Why Kids Hit

It can feel really difficult when kids of any age go through a bout of hitting. It's embarrassing in public and it's exasperating at home - you're a good parent and you didn't teach them this so why are they doing it?

Let me first reassure you that you haven't got a "naughty" child. There's no such thing as naughty - truly. You have a child with an under developed brain who is acting like a child and trying to communicate something to you in the only way they know how right now. When we stop and remember this (and trust that they're good kids) we're more likely to respond with understanding and not lose our cool - so sit with that for a minute before you read what to do next!

Imagine feeling boiling hot and not realising you had a puffer jacket on and not having the language or awareness to work out what was wrong or ask someone to help you.Imagine how frustrated you'd feel?! That can be what it's like being a toddler, but times that by ten different problems before lunch time.

They're hungry but don't know they're hungry. They're overwhelmed by the. noise but don't realise it. They want attention but don't know how to say "Mum, I need you". Someone has the toy they desperately want and they don't yet have the impulse control to stop their hand from reaching out and whacking them.

Of COURSE they're going to lose it sometimes. They're acting out over something that appears TOTALLY illogical to us - so we can't suddenly expect them to be logical and calm themselves down. We have to help.

Responding Respectfully

Your child might be hitting you for all of the reasons in this post, but it doesn't make them a bad kid or you a bad parent. The best way to respond is to be respectful and gentle - but gentle parenting absolutely doesn't mean standing there and allowing yourself, or anyone else, to be hit. It's important that we show children with our words AND our bodies that hitting isn't okay. But we can do that without getting scary, stern or making them feel ashamed of themselves for acting on impulse.

Adults act on impulses we know we "shouldn't" all the time. We watch one more episode when we know it's late. We eat the block of chocolate we promised ourselves we wouldn't. We scroll on our phones instead of going to sleep. And we're doing all of that with a fully developed adult brain!

So when a toddler's underdeveloped brain said HIT and their body does it before they've had a chance to think, making them feel bad about themselves isn't going to magically give them the impulse control they were missing. Scaring or shaming children might stop the behaviour in that moment, but it doesn't teach them what they could do instead next time. 

It's also worth thinking about what YOUR reaction to hitting has been so far. If hitting gets a huge response every time, shouting, gasping, a big facial expression, all of your attention, it can usually make the behaviour more likely to happen again. Especially if attention was what they were looking for in the first place.

This is where it's important you become a detective. 

Try to reflect on what you were doing just BEFORE the hitting started? Were you playing together and then your attention shifted? Were you talking to another adult? Were you trying to cook dinner? Had you just told them 'no'? Was the room loud or busy? Were they tired? Hungry? Excited? Was another child getting too close? 

When we work out the root of the hitting and exactly what they were trying to communicate with their firsts, then we can teach them what to do instead.

Here's an example. I saw a Mum carrying her little boy at the baby expo recently and he started to playfully hit her and pull her hair when she was browsing my stall. I'd never met this family, so obviously I can only guess what was actually going on for him, but if I were to put my detective hat on and guess what his behaviour Was communicating, it might have been:

"I'm a bit overstimulated here because there are loads of people and lights - it's noisy. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. You're carrying me and I'm starting to get hot, bothered and uncomfortable. You're busy looking at things and talking to people but I want your attention. I know what gets your attention really quickly though. I'm going to pull your hair and hit you. bit....YES. That worked!"

What to DO and Say

1. Try to regulate yourself first. You don't need to have no feelings about being hi, but a huge reaction won't help. Keep your response calm and fairly boring.

2. Keep everyone safe. Move your body further away, move the other child away, block the hit or gently catch their arms if you need to.

3. Guess what they might be trying to say and say it to them as if you were them. "I'm frustrated". "I want your attention". "I need a turn". 

4. Show with your body and consistency that you're not allowing hitting. You're holding your boundary by moving away and preventing it happening again, not by asking nicely whilst continuing to get hurt.

5. Stay away from language telling them what they shouldn't do like "don't hit" or "it's not ok to hit " - they know that already. 

6. Instead focus on communicating what they CAN do. "Come with me, we'll find another toy." "Pop your hands together". "You can tell him to 'STOP' if you don't want to share". 

7. See this as a big sign that they need more help to regulate. Some movement nearly always helps. A fresh air break or opportunity to run, jump, crash, push or pull. Maybe they just need more connection with you so you can share your calm. 

8. LATER (if your child is a little older) revisit this when everyone is calm. Talk about what they could do next time. "You were really frustrated with your sister when she stole your toy. She shouldn't have done that, but it's never ok to hit her. If she does it again, shout for me and I will always come and help".

9. Practice regulation together. In play, when everyone is happy, you could role play one toy stealing from another and how to respond. Or what the toy could do when they started to feel angry.

10. Regulate yourself out loud as a model. "Wow, I'm feeling overwhelmed by all this loud noise. I'm going to take a break and step into the garden for a minute". 


Remember - kids aren't born with all these skills in how to negotiate play, control their impulses or regulate themselves. They're all things that need to be taught and that we need to model to them with our own responses. The goal here isn't to make a child feel bad enough about hitting that they'll absolutely never do it again - it's to stop the hitting, keep everyone safe, work out what they were trying to communicate and slowly teach them better responses that they can use next time.

You don't have a bad kid! 

To learn more why behaviours happen, what's developmentally normal and learn evidence based strategies for responding - listen to the You've Got This Podcast with Zazi and Tess - wherever you get your podcasts.

You've got this!