Kids Hitting (Why Gentle Hands Often Fails)

Before we get into the episode, we wanted to let you know there will be a limited time Mother's Day sale on the bootcamp parenting courses starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Wednesday, May 6th, 2026. If you want to know more, visit bratbusters.com. Please note this discount will be exclusive to the bootcamps and will not apply to coaching services. They're born to give it a go. It's your job to get them out of that habit because it can become like muscle memory. They get used to doing it. It doesn't mean they're evil. They just are kids who like to use their bodies. It's hard because when one hits the other, the other one retaliates immediately before I can get there and give a consequence. How do I deal with it when they hit each other back and forth? I would say, okay, I'll tell you what, I'm going to do a little interview here and I'm going to give you each two minutes to tell me your side of the story. And then what are your thoughts around the use of phrases such as like gentle hands? What's the point? They're not listening. They're not listening to that. Does that ever help ever? Welcome to the Brat Busters Parenting Podcast. My name is Lisa Bunnage. I'm a parenting coach. I'm a mom. I'm also a grandmother. And I'm Amy Bunnage, Lisa's daughter, and I handle the marketing and planning here at Brat Busters. While I don't have kids, each episode will dive into parenting topics and Lisa will answer your questions. Let's get started. Okay, sweetie. What are we talking about today? Today's topic is all about kids hitting. Oh, okay. Very popular topic. I think let's start out. Does your reaction to this as a parent matter? Yeah, I can. But I mean, kids are either born to hit or they're never going to hit. Okay. So it's in their nature, but by the time they're about two and a half to three, you should be able to train them out of it, basically. But yeah, let's just move on from that. I think your reaction has something to do with it. Oh, geez. That's a really long answer because it could go in so many different directions. Okay. Do you think that the reaction causes it? No, not at all. No. What do you think generally causes it? Like I said, they're either born with that nature in them to hit and lash out at other people or they're not. It's just something that they're born with. It's like running, climbing, and tantrums. Those are four things I believe they're born with. Because I've worked with so many kids and babies and all that. And you can just see it when they're little. They're just born to do these things. Some of them hit, some of them never hit. Do you find that typically a kid will start hitting, like if they're going to hit, do you find that they tend to do it in childhood? Oh yeah. Even when they're babies, they'll hit during breastfeeding sometimes. That kid who reaches out and hits you in the face is just, so yeah, they can start and when they're babies. So it's just a basic nature thing. They'll just give it a go. But it's your job to train them out of that. It's not your fault that they do it usually. I don't think you can cause children hitting unless there's bigger stuff going on in the house. I'm just talking generally. It's a basic nature thing, I believe. And it's funny because we were just talking about that and now it's coming up now. But anyway, I do believe it's in their basic nature. They're going to give it a go, but it is your job to train them out of that. It doesn't mean that they're evil. It just means they're more physical. They might be the kids who are really good basketball players or something. They're just more inclined to use their bodies. Really good at like badminton or pickleball. Yeah, there you go. So that might be the start of it. Oh, I knew he was going to be great at tennis because he used to hit me when I was breastfeeding. And then what are your thoughts around the use of phrases such as like gentle hands? What's the point? They're not listening. They're not listening to that. Does that ever help? Ever? Unless you've got a super, super easy kid, but that's very rare. It's the actions, it's the consequences that work. It's not the lectures. Yeah, these lectures are kind of driving nuts because they're so overused. They're so inappropriately used. It's ridiculous. I think that whenever you've mentioned that, some parents do say that that phrase has been supportive for their kids. Could be, but you might just say no, and that's all it took. Right? It's not the gentle hands. It's the no. I've worked with kids who will try and hit, and they'll just go, no, and that'll be it. Then they won't even hit again. It's not the words gentle hands. It's the, you're insinuating, don't do it. So they're just super easy kids. No matter what you say, they're going to not, it's just the word gentle hands. They're not listening. So how would you approach this then? Let's say for the toddler age, which you consider to be 16 to 35 months. Yeah, I use consistent corrective actions. If they hit, I just say no. And then I remove them from the fun or fun from them, or I hold their hands if they're hitting, I'll just say no, and I'll hold their hands. But then I just sort of look away and just hold them for 30 seconds or so. Let go if they try to hit again. I don't let them continue to hit. If they go to hit again, I grab their hands again and just say no. And I might get up and sort of wander away and do dishes or something just look distracted. But yeah, they will learn that something negative comes out of it. Like they'll get ignored or they'll lose a toy or whatever. So they got, they got to be quick with that. It's not words, it's actions with toddlers. Okay. And then as far as kids who are three and older, how do you approach it then? I put it on a behavior board. I say no hitting or no aggressive behavior, because sometimes if you put no hitting, they'll start kicking or spitting or slapping. So you just say no aggressive behavior, or you can put no hitting if you want. But anyway, and you put that on the board and then if they hit, there's a consequence. It's their choice. Consequences are all their choice. They don't have to break the rule. The behavior board's free. It's on my website, brapusters.com. Do you want to just get right into the questions then? I think that's a good idea. It's a pretty straightforward topic, to be honest. Okay, the first one is Claudia. I have a five year old boy and a six year old half year old boy who act like they are twins. When we were out in public, they usually are well-behaved and very well-behaved at school. They can get a little crazy, especially when they egg each other on at home. I'm currently working on my leadership skills and trying to implement consequences, but I'm having a hard time when they hit. It's hard because when one hits the other, the other one retaliates immediately before I can get there and give a consequence. How do I deal with it when they hit each other back and forth? What kind of consequence can I do and how do I implement those when it's back and forth? To add to this question, as I give a consequence, they always end up blaming each other or lying about hitting. How do I handle that? Okay, you got to get to the bottom of it. Do the interview and say, because they're old enough, they're five and six. I would say, okay, I'll tell you what, I'm going to do a little interview here and I'm going to give you each two minutes to tell me your side of the story. Start with the one who's most likely to interrupt or you can start with the older one, whatever, because you don't want them to interrupt. They do interrupt, say you'll get your turn just a minute. So anyway, you let them tell and you write it all down like an interview, like you're a detective and you write it down bullet points, no opinions, no just say, oh, and then what happened? Then what happened? Then what happened? Okay. And then say, oh, two minutes is up. Now it's your turn. Write it down and compare notes. If you can't tell who was who started it. I go after the one who starts it and also the one who finishes it. So if one starts it, I'll go after them. And then if the other one finishes it by hitting, I'll go after them also and they'll each get a consequence. If one just started it and then complain that the other one started it, but they didn't finish it, I would just go with the one who started it. So often the parents go after the wrong kid. They just go after the hitter. They don't go after the one who went, you know, started it, right? If you really can't figure out what happened, you say, I'll tell you what, let's do that. Let's give you another minute each. If you give them another chance to tell the story, a lie changes, the truth never changes, or you can even do it like an hour or two later and say, you know what, we're going to do another interview in about an hour from now, just because I'm not sure what happened here. The truth never changes, but lies will often change. They almost always will just little things. They might buff up the truth a little bit, but it doesn't change. So yeah, just start there and then say, I've decided that you started it, so you're going to get a consequence, but you hit him. So you're going to have to get one too. Next time if he starts something, just go in your room or walk away from him. Okay. Or you can even come to me if it's something bad, you know, but yeah, you got to get to the bottom of that. You got to figure out who's causing all the problems. If they really can't get along, you put a line down the middle of the room. That's not true. You put two lines down the middle of the room, a foot apart, you get some painter's tape, and you just decide, okay, we're going to put half the toys on this side of the room, the other half on the other half of the room. And then you say, and you're going to flip a coin to see who gets what half first, because there's usually a better half that they're both fighting over. So they each get like 10 minutes or an hour on each half, whatever it is. But you put two lines down the middle of the room and they should be a foot apart. They can fight over one line, but it's hard to fight over two lines that are a foot up, like a whole foot that's aligned. See what I mean? It makes it harder for them to fight over that line. So just say, okay, timer went off, now you switch sides. They'll get so sick of the interviews, so sick of the lines down the middle of the room, they'll learn how to get along. You want to look like you know what you're doing. Just you're going to get to the bottom of this. You got solutions. You're a leader. You're going to figure this out. You know one of my favorite ways of approaching kids when they're naughty. I like to start with this. I'll tell you what we'll do. Kids tend to listen to that. Also, it calms you down, right? I'll tell you what we're going to do here. Here's my idea. We're going to put these lines down the middle. You see how I'm talking? Like I'm a problem solver. I'll Are your kids driving you nuts? They don't have to. Check out bratbusters.com for my boot camp courses if you want to learn how to become a leader. You're a note. Okay, the next one is Aaron from Canada. Al Tother just turned two and he has started his ear piercing scream when he does something and it doesn't go his way. Sometimes he starts to hit or pull hair. Only does the hitting or hair pulling to mom. Oh, okay. They only do, you know, what sort of gets attention. So I would just make sure you, you know, he's going to do it. So you just, you can make sure that he can't get to your hair. Why is he getting access to your hair? I don't understand that. If you know he's a hair pull or why are you leaning over and giving it to him? Like you got to be presenting your hair for him to pull. So I would just make it harder for it to him to get to it. And if he starts screaming, I just say, you're all right. And I ignore all that screaming. There's not much you can do about it. They don't get attention while they're screaming though. As soon as he stops, then you got to go in with attention and say, Oh, you want to go read a book? He will eventually put it together. Screaming gets ignored at, you know, not screaming. I might get attention, but I certainly won't get it when I'm screaming. It'll take a while though. It's not going to happen overnight. Three to six weeks, I'm guessing. I think a lot of parents ask this question regarding if their toddler is hitting them because you always talk about remove them from the fun or the fun from them. And they're like, what if I'm not doing anything specifically fun? Yeah, but you can move yourself. Like you can make, he can't get access to your hair or anything. You can just, and look like you're just distracted. Like you're doing dishes. Don't go on your phone, don't get into a conversation. If it's a real heightened time, he's screaming, he's having a fit. You're just nearby, but you're like maybe flipping through a magazine or something. Just look like you're distracted. But as soon as he talks nice or just stop screaming, then you go, Oh, you want to go read a book? You see, he will put it together. Not right away though. He's little. What if they start chasing you to hit you? Well, then I prevented, I grabbed their hands and I say no. And then I just hold their hands and don't let them hit, but I don't look at them. I just say no. And then I hold their hands and then I let go, but I don't let them get subsequent hits in. If I know they're going to go for another hit, I grab their hands before they can hit me. They get used to doing it. You don't want it to become like muscle memory where they get comfortable hitting you. So yeah, after that first hit, I don't let them get another one in. I'm guessing gently though. Well, of course you just hold their hands so they can't hit you and then let go, only hold them for maybe a minute or so. Let go if they start up again, grab their hands again. If you look angry, none of this works. You never want to look angry, disappointed or frustrated as a parent. Those are, you just don't want to. You treat all this discipline like it's, I'm going to fix this. Yeah, I know what I'm doing. You don't have to go, ah, but sort of that attitude. It's like a business transaction. No big deal. You could almost yawn when you're doing it. The more relaxed, you look the better it works. Put on your cucumbers, wrap your hair in a towel. Well, you can't see anything if you've got cucumbers on your eyes. But anyway, but you know what I mean? You try and look like, yeah, okay, well, here's what we're going to do. Now I'm going to hold your hands if you're going to hit. I wouldn't say that. I'd just say no. But yeah, just try and look relaxed. Fake it till you make it. Didn't you used to pretend that you could see from the back of your head? Well, that was, I might get my story mixed up here. I thought it was a little girl. I'm pretty sure it was a little girl. There was a situation at school, brand new parents arrived at the school. They had this little girl. They'd had a family emergency, so they couldn't pick her up at school. Well, I was a volunteer there. I was there every day. So they said, well, look, we've got this mom who lives near where you live. So she can take your daughter home. I hadn't met them, but they said she's got police clearance and everything. Right. So anyway, she said, sure. So I had this little girl in the car. Boy, was she a handful. She was whining and hitting my kids. And she was old. They were only like five or something. Anyway, she was in the middle seat in the back. And I said, I saw that. And then she goes, no, you didn't. And because she could see in the mirror, I couldn't see her because she was looking down. And I said, yeah, I did. But I could see in the passenger mirror that I'd pulled down, you know, they have that little mirror in the passenger seat. I had pulled that down and I could see what she was doing. But what I did was I put my sunglasses in the back of my head and I said, yeah, I can see you. She was so, she was so good for me for the rest of the day. She was convinced I had these magic powers. I love stuff like that. Yeah, she was great with me. Okay. The next one is Shaila from Ireland. Four year old and one year old. A four year old is hitting, calling names, looking to take control in the last two months. He has in those two months stopped napping and realized he can come down to mommy and daddy's room at night. Oh, well, then you just walk him back to bed. You say, no, you stay in bed and you walk him back. The second time you do it, you just say bedtime. And then every time after that, you walk him back to bed without saying anything or looking at him. You just walk him back to bed. He's going to be having a fit. You just one body part has to touch that bed. You don't have to tuck him in. Of course, you can't because he's going to be kicking and screaming. You just keep walking him back to bed, walking him back to bed. You're letting him know that he can't get away with this. I'm assuming he's, he's kind of exercising his power because he's got a little, little sibling and maybe he's a little bit jealous. Maybe things are shaken up. Maybe you're a little bit weaker because you're more tired. He's taking advantage of that. I don't know. But bedtime is a really good way to exercise leadership. So if he is coming out of bed in the middle of the night, you just keep walking him back, walking him back, walk, you should be able to outdo him. He's only four. He should fall asleep before you get tired of walking him back. The next one is Chloe from the United Kingdom, three and a half year old boy and 16 month old girl. About two months ago, I started listening to your podcast and I've just finished the seven day calm leadership parenting series. Super helpful. The problems I'm having are with my boy. He's very strong willed and independent and is my quote unquote tough kid. I'm starting the behavior boards soon with shoes away within five minutes of arriving home. Do I remind him when we walk through the door or would that be classed as micromanaging? Or do I just let him forget and hand out a consequence? I also wanted to ask how you would handle hyperactivity at home. There's times when I'm either busy or doing the bedtime routine and he will get hyperactive jumping on the sofa, running away, hitting and screening. I don't show my face that I'm annoyed or angry. I just follow through with what needs to be done. In these moments, nothing will snap him out of it. And in the past, I've threatened to take away screen time, which I now know is not the way to go about it. Is this behavior due to my current lack of leadership or is there something else I should be doing when this happens? Maybe it's cause I'm old, but we're going to have to do one question at a time in future because I can't remember the first one now. The first one was about the consequence. Oh, five minutes. Okay. So what, what she's referring to is the rule is put your shoes and jacket away or whatever, uh, in a very designated specific spot. So you can literally use painter's tape and tape off a little square on the floor where their shoes have to go. Everything's got to be crystal clear. So they can't argue it. Right? So you say within five minutes of arriving home, you do remind them what you do is you say, now he's still really little, by the way. So you say, on your way home, you say, remember the new rule, put your shoes away. And then as soon as, and within five minutes, as soon as you get in the house, and you can do a dry run of this and show them how it's done, as soon as you get in the front door, you say, okay, the five minutes starts now. That's how you remind them. You don't tell them what to do because he already knows what to do. Okay. So you do remind them by saying in the car, just before you get home, you remind them. But then when you get in the house, you remind them you started the timer. Now you can say, four more minutes. Don't say to put your shoes away. Okay. You just say three more minutes. Oh, one more minute. Ding, ding, ding. Okay. Let's go to the board. Okay. You didn't put your shoes away. Now he may run and do it now. It's too late. It's, you know, too late because the alarm went off. So here's your consequence. So yeah, you are reminding them, but you're not telling them what to do. You're just reminding them the timer, right? You're a timekeeper and you'd be near where the shoe should be put away. You always want to be near where they need to be doing something, but you don't micromanage. And then for the bedtime routine or when they're busy and then getting hyperactive by jumping on the sofa. Oh, the hyperactivity. Yeah. I don't, I, you're going to get mad at me for mentioning this because it's a safety issue, but you know, anything that can wear him out like those little mini trampolines, make sure it's got the bar and it's safe, whatever is safe. You got to let, you got to give them an outlet. Okay. You got to give them something to do because a lot of parents just expect a hyperactive kid to sit in color. They can't always do that. By the way, you can never wear out an hyperactive kid. They're always going to hyper, they're always going to out, out hyper you. So yeah, you have to have something physical for him to do. Look it up. Look up safe act, active things to do in the house with three year olds. There's lots of stuff out there that, you know, new stuff I might not know about. So yeah, anything physical that's safe that he can do indoors. Those little mini trampolines are quite popular. Make sure you get the bar, the safe thing, get all the safety features. But yeah, something where he can work off as busy. If he's jumping on the couch, maybe he can be jumping on trampoline. Okay. The next, well, the final question is Laura from Australia. I have two boys, eight year old and 10 year old, who have intense rivalry and fight a lot. I try to be a positive parent, but they both get jealous when I give individual time. The younger brother will often hit or break big brother's things. The older one will be bossy and win about the younger one. I don't know how to break this cycle. I know exactly what you do. You never do one on one time when they don't get along. You only, you only do time with them together. When you've got kids who have sibling rivalry or not getting along, you never do one on one time. They don't care that they just had 30 minutes and the siblings getting 30, they still hate that sibling because they're getting 30 minutes of one on one time. It builds resentment and you do things with them that is not competitive and you sit between them and you can just play, like I could just be artwork or get polymer clay or something. They're older. Get something where you're making something. Okay. Creative stuff. And then you do it with them. Get science kit, magic kits, whatever, something that's creative that you can all do together and it's not competitive. And you only do things with the two of them. I've had lots of parents who they think, well, I do one on one time. I don't know why they hate each other. They hate each other because you do one on one time. It's building resentment. I know it's not fair and reasonable because the other kid just had 30 minutes. Why does he hate a sibling? Now that he has 30 minutes, they don't care. They still hate seeing you have one on one time with the other kid that they hate right now. They love each other, but they hate each other. You get it. So you're, now there's a couple of reasons for this. One is that you're not doing one on one time, which builds resentment. The other one is you're teaching them how to get along. You're right there facilitating, doing something together, but you're in the middle, sitting the middle. Okay. And that's usually what solves it. One of the things, there's a few different things, but, or maybe one kid's teasing the other. I don't know. There might be something like that going on too that you're not aware of. Oftentimes I'm hired and I usually say to the parents, who's our target? Because he's usually one target kid. And I say, well, we'll put that in pencil because you never know that could change. Parents are often like, no, no, that's the target. Oftentimes it does change because the other one behind the parents back is poking them or you know, so you never quite know what's going on unless you're really paying attention. Okay. That was everything for the questions. Okay. So the, it was kids hitting. Yeah. They're born to give it a go. It's your job to get them out of that habit, because it can become like muscle memory. They get used to doing it. It doesn't mean they're evil. They just are kids who like to use their bodies. As I said, they might be the tennis stars of tomorrow. You don't know. So yeah, don't, don't freak out over it. Doesn't mean they're evil or demonic. Just means that they're just going to use their bodies more freely than other kids would. Okay. So I think that's it. Want to wrap it up? Okay. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back again soon talking about parenting again. Happy parenting. Thanks for tuning in. If you're ready to dive deeper, check out bratbusters.com to learn more about the behavior board, parenting courses, and private one-on-one coaching with Lisa. If you've enjoyed the show so far, we'd love it if you could take a moment to follow, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more parents just like you. The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Lisa is a parenting coach, mom, and grandmother. She is not a licensed psychologist or counselor. Her services do not replace the care of psychologists or other healthcare professionals. For a full disclaimer, please visit bratbusters.com forward slash disclaimer.