Author’s practical guidance
Hitting the little one
Source named in the book: early conscience research (Kochanska) · executive function (Diamond)
At two and three, the gap between feeling something and doing something is close to zero.
Say this now
“I won't let you hit. I'm holding your hand until it's safe.”
Describes what you are doing rather than demanding they stop. Their hand is not under their control yet; yours is.
Later, calm:
“You were so angry that your hand went fast. Next time your hand can hit the pillow.”
Gives the force somewhere to go. Telling a child not to hit without an alternative leaves the impulse with nowhere.
Do this
- Stop the hand physically first; say nothing until it is stopped.
- Tend to the younger child without making a performance of it.
- Come back to the older child within a few minutes — do not leave them alone with what they just did.
- Do the talking later, once their body has come down.
- Name what they were feeling, then name where the force can go instead.
Avoid this
- "How would you like it if I hit you?" — a thought experiment a three-year-old cannot run.
- Hitting them back to demonstrate the point.
- A long explanation delivered while everyone is still crying.
If it repeats
Repeat hitting almost always means the two of them are being left together longer than the older child can manage. Shorten the unsupervised window before working on the child.
Why the book suggests this
At two and three, the gap between feeling something and doing something is close to zero. The hand moves before any part of the child has decided anything. Knowing the rule perfectly well does not help, because the rule arrives in their mind a half-second after the hand does.
What closes that gap is not a better explanation. It is repetition, age, and — most reliably — an adult who was near enough to stop the hand before it landed. Every prevented hit teaches more than a discussion of a completed one.
From this collection
Same Words: Two Children
45 prepared situations in this family area.