Oh no! My child just hit me! Again!
Unfortunately, this is a common issue for parents. But why? How did this happen? What did I do wrong? Is this normal? If your child hits you, you may feel hurt, confused, afraid, concerned, or angry. Let’s explore this topic so you can gain some insight about how to think about this and respond more effectively.
What does it mean when my child hits me?
There are several possibilities of what may be going on when a child hits you or someone else. One possibility is that they are angry and haven’t developed other strategies for expressing their anger. So, educating our children about anger is quite important. Essentially, anger is a natural emotion that arises to protect something important. It is a boundary setting energy. Your child’s hit may be their attempt to express that they do not like what is going on and want it to stop. They just haven’t learned how to express that sentiment more appropriately in challenging situations.
Another possibility is that your child has a difficult time managing their impulses. Our brain’s prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain designed to manage our impulses, is not fully developed until after we are 25-years-old. Now, think of your two-year-old’s brain. They still have a long way to go. Hitting may simply be an immediate reaction to their environment that is distressing for them. Hitting may be their way of expressing “I can’t handle what is going on for me right now! I can’t handle this situation and I can’t handle my feelings.”
Hitting can also be a manipulation. For example, let’s say whenever your child hits you, they get a ton of attention. Even though it may be “negative” attention like yelling, it is still attention. Hitting may be your child’s attempt to get your attention.
Your child may also be testing you. Are you the strong adult that I need you to be in order to feel safe? Will you love me even though I hurt you? Do I have the power to control you when I hit you? Can I get a rise out of the person that I need to be an anchor in my life? Our children will test the strength of the container that we can provide. Our job is to be strong in the face of this testing, which is to be calm, consistent, and assertive.
Perhaps your child learned to hit by watching it happen on tv or in real life. Minimizing exposure to violence of all kinds, especially at a young age reduces the likelihood of your child being violent. If you spank your child, then you teach your child to hit. Spanking or any kind of corporal punishment is psychologically harmful to children. There is an abundance of research that reaches this conclusion and there is always a better way to discipline your children.
What do we do when our kid hit us?
It is important to remember that we are the adults. This means that we need to take responsibility for our own emotions and how we respond to them. So, we need to model how to express our anger appropriately and manage our anxiety. If you don’t know how to do that, then this is your first step. When they hit you is the best time for you to demonstrate how to regulate your own emotions. They will learn from you.
In addition to managing your own emotions, it is helpful to validate and normalize your child’s emotions. For example: “You seem angry.” Or, “I feel angry sometimes too. When I feel angry I…(take deep breaths, play basketball, walk outside, take a break, etc.) Being clear and consistent in your responses will also help the child know what is appropriate and not appropriate. So, it is useful to respond to your child by saying something like, “It is ok to feel angry, but it is not ok to hit.”
It is also useful to teach your child how to calm down. Helping your child take pauses, count to 10, take 5 deep breaths, feel your feet are all ways to reduce anxiety. Implementing your own stress reducing strategies powerfully teaches your children how to calm down. Rather than saying that hitting is wrong or bad, I recommend that you say that hitting hurts or I don’t like hitting. These last two responses encourage your child to develop empathy and more awareness of how they impact others. Lastly, the more time you spend with your child where you are present and caring goes a long way towards giving your child the attention they need and reduces the likelihood that hitting is a strategy they would use to get your attention.
It is my hope that implementing these strategies will assist you in reducing how often your child hits, enhances your relationship, and builds important skills for your child.
We welcome your parenting questions here at Olympic Peninsula Macaroni Kid! Please send your questions to doug@sequimcounseling.com and have your questions answered in an upcoming article.
