Ask HN: Parents of young kids: how do you teach that hitting is not acceptable?
The real challenge is at school. When he hits or pushes (even mildly), the consequences are immediate and severe—being removed from class, suspension, etc. While I understand the need for safety and boundaries, these responses often don’t seem to help him learn better regulation. In fact, they sometimes make things worse by increasing his anxiety and reinforcing feelings of exclusion.
We’re trying to partner with the school, but it’s hard to find alignment between what’s developmentally appropriate and what fits the school’s behavioral model.
I’m looking for practical, effective strategies that have worked for you—especially things that build empathy or help with self-regulation.
Would love to hear from other parents, educators, or folks who’ve been through this.
For children with trauma this might require extended learning time. For children with autism there is not a straightforward or predictable answer.
As a parent you must accept the reality that when your child starts school they are entering a world beyond your control under rules and influences that are not your own. If, as a parent, you cannot stomach that loss of control, you might have to consider home schooling. This is something every parent goes through.
There are four rungs of a "ladder" where we want to get to the top, problem-solving. In descending order, we get explanations (if..that), suggestions ("Tell her you're sorry."), and power (the bottom rung): "Go to time-out!"
Cover of such a book: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27073744M/I_Can_Problem_Solv...
---
Five basic principles, applicable to children as young as age 4, underlie the dialoguing process. The only prerequisite is that children understand the basic word concepts used by the adult. Relatively consistent application of these principles in time helps children associate their newly acquired thinking skills with what they do and how they behave.
First, both child and teacher must identify the problem. Casually saying, "What happened?"; "What's the matter?" or "Tell me about it" not only helps the child clarify the problem but also ensures that you will not jump to a faulty conclusion about what is going on. For example, "Oh, now I see what the problem is. I thought you were mad because your friend took your truck. Now I see it's because she played with it too long and won't give it back." Discovering the child's view of the problem starts the dialoguing process on the proper course.
Second, when dialoguing, it is important to understand and deal with the real problem. The child in the preceding example thinks he has already shared his truck with his friend, but the teacher may see this child grab the truck and erroneously assume that grabbing is the problem. Actually, grabbing is the child's solution to the problem of getting his truck back, not the problem itself. The real problem is that the child wants his truck back.
Third, once the real problem has been identified, the teacher must not alter it to fit his or her own needs. Suppose that the teacher becomes intention showing the child in the example how to share his toys. Because the child is thinking only about how to get back a toy he knows he has already shared, the teacher's guidance will likely lead to resistance. In this case, attempting to teach the "right" thing to do may backfire.
Fourth, the child, not the teacher, must solve the problem. If the child is to develop the habit of thinking of his own solutions to problems and considering the potential consequences of his actions, he must be encouraged to think for himself. More than simply "listening" to the child, the teacher must actively draw out what the child thinks caused the problem, how he and others feel about the situation, his ideas about how to solve the difficulty, and what he thinks might happen if he were to put those ideas into action. In highlighting the child's thinking, the teacher does not offer solutions to the problem or suggest what might happen next. When not bombarded with "don'ts" or offered a stream of "do's," the child is freed to think through the problem and decide for himself what and what not to do. The teacher only asks questions and, through these, guides and encourages the emergence of problem-solving thinking.
Finally, the focus is on how the child thinks, not on what he thinks (in other words, the specific conclusions he comes to). Research on the ICPS program suggests that the process of a child's thinking is more important in the long run than the content of a specific solution. Attention is therefore focused on developing a style of thinking that will help the child deal with interpersonal problems in general, not on solving the immediate problem to the teacher's satisfaction (although this often occurs). Praising a solution may inhibit further thought about other ideas. Criticizing a solution may inhibit the child's speaking freely about what is on his mind. In either case, the child's thinking will shift from generating options, consequences, and causes to selecting the one thing that meets with teacher approval. In applying these principles, the teacher transmits to the child the value judgment that thinking is important, and the child learns that thinking meets with adult approval.
When Not to Dialogue
It is not possible or even necessary to dialogue every problem that comes up. In fact, there are times when dialoguing is not effective and its use is better postponed. Clearly, if a child has been or is likely to be physically harmed, your first priority is to help by removing the child from danger.
While all kids struggle with disinhibition, it sounds like your child might have a harder time with inhibiting unwanted behaviours (so struggling with disinhibition). This is actually quite common in a lot of children, and nothing to be too concern about, although if it’s disruptive to his own education and opportunities for socialising with other kids, you will need some form of extra support. Your child is not naughty or bad on purpose, rather, a better way to frame it is their nervous system might be a bit more reactive and a little bit more impulsive that some other kids. Understanding that can help inform better strategies for managing it.
My main question is, is your child showing any signs of trying to regulate himself already that you can leverage? It took me a while to realise that my son was regulating in ways I wasn’t recognising because I didn’t understand his struggle. An example was that for a while he had a tic where every time he picked up a pen he had the urge to throw it at a wall. So he stopped using pens. The school panicked and tried to say he was autistic and regressing. But once someone eventually asked him why he wouldn’t hold a pen, he just told us, it was because he didn’t want to throw them. Once they realise that, they gave him a computer to type with instead. So looking for the ways he may be already regulating himself that might not make sense to you but make sense to him will also start to help you understand what is driving the behaviours.
Another point I want to make though is that mainstream school is genuinely a very damaging place for kids who struggle with behaviour/conduct issues/disinhibition. Schools isolate these children, and they ostracise them, thereby sabotaging the child’s access to equitable education, limiting the opportunities to form healthy friendships with peers and destroying their self-esteem, basically effectively reinforcing antisocial behaviours. I think if you have the resources you should consider alternative schooling options like Montessori type schools, private schools, private tutoring, or even home schooling.
I can guarantee your child is probably an incredibly creative, wonderful person with so much potential, but he’s probably just wired slightly different. Schools don’t foster creativity, they foster uniformity, they don’t foster curiosity, they foster reciting of facts unquestioningly. Western schooling systems also teach people to mindlessly follow authority without questioning it, which also has its repercussions. Your child is probably not the real issue when they’re at school. School will be the issue. Schools/teachers often know very little about paediatric brain development and behaviour. They treat children like mini-adults. Furthermore, teachers are often incredibly overworked under-resourced and underpaid. Even when they want to do better for each individual child, they are not equipped to.
My final piece of advice is that no matter how deeply frustrating the behaviours continue to manage your child’s behaviour with firm but fair boundaries, lots of love and reassurance that they are loved, lots of reassurance that they’re intelligent and full of potential, and a great deal of patience.
He will naturally grow out of a lot this behaviour. It’s his self-esteem and self efficacy you want to protect a long the way.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/6855333...
Having said this, I would also tell you that you MUST only spank after you have:
0. Make sure your child knows here is this consequence if they injure someone. Let them know there is a consequence! Do not let them think that arbitrary punishments or retribution occurs. This will do more harm than good if you do not set the expectations. It's not entirely possible to always do this the first time or with very, very small children (such as a two year old that has a biting problem as an example and which is very damaging behavior).
1. Explained what is about to happen carefully and fully.
2. Only spank once or a couple of times in a very controlled and sterile manner. Do NOT get emotionally involved in the spanking except to feel bad that you are doing it. DO NOT SPANK IF YOU ARE ANGRY. DON'T DO IT. NEVER.
3. After the spanking show your child MORE love and care. Give them high levels of tenderness and show them that it hurt you to execute this punishment. If you can cry with them, CRY WITH THEM. This is very important to show forth more love after the punishment and by doing this you will actually improve your bond with your child and allow them to know that you harbor no ill will against them.
4. Remind them in the future about the consequences that will occur if they choose to harm someone else as they have done.
5. Always show your child love and always let them know you suffer when they suffer now and always. Learn empathy and if you cannot have it, then show sympathy and love them anyway even if you cannot feel such things yourself.
I don’t think spanking is ever warranted, and I’m shocked someone would recommend it.
> Research has long underscored the negative effects of spanking on children’s social-emotional development, self-regulation, and cognitive development, but new research, published this month, shows that spanking alters children’s brain response in ways similar to severe maltreatment and increases perception of threats.
> “The findings are one of the last pieces of evidence to make sense of the research of the last 50 years on spanking,” says researcher Jorge Cuartas, a Ph.D. candidate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who coauthored the study with Katie McLaughlin, professor at the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. “We know that spanking is not effective and can be harmful for children’s development and increases the chance of mental health issues. With these new findings, we also know it can have potential impact on brain development, changing biology, and leading to lasting consequences.”
> Perhaps surprisingly, says Cuartas, spanking elicits a similar response in children’s brains to more threatening experiences like sexual abuse. “You see the same reactions in the brain,” Cuartas explains. “Those consequences potentially affect the brain in areas often engaged in emotional regulation and threat detection, so that children can respond quickly to threats in the environment.”
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/usable-knowledge/21/04/eff...
https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13...
Being on the spectrum myself and having worked with many in these situations and with this, I will tell you that my personal experience says otherwise. Believe what you will, and I will believe what I will. I can assure you that wonderful and salutary results come through helping children to learn not to harm other people in proper and healthy ways.
There are many other ways to resolve other issues, but you are definitely correct about the ego monster that arises from being treated as royalty. Children must be balanced, and there are definite ways to do that that do not require spanking.
Trying to teach a child that hitting people isn’t OK by hitting them is actually one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard.
What are you teaching them? You can’t hit people, but I can… because why? Your bigger, or older?
If your only tool is fear, you got nothing once that kid stops fearing you. Good luck with that.
It wasn’t just the hitting. It was the threat of being hit for anything. It was the contradictory internal rules I had to come up with to try to avoid being hit. It’s the internalization that I was bad that I carried for decades of my life. It’s when it slipped, and they started using it because it was the only thing that worked, because they didn’t know how to handle their own emotions let along a child’s. Don’t recommend parents hit their kids. Don’t make it okay. Full stop. You don’t know who the parents are.
Kids don’t know that you only use hitting in certain circumstances, even if you tell them.