Okay, this is something I was sort of dragging my feet on researching anything about, and now suddenly the time is here. When my MIL picked up Stella from daycare on Tuesday, the daycare provider let her know that Stella had been hitting the other kids. HITTING. I mean, I know it’s her gentle pats and they end up not being so gentle, but that’s how it starts, right?
As a caveat, I am not a spanker. I wasn’t spanked. I don’t believe in hitting to teach that violence is not the answer. Violence begets violence.
BUT, I’m also not sure what the appropriate correction is for a child Stella’s age. When we were older kids, Mom and Dad would tell us how disappointed in us they were, and we were sent to our rooms to think about what we had done wrong, why we had chosen to disappoint them, and how we would change our actions in the future to not disappoint them again. This was brutal as a kid, and it totally worked. By the time we came out of our rooms to apologize and explain WHY we had chosen to disappoint them, you had better believe we did our best to not have to go through that again.
However, I have no idea what to do with a 12-18 month old. I mean, I’ve heard the “1 minute per year of age” concept for time outs for kids… but does that work with a 14 month old? At daycare, since we had never discussed any personal preference I had on the issue, they have been removing her from the situation and setting her on the bottom step of the stairway (which apparently enrages Stella – LOL). Miss Jen then holds her hands still and lets her know in a firm voice that hitting is not okay, and that hands are for being gentle. She sits there with her for 30-60 seconds (which Stella hates, of course), and then they go back to the kid who Stella was hitting and offer to give hugs.
Obviously she doesn’t quite “get” the punishment yet, but does that sound like a good place to start? I just have absolutely no idea, and I just want to be consistent in stuff like this with how we chose to handle it.
What do you do to “correct” your young toddler? Help!
She looks so innocent, doesn’t she?!