Why Does My Kid Hit Me?
Is she a burgeoning sadist, or just a normal kid?
Dear Is My Kid the Asshole,
Question for you. Is my two-year-old a sadist? Sometimes, if she does something that hurts me, like hit me in the head with a toy, I say "Ouch! Please don't do that, it hurts!" She then gets the most evil grin on her face and it becomes her MISSION to do the thing that hurts me as much as possible for the rest of the day. What do I do?!
Sincerely,
Bruised
Dear Bruised,
I’ll tell you what to do. Go get yourself an ice pack. And then hold it against your aching head while you read on, because I have good news: Your kid’s antics are not a sign that she’s on the express train to the penitentiary. Little kids hit their parents for so many reasons, and it’s actually quite normal.
In a minute, I’m going to get into the many reasons kids hit, but here’s an important underlying factor: They have a poorly developed frontal lobe, the part of the brain that’s responsible for controlling impulses. “They are able to understand that hitting is not okay, they are able to tell you that hitting is not okay — and then five minutes later, they hit you,” said clinical psychologist Rebecca Schrag Hershberg, the author of The Tantrum Survival Guide. They can talk the talk, because their verbal skills are often fairly advanced by the age of three or four, but they can’t actually walk the walk and control their impulses like they promised they would. Damn those kids and their lack of follow-through.
But in all seriousness: Parents grossly overestimate their kids’ skills in this area. In a 2016 survey, the Zero to Three Foundation asked parents when they think kids have the impulse control needed to resist the desire to do forbidden things. More than half of parents — 56 percent — said they expect kids to have this skill by the age of three. Ha! This skill doesn’t even start developing until the age of three-and-a-half or four — and it takes a lot more time before kids can tap into it consistently. Here are some things to keep in mind about hitting — and some ideas for how to handle it when it arises.