Here's a laugh! Apparently my 8 month old is a "typical only child"

@nw82 This is true! Stressors are also a huge factor.

Parenting is a big part in my example specifically, though. The mom of the hitter spanks, does time outs very liberally, makes the kid apologize before he is ready, etc. I have no doubt she loves him, but she had a poor example growing up. She is doing so much better for her kids than her parents did for her, but you still hate to see it.

The other parent is much more gentle and respectful, and at the same time has better boundaries.
 
@naturalgraham4 My kid is also a hitter, more so of me than other kids though 😅 and I don’t do any of those things. No time outs, no spanking, I try to follow respectful parenting, but I’m kind of at the point where I’m worried the lack of punishment means he knows he can get away with hitting.
 
@nw82 Have you ever looked into Janet Lansbury’s podcast Unruffled? She has great insight with hitting but is not a punishing parent. She says if your child is hitting the parent and no one else they are pushing at your boundaries, testing them. Sometimes this means they need you to be more consistent, other times it means you are doing everything right and they are decompressing.

I started asserting more boundaries after listening to her podcast and my child shifted from an arguer to a hitter. In my case this actually indicated my daughter was beginning to understand I was in control, but she rebelled against it. That was healthy and a sign of progress! Now that she is more used to boundaries the hitting has calmed down.

Janet says a good response to hitting is to not let them by holding the hitting hand, and to affirm the emotion the child feels while letting them know you can’t allow hitting.

Maybe you are doing everything just right, which is why your child hits at you. That shows he is comfortable emoting to you! But if you want guidance on boundaries while not punishing, I would seriously check out that podcast! She also has two books that I am sure are great but I haven’t read.
 
@naturalgraham4 Yes, I’ve listened to her podcast, and read no bad kids. I’ve also read how to talk to little kids. In how to talk, anyway, most of the examples are around hitting siblings, so that’s not helpful, but I do remember Janet’s advice and have grabbed his arm when he’s tried to hit, reaffirmed his feelings, told him I can’t let him hit me, blah blah and it doesn’t matter.

Also that style of parenting is completely unnatural to me and my husband laughs at me when I go into the whole “I can see you’re very [emotion] right now” so my son also probably knows I’m a huge fraud about it which doesn’t help 🤣🤣🤣
 
@naturalgraham4 No, I know it wasn’t your intention and was more an issue with that kid/his mom than any blanket statement. A lot of times it really does just come down to that kiddos temperament.

Either way, lots of 2 year olds suck at sharing, so it wasn’t fair for the teacher to blame it on his only child status.
 
@nw82 The toddler years are just plain hard. The big and seemingly unpredictable emotions are hard. The hardest part though is trusting and believing that validating their feelings produces long term results. Holding space and validating the emotions doesn’t often produce short term results which can make people think it’s lame and not worth it. It seems dumb in the moment but it really is the foundation of a person’s ability to be resilient and emotionally stable. And for a lot of us adults, we didn’t receive that kind of care so it doesn’t seem natural or right but I am in therapy for that exact reason- learning to validate my feelings because my parents did not. It’s everything.
 
@chucara My limited experience reflects this, too. My theory is that only children aren't made to share, so they only share when they want to, and have positive associations with it. Whereas kids with siblings are more likely to associate "sharing" with "parents taking away the thing I wanted to play with and giving it to someone else".

My kid loves sharing: it means there's another kid around to play with!
 
@naturalgraham4 I try to share stuff with my kid, either I will offer him a toy to share or I’ll ask him if he will let me share something that he’s playing with. I think that eventually he will understand the concept and practice it in other settings.
 
@nw82 As a person who works in preschool - that’s absolute BS. All 2.5 year olds suck at sharing, because that’s developmentally appropriate! Majority of them are still just parallel playing at that point so they’re not even working towards a common “goal” in games/centers so of course they’re going to take or want to keep the toys they want.
 
@anonymous95 I’m not saying babies have no personality but they are certainly nowhere near who they will become. At 8 months, a lot of them can’t even crawl yet, they can’t communicate, and they’re barely eating much beyond milk/formula. FFS they don’t even know their name yet 😂So what about their personality is “typical only child”?
 
@anonymous95 Even if your son was a second child he would still be him in that he’s 8 months old :0… it’s shocking how people think having siblings somehow affects your personality as a baby! That’s crazy
 
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