the things we want while it's giving our child everything they need from us.

23:54And I wish this family well because this is a journey having another child and it's got, it's very, very difficult moments. But especially when all feelings are allowed and out in the open, they will definitely get through this. It will pass and they'll find that their relationship with their child has deepened as she starts to feel more settled also. I really hope some of this helps and thank you so much to this parent for reaching out to me and for everybody listening. You can learn a lot more about what behaviors mean, all the different reasons that children find themselves doing them and talking about them and how to help ourselves see that and give our children the support they need so that they stop doing those things, do them much less.

24:45How to be there for them, how to be the confident leader that we all want to be. In my No Bad Kids course, that's at nobadkidscourse.com. It's very reasonably priced. It's helped a lot of parents and also professionals in child care and preschool. I hear from them on a daily basis. So check it out. And of course, my book, No Bad Kids. Thank you so much for supporting Unruffled. We can do this.

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