Temper in a 18 Month

I am looking forward to reading your answers, as I have a rowdy one of my own. My son is the same age, and when he gets the idea that he should be able to hold or play with something, or be able to get down and walk/run around, and you don't let him? Look out! He SCREAMS, cries, smacks us in the face, squirms and pushes us away, and head butts. Needless to say, he is no longer allowed to go to the store with us. We have not tried time outs, because I really don't think that it would be effective because I don't think he would understand. Also, I don't have a place to put him that isn't used for something else (sleeping, eating, etc.) and I don't want him to associate say, his high chair, with entrapment because I want him to want to sit there to eat. I like your pack and play idea, if I only had the extra room to do that.

Anyway, you are not alone. I strongly suspect that this is age related, and I really, really hope it does not last long. Good luck to you!!

If you are holding him and he hits you, firmly grab his hand, look in his face and say "no hit" and put him down and walk away. If you do that a couple of times he will get it. Mine went through this as well. Its what they do at this age!! The boy would hit his head against the wall. I just looked at him and said "that's going to hurt you" and I would walk away. It would drive me NUT but he was doing it for the attention. You take the attention away and they get nothing from the behavior. Good luck!!! They should come with instructions!!!!

I just want to let you know that I don't have any advice for you but I am going through the same thing with my 18 month old son. Everyday is a battle with him. He is biting and hitting constantly. My 3 yr old daughter has bruises all over her arms from him biting her and he also bites our puppy. Any L. thing will set him off and we rarely have nice, happy moments with him. I am actually a L. worried because of the amount of anger he seems to have, so on his 18 month check up, I am going to talk to the doctor. The ONLY time that I can really hug, hold, kiss him and have a normal interaction with him is before naps and bedtime. I take him to his room and sit him on my lap to read books and then I sing to him and it is so wonderful. He is so gentle and cuddly and I wish that he could be that way a L. more. I will say that I don't try to insist too much that he kiss me or hug me. By nature I am not a touchy person and I try to respect that he may be that way too. Maybe your son is the same. I'll be watching your post to see the responses you get. Hang in there!

Why does he have to give you a "sorry kiss?" I think you should do what you are suggesting, put him in the pack and play for two minutes, but just let him out when he calms down, not when he kisses you - that's not relevant to the situation. Don't make him give you a kiss -- that giving him the wrong message about kisses. It's not about you.

Is everything okay in your home? Some hitting by 18 month olds is normal, and I don't think it's anything to freak out about, but it sounds like this is a little more than the normal 18 month old hitting.

If everything is okay at home, and he is not mimicking the rage of other people, then I'd say yes, time out in the pack and play.

you have got to get yourself under control. there is no way you can teach a tiny calmness and control when you are losing it, screaming and slapping him. i'm not saying that to beat you up. we all have our moments. but it sounds as if this little fellow is sensitive to your moods and responding directly to you (thank you, pregnancy hormones!) and by feeding into it, you are reinforcing his lack of control. this is very scary to a tiny fellow this age.
ignoring him isn't the answer either. he has got to know that you hear and respond to his needs, or he gets overwhelmed with terror. there is a big middle ground between shutting him out and responding with the same lack of control that he has.
he's not even 2. you really can't expect him to have figured it all out, or to respond logically to your extremes of handling him.
when you tell him no, do it calmly. if he freaks out, stay close to him but don't hit, yell at, hug or pick him up. when he hits you, take his hand, look him in the eye and say 'NO HITTING.' do NOT yell it. say it calmly. do it over and over. you will have to repeat this many many times, and that's just how it is. you're a mom, you need to learn how to handle repetition. you can't just expect a tiny fellow to have developed better coping techniques. you have to teach these to him.
give him words. he's too small to have them himself. 'you are angry because i won't let you have a cookie, aren't you? i understand. let's play with your trucks until it's snack time.' 'i know you want to hit me but you may not. hitting hurts mommy. you may hit your pillow if you need to hit.'
keep these longer explanations for when he's calmer. when he's in meltdown, he won't understand lengthy rationalizations. NO HITTING is sufficient.
just shoving him into another room isn't the right thing for this stage of his development either. he's so young. he is freaking out and needs his mom. time-outs will work better when he's older.
don't expect a furious baby to kiss you. would you want to?
the idea isn't to 'control' him, it's to teach him how to control himself. if you can't do it, you can't expect him to. model the behavior you want your children to learn.
khairete
S.

The pack and play is a good idea, but I don't think you can expect a "sorry" kiss from a rowdy 18 month old. Either he won't get the idea, or if he does, it's too hard on his pride since this is all about the beginnings of control and autonomy - and in a good way. All our kids need to have control over some aspects of their world and he's trying to figure out what's appropriate and what's not. Hitting someone else is not. So, as hard as it is, be as dispassionate as possible - keep your emotion out of it. He hits, pick him up put him in pack and play, tell him he must stay for 2 minutes because it's not OK to hit - no other conversation - walk away. When you come back, just say "you had a time out because you hit mommy and we don't hit". If he's calm pick him up and let him go about his business, if he hasn't calmed down, tell him he must stay until he calms down. Don't engage in long conversations or negotiations during this process. In a few months he should be able to say he's sorry before you let him out.

You can discipline this and it will stop. There is no need for anger, this is just what kids do. I had three try it at this age, and it's easy to teach it's not allowed. Calmly. You shouldn't "strike back" angrily, because that shows you are retaliating. You're teaching him not to do something, not having a "fight".

Give him a calm warning the next time, like "no" When he hits again-or is about to, and give him an immediate CALM but firm swat on the butt if he decides to hit. Sometimes a swat on the hand will work since that's what he used to hit, but it's more effective on gentle little girls than spirited, driven boys.

Hitting is serious, and if you dont' want your child to do it, you need to be firm to be effective quickly. Repeat every time he does it (which won't be many times). He has impulse control at this age, he just needs to know what he can get away with, and he's too young for talking (screaming is never good for teaching) and time outs to click. Be a momma bear nipping a cub to teach he cannot hit, not an angry person.