Hey ladies, it's been a while. A really long while, actually. I hope everyone is doing well and had a happy holidays. I'm in need of some advice and I honestly don't know where else to turn. I really respected everyone opinions/advice on here whenever I was active, so I'm asking for some help.
I have a very strong-willed almost three year old. Lately, the temper tantrums have been extremely bad. He's been hitting his teachers at school as well as his friends. He's generally the most aggressive with me. I feel awful, he's hitting other people's children at school. Whenever DH is around it isn't as bad. I just feel like whatever I try, doesn't work. I feel like I have zero control over the situation. I feel like some of it's normal toddler behavior, but the aggression really worries me. I brought him to his Pedi and they said he's still to young to really do anything.
I'm just looking for some kind of advice/opinions on what I should do. I'm so mentally exhausted. I hate saying that, but I am. I just want to do what's best for him, but I'm at a loss.
We went through something similar, I bought the "Hands are not for hitting" book. We read this before bed every night. Anytime there was hitting it was automatic time out, and reminded him when he was done that he was in timeout for hitting. A lot of time outs were had. Sometimes one after another. It's exhausting. I'm sorry you're going through this and I hope you get some good advice that helps.
Good idea with the book. He loves to read, so hopefully this will somewhat help reinforce what we are trying to teach him. It definitely is exhausting. Thank you so much for the advice.
My son is really aggressive too. It's been getting better lately. I'm pretty sure that to some extent the hitting is normal at this age, maybe not all kids have a problem, by many do.
Remain patient, just keep working to calmly correct the bahavior. Remaining neutral tone, calm, and JT answering aggression with anything that escalates the the emotion of situation is what has seemed to help at my house.
For example, he is hitting the dog or a cousin, I would calmly picking him up, and say, no that hurts, you need to sit with me if you are going to hurt others. Previously, I had a tendency to storm in and seem really angry/scary when he was misbehaving.
I don't know if this will be helpful to you at all, just be patient and keep working with him.
Just saw this now. I agree with others that some of it is probably normal toddler behavior. However, if you are really concerned you could always call your local school systems early intervention team. They can do a social/emotional/behavioral screening and that will give you an idea of it is just developmental or if it might be more. Either way, they can give you good resources.
I think the book idea would be very beneficial. You can also look up social stories and create some for pretty cheap that will allow you to put his name, your names, teachers' names, etc. in the book. The personalized book might also help a lot. A lot of social stories are geared towards kids with ASD, but they are amazing for toddlers also. On this website you can make the person resemble your son and personalize consequences and rewards. It is really pretty cool.
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