Another toddler keeps hitting my child at a public activity — how should I handle it?
We go to this rhyme time with our kid. There’s a child there who hit my child before. Both of them are two years old, and last time he pushed my kid to the ground. He keeps trying to hit him. His mom does try to hold him back, but today we ran into them again and he hit my child with a book.
I noticed that the mom is trying, but she’s very soft and gentle about it. Every time this happens I get really stressed and I don’t know what to do. I try to keep my child away, but she can’t seem to keep her child far enough from mine.
Honestly, I’m really upset, angry, and tired. I already come to this activity hoping to relax a bit while my child plays, but when things like this happen it just makes me more stressed. If this happened to your child, what would you do? How would you talk to the other mom?
Because I feel like she’s not really warning him or holding him back enough, and this is the third time her child has hit mine.
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Explain to your child out loud when it happens “that was unacceptable he should not hit you like that you did so well not hitting back if he can’t play nicely you tell him to go away ok”
Say this loud enough for the mother to hear and say directly to the parent I understand accidents happen but this type of play is unacceptable please don’t let it happen again, thank you
This is the only thing I find that works at any activity when a child isn’t being very nice either hitting or name calling or anything
I always correct the child directly with a firm ‘no thank you, we use our gentle hands while we’re playing’. And try to catch the eye of the parent with them so they see and hear me. Also taught my daughter to say no thank you, I don’t want to play like that and to move away if others are hitting.
I understand it’s developmental and a lot of children go through it but if it’s happening every time I would perhaps quietly ask her to please redirect her child to a different area or toy if they cannot play without hitting.
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