How do I get my 15 month old to stop hitting, pinching, and pulling hair??????

Question

I have a 15 month old daughter. Alaina. She has been hitting, pinching, pulling my hair, and even she even bites sometimes. She has been doing this since she was twelve months old maybe even earlier. Another thing she does is balls her hands up like fists and then she like clenches her teeth and does it so hard her face shakes. She does not live in an abusive home, so I am wondering why she is like this, and how I can stop it. Can anyone help me???

Answer 1

put her in TIME AWAY!! make a little corner for time away...and every time she misbehaves put her in time away! show her YOU are the BOSS...and you mean business!and be firm with her! dont spank her...dont yell at her..just be firm! thats what we do with the kids in daycare..and it actually works! but you have to do it...it wont happen over night but you will see an approvement in a couple of weeks!

and the reason why i say dont spank her! b.c she will see u hitting her! and she will continue to do it!

Answer 2

For me-I just said "no-that hurts" the first time. The second time (usually the time it took him to run around me) I would stand up and say "I guess you don't want to play with me now" and I went to do something else (read, do dishes-anything that removed me from the situation). He really hates this. After a week, he improved greatly. My son wasn't a big biter unless teething so if I got a bite-usually at bedtime/sleepy and a shoulder bite-then I gave some tylenol to help with his teeth and inserted a paci to block the bite.

He also pulls on the dog but I step in ont he first pull and ask he be gentle and show him how to rub her. The prob is when he hugs her and sometime grabs a fistfull of fur. Again I remove him from the situation by picking him up and saying "we don't hurt our puppy". She is also big enough now to jump the baby gates and if he is too much she will relocate to another room. He started pulling etc around 14 months and now we have a few slips once in a while but not too bad. He is 18 months now. Good luck.

Answer 3

My daughter was the same way at that age. I decided to watch her to see what triggered it.

I usually reacted by yelling. Since that seemed to make it worse, I decided to do the exact opposite. Whenever she did it I would remain calm & cool & tell her no you cannot do that. Then I put her in the corner & told her she had to stay there until she could behave. She kept running away, so I just remained calm & picked her up & put her back. The first time it took about 30+ tries & it was exhausting, but after about 3-4 days of this she finally stopped doing it. She also seemed confused that I was not yelling. I think she was testing me. You just have to be consistent & hopefully she'll snap out of it.

I also noticed that she did it more often when she didn't get her way. So I began giving her more choices.For instance, if I wanted her to sit down, I would ask her- do you want to sit here or over there, instead of just sit down. I did the same with food. Do you want two bites of this & one bite of that, or vice versa, etc. It worked like a charm.

Every kid is different, but I feel for you! Good luck. :)

Answer 4

Sure, a lot of kids, especially at this age, get frustarted that they can't express themselves more. My son Drake was like this. He would get all upset and not be able to tell me, so he'd bite me. He was about your daughter's age when this started. We would tell him, "no, don't hit/bite/punch" but it didn't really seem to register. What we started doing was if he hit us, we'd say, " I know you are upset..." and try to talk to him more instead of just getting upset right away back. I'm sure Alaina is not doing it to upset you but merely to let you know she's frustrated. Keep an eye out for those times when it's nap time, snack time or in situations where you know she'll get easily frustarted.
Good luck!

Answer 5

Realistically? You do it back.. show em how it feels.. seriously.. kids learn by example.. but its not politically correct but it will indeed work.. ask yer mother.. she'll tell ya..and grandma too..

You gotta hit pinch bite pull back.. the kid has no concept of what it is they are doing at this point and yer just encouraging it by doing nothing.. (not the kids fault really they havent a concept.. its yer job as a parent to teach em that concept harsh as that may sound)

Dont be nasty about it but show em what its all about.. otherwise.. just be quiet and raise whats gonna be a problem child IMO.. (and its just my opinion.. but I'm sure there are several gazillions of moms and grandmothers that will agree with me on this) Children are creatures of habit.. they will get away with what you let em get away with.. (that explains brat kids these days dosent it?)

Or you can do the BS child psycology thing and be stuck where yer at, and be down a few grand a year.. yer choice..

Even in the psych world its called adversion therapy... but I'm not charging you $150 per hour.. (but I'll take a donation when it works.. I like toys...)

Answer 6

My daughter does the same thing and we don't abuse or yell at her either. They are trying to show, since they can't say what they want, that they want to be independant. They, too, are really exploring their environment now.

What works for me is 1, 2, 3. When my daughter clenches her teeth or hits I firmly grab her hand and say "No, no hitting!" or "You don't need to get so upset". If she keeps it up, I start counting. If she gets past three, she goes in her crib for however many minutes that I counted too. If it's past three, I just stick with three as three minutes of screaming is all that I can take. Then, when she gets out of her crib, we talk about it. I don't know if she really understands, but I'm trying to be firm and repetitive without being abusive. Good Luck!

Answer 7

it's a phase, alot of children go through it!! my son (17mo) went through it about 13-14 months, we smacked his hand which didnt work cause he thought it was a game and smacked back while laughing so then we tried timeout for his scratching and pinching, everytime he did it we would put him in a portacot for 1-2minutes, he hated it absolutely hated it and soon cut out the scratching when he realized he was only put in the portacot when he did it, for biting we flicked his cheek as that's what i was told to do by the nurse when i was breastfeeding so i tried it again and it worked just a little flick onthe cheek, i wouldv' tried biting him back except i'm a bit wary of treating like with like as he just thinks its a game. good luck though and remember there's nothing wrong with your child and she is not being naughty she is simply seing how far she can push and how much she can get a way with and remember that children thrive when they know what their limits and boundarys are. :)

Answer 8

You should try and show your daughter what she is doing is wrong. be firm with her but not too firm, make sure you don't give up either when she does something wrong make sure you tell her no. Make sure you are paying enough time and attention with her sometimes kids do this stuff when they need attention.

Answer 9

My advice is to watch Super Nanny (better yet watch all the Nanny TV shows) on TV. They show kids like this all the time and give advice to parents on how to stop their kids from acting in such a bad manner.

Answer 10

My little sister is did the exact same thing, all though it sounds harsh but giving a strict NO tone might help even though they get madder but eventually she'll grow out of it.