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How to stop the hitting?

Elle1994

Hi everyone, I'm really feeling low at the moment and at a loss on what to do. I have a just turned 4 year old who is autistic. We haven't been told 'whereabouts' on the spectrum just yet as he is still young and hasn't started school yet.

I love my little boy and his quirkiness and always support him the best I can. I have fought for his diagnosis and have been in numerous meetings and assessments to make sure his needs can be met. There is one thing I'm really struggling with and that is his hitting.

He slaps me, punches, pulls hair, jabs at me. He also does this to his 2 year old brother. He never used to do it to other children but he has now started to hit them also. So much so he is no longer in nursery.

He was just playing with his little brother when his brother took a toy monkey down from his leaf tent. My 4 year old got immediately upset and began to cry, I told him it didn't matter and his brother can play with the monkey and tried to distract him with a different toy. My 2 year old ran off with the monkey and was chased and my 4 year old put both hands on my 2 year olds hair and pulled him down to the ground, picked the monkey up and went back. My 2 year old was in tears. I soothed my toddler and when he was calm I went back and told my 4 year old again that he cannot pull hair as this hurts and makes the other person sad. I got no response from him.

The other day when I went for a walk with my 4 year old he got upset because we wasn't going to nanny and grandads house. I got down to his level to talk to him and he full on slapped me round the face. I was shocked and my eyes immediately watered. This wasn't a tap it was a full on slap and when we got home I had an imprint on my cheek.

I am really struggling with this. I have said no to hitting time and time again, I always try my hardest to be as calm and patient with him though there has been a couple of occassions I have shouted because I must say this to him all day everyday.

It's getting so bad that I don't want to leave the house with him, we used to attend a group on Fridays until he started to jab other children and other mum's would come up to me to criticize. I know he has additional needs but this shouldn't mean he cannot learn right from wrong.

Please tell me this will pass. I hate that other parents just think he's horrible because he truly isn't. He starts school in September and I don't want him to be lonely, but I know if he carries on hitting he wouldn't be invited to birthday parties and children won't want to play with him etc.

Parents

  • As soon as I got close to a meltdown at that age I was forced to take a 5 to fifteen minute quiet sit on the end of the bed in a quiet room, and I think I once earned a slap on the legs when I resisted the process. (Obviously this was real hard work for the supervising adult because it only works if you make sure the kid actually does sit still, but they MADE me do it) It taught me the required degree of self control t not be a completely horrible and unmanageable child.

    When my child bit me on day when I was not doing what she wanted, I applied physical retaliation without even thinking about it, but in a restrained manner, which surprised both of us, but she never did it, or anything like it again. I was mostly able to use humour and total honesty to train my kid. On the few occasions she got the better of me as kids can, rather than losing my rag, or being a martyr as many parents do, I simply told her, that she's being bad at a time when I am busy and "if she does not stop it, I'll have to punish her. I don't know what I'll do, I'm too busy to think about it, but it'll come up with something and it won;t be good. Do you want that?" 

    When eventually she really wanted to know what I'd do, and I did actually have time to tell her, I told her of a ficticious place where bad children were sent to be made into sausages, which of course she found highly enjoyable, teasing the details out of me, and completely forgot whatever the original point of contention was...

    A four year old kid KNOWS you have the power, the key is to make them want you to use it for them rather than against them. Hitting them outside of an instinctive response to unprovoked violence is not a useful punishment, my childhood taught me. In fact if you have to actually punish your child to change their behaviour I believe you are losing, I used to negotiate everything that I could rather than impose rules. If they figure out the rules themselves, even if it's through decoding your humour and sarcasm they seem to take 'em onboard deeper than if you just impose them.

    MY kid turned out way better than i did, so some of it must have worked..

Reply

  • As soon as I got close to a meltdown at that age I was forced to take a 5 to fifteen minute quiet sit on the end of the bed in a quiet room, and I think I once earned a slap on the legs when I resisted the process. (Obviously this was real hard work for the supervising adult because it only works if you make sure the kid actually does sit still, but they MADE me do it) It taught me the required degree of self control t not be a completely horrible and unmanageable child.

    When my child bit me on day when I was not doing what she wanted, I applied physical retaliation without even thinking about it, but in a restrained manner, which surprised both of us, but she never did it, or anything like it again. I was mostly able to use humour and total honesty to train my kid. On the few occasions she got the better of me as kids can, rather than losing my rag, or being a martyr as many parents do, I simply told her, that she's being bad at a time when I am busy and "if she does not stop it, I'll have to punish her. I don't know what I'll do, I'm too busy to think about it, but it'll come up with something and it won;t be good. Do you want that?" 

    When eventually she really wanted to know what I'd do, and I did actually have time to tell her, I told her of a ficticious place where bad children were sent to be made into sausages, which of course she found highly enjoyable, teasing the details out of me, and completely forgot whatever the original point of contention was...

    A four year old kid KNOWS you have the power, the key is to make them want you to use it for them rather than against them. Hitting them outside of an instinctive response to unprovoked violence is not a useful punishment, my childhood taught me. In fact if you have to actually punish your child to change their behaviour I believe you are losing, I used to negotiate everything that I could rather than impose rules. If they figure out the rules themselves, even if it's through decoding your humour and sarcasm they seem to take 'em onboard deeper than if you just impose them.

    MY kid turned out way better than i did, so some of it must have worked..

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