How do you peacefully stop your child from hitting?
FREE: 3 Steps to Solve Any Parenting Problem
The scenario: Your child throws sand at another child
How to handle it:
Approach calmly and attend to the hurt child first.
If your child is close be sure to touch her as well while you attend to the hurt child
When the hurt child is being attended to coach your child through the problem
Remove your child if need be
Validate feelings
Emotion coach
Problem solve to help your child make a repair
Key Takeaways:
If your child isn’t very upset you can connect and work through it without removing your child. If she is very upset it’s best to pick her up and take her elsewhere so you can focus on her without anyone else listening. It’s much easier on you to take your child elsewhere to talk.
You can make the apology before you remove your child. We’re so sorry that she threw sand at you. We hope you’re okay.
When with your child empathize and realize that she must have had a reason (in her mind) to do what she did. If you sit with her long enough and connect she’s going to have a reason for doing what she did.
Coach through to what happened to the other child and how that child must have felt. Remember when we talk to children about what someone else was thinking or feeling they gain empathy.
Help your child problem solve and brainstorm as to how she can make a repair.
If your child is too upset to apologize hold her with you while you apologize. Your child gets to see how it is done and is doing it with you even if she isn’t the one talking.
Overall, realize that people (including your child) don’t do bad things out of the blue. What is on that person’s heart? What has she been carrying around?
Is your child the one that has toys taken away from her at the park? If so checkout the peaceful parenting approach to what to do when another child hits your child here.
Watch More Peaceful Parenting in Action!
I would love to hear from you! Has your child ever hit or thrown something at another child? What did you find most difficult about handling the situation? What did you find was the easiest part to handle? Please leave your comments below or over in our (free & awesome) FB community Love Parenting with Avital.
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Thank you! The more I listen to these recommended practices, the better I get at them! ❤️
Thank you! We’re so glad you enjoyed it!
I know for me personally I definitely need to watch/listen over and over again until it really takes hold and becomes more second nature for me! -Tracy xx
This is so helpful! I will put this into practice (and believe me, I will have plenty of opportunities since I have two little ones!). I appreciate seeing a practice scenario and giving me ideas what to say. I’m glad Avital brought up the question about apologizing (“we are sorry…”) prior to removing the other child from the scenario to talk too…
This video showed up after a walk where I got hit with a jumping rope my kid threw at me. Very happy to see how I can validate my child’s emotions.
This is the best case scenario, but I have always wanted to know what to do when the following things happen (full disclosure I am usually the mom whose kid gets hit, and i witness parents remaining “peaceful” or even not intervening at all in the following scenes… I’m frustrated Bc while I’m angry with them, I have no real support to offer, and often they are acquaintes who genuinely want to parent well…I perceive them as permissive)
The following are all real scenes :
A) Laura’s daughter continues to throw sand at Avital’s head and face while laughing, while Laura is trying to comfort Avital
B) Laura’s daughter runs away while she comforts Avital and immediately attacks a different child, grabbing its toy and running across the playground faster than Laura can go
C) Laura’s daughter remains and interfaces with Laura, but just laughs and says she threw sand because it’s funny and will not admit to feeling anything other than amusement in the face of Avital’s crying
D) Laura’s daughter does this every single time she’s playing with another child, without any warning, and doesn’t ever show signs of any remorse or even underlying feelings