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We are in the throes of hitting right now in my household. It started around the age of 19 months, and we are going on about the 12th week of hitting. I thought we had gotten a handle on it; however, it seems to be flaring up again. Let me just say that hitting is a triggering behavior for me. I am easily flustered when it comes to hitting and often feel my emotions get super heightened. Not to mention all the conflicting advice 😣. As adults, we often lean on responses like yelling, timeout, or ignoring. We can feel the steam coming out of our ears when we think about hitting.

However, hitting is just so deeply unique to your child and their desires, wants, needs, and personality. The reason your toddler hits is going to be different than the reason my toddler hits. Those responses mentioned earlier may stop hitting temporarily, but they rarely often get to the root or actually decrease the hitting.

Are you noticing a pattern of hitting emerging? Do you find yourself, like me just really trying to tap into that little toddler brain? I feel like I personally tried everything to combat the hitting. It wasn’t until I switched up how I was thinking about hitting, coming from a place of curiosity, connection and adding a sprinkle of behavioral science.

Hitting is a form of communication, how we respond to it often determines if it will continue to happen or not. In order to see actual behavior change like the hitting behavior happening less and a better form of behavior happening more, we have to dive into this problem behavior and find a solution. But before we continue this conversation, go support the sponsor we love today, here’s a quick ad for them.

Behavioral science tells us that hitting has a function. They aren’t hitting us to cause pain, they are just trying to get a point across.

Often we accidentally reinforce hitting with our responses. Take this example: My toddler hits when an item is taken from her, my response to her hitting was normally to say “Oh hands are not for hitting” and then I redirect her to another toy I’m noticing hitting is happening more!😩 My toddler is thinking: “I hit my mom, she gets me a new toy!” How easy is that?

We can ask ourselves questions in an attempt to understand the function of the hitting: “What is my toddler trying to tell me?” Do they want attention? Do they want something? Do they want to get away from something? “What could they need in this moment?” Are they hungry? Are they sleepy? “What big feeling could be triggering this? Are they excited? Are they mad?

Behavioral science tells us that we have to look at the things that happen right before and right after a behavior to create lasting change. These are known as the ABCs of behavior: Antecedents, Behaviors, and Consequences. Don't get stuck on the word "consequences" in behavioral science this just means what happens directly after the behavior. Some consequences are reinforcing and then behaviors happen more, some consequences will make the behaviors happen less. Trying different responses for a consistent period of time is how patterns emerge.

For my toddler, when she is hitting, I keep my reaction small and use low-quality attention. Low-quality attention can be achieved by using a low tone and a simple corrective phrase. “Hands are for being kind” “I’m not going to let you hit me.” Essentially we’re trying to prevent our toddler from thinking “If I hit, my parent pays attention to me when they weren’t before!”

*Please give a gentle round of applause too…*