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Hitting and Scratching
February 1, 2010 by The Next Family
Filed under Brandy Black
By: Brandy Black
Really? My amazing, beautiful, smart, sweet child has CHANGED! A few minutes out of each day, she becomes a TERROR. What has happened to her? Everything is lovely, we’re laughing, having a tea party and she’ll walk up with a big smile and grab my cheek and pinch as hard as her little fingers can.
OUCH!
She will follow up with a frantic scratching and pinching. Susan and I now have matching marks on our faces. It hurts, for one, but worse –we can’t figure out how to make it stop. We’ve tried ignoring, explaining, holding hands down, fake crying, all of it, and she still does it.
Is this just a phase that we have to ride out? Is there a cure-all for this stage? Is there a good book? Feel free to share your knowledge. We need it and soon or my next blog photo will be Susan, Bailey (our dog) and me wrapped in bandages.
yes, its the twos……the good news is it passes. i used a lot of “that is not ok, it hurts mommy” then remove from situation…(remove from lap, remove off bed, get up and walk away from tea party) “when you stop hurting mommy, then we will play” the when -then works great…all the way to 17! “when your room is clean, then we will go to baseball” the good news is the threes are lovely!
good luck!
Thanks Heidi, I love the when thing- I haven’t heard that one yet. I’m trying that. thanks!
Our twins are almost 3 and I’ve never been so beaten up in my life. I have stories that ended in a black eye, bloody noses, bite marks and tons of scratches. For some reason my nose seems to be irresistible from time to time to them and it gets pulled relentlessly. Lucky for you, you only have one baby to torture you.
Oh Heather, I’m sorry to hear that, see these are the stories moms don’t tell you ahead of time. I had no idea! Well at least we now know we’re not the only ones getting beat up. Does this mean this phase lasts well into 3 or is this stage over for you?
Yes, from what I’ve heard it’s just a spell — one I’m really not looking forward to. Hang in there!
Ooh!! I found the threes to be MUCH harder than the twos! In fact, that seems to be the sentiment among a lot of parents these days (“Why do they call it the ‘terrible twos’?? three is worse!”). But it IS all a phase, and each one is more surprising than the last. For us, the physical acting-out phase stopped and was replaced by verbal acting-out, like “I am NOT YOUR FRIEND, Mommy!”
Good luck!
@LA Urban dweller
Oh no, that sounds worse, I can handle the bruises but the “I’m not your friend” will be tough. At least it’s not all the time. I pictured the terrible 2′s/3′s to be constant but so far she’s sweet more often than not- hope that doesn’t change anytime soon.
maya just turned four
we definately went thru a hitting scratching phase
and are still in the “you are not going to be my friend” -
“you can’t come to my birthday party” etc. phase – it all comes and goes
we used the when/then strategy as well as removal from situations.
we also remind maya, still to use her words, and to use gentle touches,
and finally when she is really steamed, she goes to her special place to “cool out”
for, now that she’s four, four minutes… (a variation on the supernanny time out)
so I guess the question than becomes, does it make that big of a difference how you deal with it if all kids go through this? I mean is there a right and wrong way to deal with their behavior at this point?
It’s funny actually because since this blog has posted she’s already been scatching less and less- I think because we stopped giving so much attention to it, before we trying to explain that it hurt her moms blah blah blah- I think it was just attention and she got a kick out of it.
With the hitting & scratching, I think the most effective way for me was to say nothing and get up and walk away. Having a conversation about it seemed to be a payoff (if I pinch mommy we’ll have a philosophical conversation about how to treat mommy… COOL). It’s kinda the same principal that’s recommended in breastfeeding when your baby first starts using your nipples as a teething ring. Baby bites down, break the suction & rescue your boob. After a few times of losing the boob, they stop clamping down on it.
Oh, and for the record… I thought three was MUCH worse than two with two of my three.
Saying nothing is starting to work!! Not all better but no more scars or bruises for the last couple days. Thanks for the tips!
So tonight, Izzy (almost 3 years old) was running towards me with a book at nighttime and somehow she went to sit in my lap a bit too early or something because her knee when full force into my “area”. Yeah, well now I can count that as another war wound. I’m going to have a hell of a bruise in a day or so. Poor Izzy got terribly upset and her brother was telling her it was her fault for “knocking Mommy down”. Poor kid – it took awhile to get her calmed down and back to ready for bed! It did give me an opportunity to reinforce the “it only hurts for a little while” that I’m always telling them when they get hurt!