What to Do When Your Kid Hits Other Kids

Liezel Mcgraw
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

It is an ultimate embarrassment to see our child hitting another one. Most of the parents know that children hit other children when they are overwhelmed by some extreme emotions or when they are scared. However, parents find it very difficult to prevent going into ‘fight or flight’ mode and getting ready to take some punitive actions in order to teach the aggressive children a lesson.

Nevertheless, it is to remember that punishing the aggressive child would help in stopping him/her from hitting others. That will rather make the child more aggressive. Instead, there are few other things that you can do to make things better in long term.

Prevention

Preventing your child from hitting the other one is not something you can do by force. It rather needs to be strategized. For instance, if your child has the habit of hitting other children in your watch while you are busy in social gathering, it would be unwise to get up angrily and stopping the kid by force. Yes, you need to take quick action to stop the kid but you also need to put anger out of equation.

To make sure that your child doesn’t hit on the occasions when you are at social gathering, you will need to make your kid a good kid when you are at home. Be empathetic with your kid, and consider the kid’s habit of hitting others as his/her emotional weakness. Now, what you would do to make your kid get rid of the weakness? It’s certainly not something you can do by punishing.

Breathe

When your kid hits other kids, it’s you who need to meditate in order to do what’s right. You can start by breathing deeply. However, you will need to make it quick as you instantly need to deal with an aggressive kid. Breathing deeply will help you to stay calm, and you will be able to deal with your kid empathetically.

Do some repairing

Don’t forget about the child who has been hit by your kid. In fact, you need to go to that kid and apologize to him/her on your kid’s behalf. That will not only calm down the situation but it will also help you to reduce anger before you go to deal with your kid.

Don’t blame

While it is important to point at the child who has been hurt in order to help your kid the feeling of empathy, make sure that you are not blaming your kid because that will bring your kid into defensive mode. It will only harden the heart of your kid.

Get your child out of that scene

Going out of that scene with your child shouldn’t sound like a punitive action. It should rather be about calming down your kid. You should be point out at the pain which your child has caused to the other kid but you need to avoid being harsh about it.

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