Sustainable Parenting | Raising Confident Kids with Positive Parenting Strategies

129. Playdates Without Panic: 3 Steps to Solve Hitting, Scratching or Grabbing.

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Today we explore why toddlers hit, bite, and grab at playdates and how to respond without shame or panic...and with tools that will shift the behavior for real!

Did you know - these challenging child behaviors are VERY common in the early years of development?! 

Research shows that these behaviors are actually very common in early childhood. Studies find that between 26% and 70% of toddlers show some form of physical aggression — hitting, biting, pushing, or scratching — depending on how it’s measured.  And in real-life parent reports, around 50–60% of children ages 1-3 hit or lash out at least occasionally when frustrated.

So first off.. not need to think you are failing or raising a psychopath. 

When your child hits, spits, or scratches at a playdate, it can feel mortifying — but these moments are actually powerful teaching opportunities. 

In this episode, I'll share 3 Playdate Reset Tips, including:

  • How to remember what really matters, 
  • How to teach your child the new behaviors in a way that will finally STICK.
  • How to get the end results of more FUN and EASY playdates, without any amount of panic.


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SPEAKER_00:

Today we're talking about one of the hardest moments in parenting when your child hits, bits, scratches another kid at a play date, and you feel your heart sink, your cheeks flush with embarrassment. Before we go into what to do, I want you to know you are not alone. Research shows that aggressive moments like hitting, scratching, grabbing happen between the ages of one to three, somewhere between 26 to 70% of children. And from parental report, it's more like 50 to 60% of toddlers doing these types of behaviors are young children. It's not because they're bad, it's because they're lacking impulse control, emotion regulation, and the skills of how to express themselves and get their needs met. Before you leave today, you'll know three clear steps that really prepare you to not have to be anxious going into a play date and start to see changes in your child's behavior. We're gonna give you what to say to the other parent and how to use these moments as learning opportunities that strengthen your child in the long run and make life easier for you in the long run. So let's get into it. I'm Flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach, and early childhood mental health consultant with almost 20 years' experience working with families like yours to get out of frequent battles with your child and possibly then leading into battles with your partner over who is being more soft or who is being more scary, and into a place where you feel like that calm, confident mom you always wanted to be, and you and your partner are on an awesome team of parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time. Before we jump in, I want to highlight our listener of the week, Rachel Joy, who said, I'm really enjoying these podcasts. I know I will be listening in each week. I feel encouraged and ready to take on tough things to make our family life smoother. I love how Flora cares about families and genuinely wants to help. She never looks down on us when we share parenting struggles. I've been learning that I can be kind and firm at the same time. Like I love you, and the answer is no. It's something that's really been added to my vocabulary. Thanks so much, Rachel. I appreciate you sharing that. And friend, as you're listening, if this touches you, share it with a friend. Like it with five stars and leave a comment, or also subscribe so that you don't miss anything in the future. Tip number one, as you are preparing for a play date, remember what matters. Remember what matters. Let me just say, when we go on a play date, we crave adult conversation. We got our coffee, our friend, maybe even we a few blissful moments where the kids are playing nicely together. That's what we go into the play date wanting. But if we're talking with our buddy and then whack, someone hits, spits, screams, grabs, your chest tightens, your stomach drops. There's a wave of embarrassment and a wave of like, oh, like, please, no, don't ruin this for me. And in that moment, we may be so tempted to want to ignore the situation, thinking that maybe it'll just go away, or maybe we can just quickly make a comment, say that's not okay, honey, and then move on because we don't want to leave. I've been there. I remember a play date that lasted three minutes and I was a stay-at-home mom. I needed that time so badly with that friend. And it was frustrating that I had to scoop my child up and follow through with the three steps I'm giving you today. But doing so made all the difference so I could stop suffering in circles. I had to suffer with a purpose. Hear that again, friend. This is a phrase we say a lot here at sustainable parenting. So that we can parent without constant power struggles that lead to us yelling. Sometimes we got to suffer with a purpose so we can stop suffering in circles. So here's the truth. I want to encourage you to focus on what matters, which is the big win, not the quick win. The quick win might be, oh, I want to enjoy this coffee and my friend. The big win is I want to be consistent about this behavior so that it can stop. What does that look like? Tip two and tip three. First, you're gonna prepare yourself with that mindset. You know what? I've got to do the steps that Flora's giving me. I am gonna do that because it matters. So I can start having more playdates that are enjoyable, even if in this one play date it's not so enjoyable. Tip two is I want you to teach by teaching, not by correcting. If you have a child that is regularly hit, scratched, or grabbed, that means they don't know what else to do when they are frustrated, angry, or looking for connection with another child. It could be any one of those three. So let's practice. Spend some time outside of the moment to practice what it looks like to handle your anger, your need for connection. You know, for kid language, we would say wanting to play with a friend in a way that is safe for people, places, and things. Hey buddy, let's practice. If I have this toy and you want it, what can you do? Even with little kids, they can say, turn, please. You could teach them that little script. With older kids, you could say, you know, if it's a younger kid, you can go grab a small toy and offer to trade. That often will work if you're interested in something. Or you can use more language about, you know, can I go next? Something like that. Or hey, want to play? Just giving them a simple script and then practice it. This is a uh three-part thing I like to think of called teach, practice, praise. Teach them what else they can do, practice it with them with some role play. This is the most common thing that gets left out when parents are trying to do a lot of positive parenting and teaching their kid how to be that respectful, responsible child. They they forget, oh yeah. It's like if I wanted my kid to make a goal in a soccer game, I wouldn't just explain soccer and then put them in the game and hope they did well. I would be getting out there with a soccer ball, kicking it around, practicing, get some cones or sweatshirts and uh, you know, two lumps so that we have a goal we're kicking between, and we would practice. So, same when we're teaching social skills. Find some way to role play with their stuffies, role play with you being the child that is needing to make this wise choice, role play then maybe with them being the child, role play between you and your partner having this sort of interaction where one wants something and the other has it. Um, role play, practice. And then third part, praise. Teach, practice, praise, catch them when they're doing that behavior. This is one of the hardest ones. You know, often we teach the behavior and then we're just so glad when they finally are playing well that we just want to tune out and focus on the conversation with a friend. But if you see a child then on a play date, go up and say, Turn, please. We want to be like, yes, Jason, oh my gosh, look at you. Are you like almost 10? You know, give it some feedback. Part three is then we need to be prepared to follow through with two roads. When I say two roads, what I mean is we want to be clear with the child, kind of a picture of the happy road, happy result, sad road, sad result. Those are the two roads. We have a situation, we have a feeling or an interest, and we can either take the road that is a happy choice leading to happy results, or sad choices that lead to sad results. Now hear me clearly. We're talking choices and results. We're not talking a good or bad kid. We're not saying when you are good versus when you are bad at the play date, when you are nice versus mean. We are keeping character entirely out of this because my belief as someone who values attachment parenting and the principles that are deeply true in gentle parenting, I value that we want to honor to our kids that they are always good. They are always wonderful, nice, kind people in their hearts. That's what I believe. And so we don't ever want our words to be about can you be nice or please, you know, be nice at this play date. They are nice. That's who they are in their being. What we are saying is if you choose happy choices, that will lead to happy results, sad choices, sad results. If you want like a visual for this, I'm gonna put one in the show notes so that you can easily have it. So happy road would be if you choose to do the things that we've talked about. When you want to share, you do this, we are gonna be able to play, stay at this play date all the way to the end and enjoy the most out of the time. Sad road would be if we make a sad choice about what to do when we want a toy or when we're feeling frustrated that hurts people, places, or things, we are going to take a break. And if we need to, we're gonna take care of what has happened. We're gonna make it right. And friend, if you want more on this topic, check out episode 33, where I talk about why I think forced apologies are not what's really necessary. And if you want to dig even deeper, our recent episode 123 really went into why forced apologies are pretty worthless. Okay, so we're gonna make it right instead of just forced apologies. We're gonna take a little break if our body needs to take a break and get better at being a good boss of our body. If we have hurt someone, people, places, or things, we are going to take care of that. And this is the moment I want to really give you what to say to the other parent. I encourage you to normalize. This is something that my child is working on. Thank you so much for understanding that. And we fully intend to make it right. We want to go get a wet washcloth and some water to help her wipe the sand out of her eyes if we need to do so. Always taking that sort of responsibility. It's not about shaming or blaming a child, it's about ownership, which is a key part of my three-tiered program of how I help parents know what to do and when to do it in the chaos that feels like a jumble ball of yarn of parenting. And that is the section we talk about how we clearly make sure our child is getting ownership of their choices without shame or blame. So, friend, that's part three is with the happy road, sad road, understanding two roads. We are gonna follow through with our child. They make wonderful choices. We are going to praise that and catch it, like I talked about in point two. Oh my gosh, wow, you made so many wonderful choices and connect the dots for them, how it affects them in terms of happy results. Wasn't it so fun to get to stay at this whole play date and have a whole 45 minutes with our friends? If they choose sad choices, we also want to make sure we follow through. That comes back to point number one. If we have to leave three minutes into the play date because of them hitting, you know, they took a break, didn't get better, they hit once again. That's what we're gonna do. And we are not gonna shame and blame, but we're gonna say, you know, I bet you'll make a different choice next time. It's one of my favorite phrases when a child is upset when we follow through. And friend, if you're wanting more help with that, you're like, oh gosh, I have so many questions on that. What if my child this? What if they say that? That is what I love to help people do in parent coaching. And there's an easy link in the description of this episode of how you can set up a time with me to either just connect shortly or 15 minutes to see if we're a good fit or to have a three-session package. All right, friend, that's it for today. And please join us again next week as I give you my top number one strategy to end the day with a constructive plan for tomorrow instead of swimming in guilt and questioning and overanalyzing of the day.