When I see my kids deliberately hurt by someone else the mama bear just comes roaring out in me. No one hurts my babies.
But what do you do if your baby hurts your other baby? How can you make them stop hitting?
The first time I saw this happen, I died a little inside.
I was in the bathroom and heard one of the twins cry out in pain. I ran into the living room, only to find my two year old stomping on his brother’s back.
And I lost it.
I screamed and hollered and removed him from his brother and set him roughly on the couch. The anger I felt towards my two year old – a little boy I loved and cherished – was unfathomable.
The mama bear came out – even against her own.
And I hated it.
That scene repeated itself many times over the next couple of years. My two year old hit. He hit when he was three. He hit when he was four. And when he turned five, he finally quit – he outgrew it, I guess.
But by then the damage had been done.
I was not able to get him to stop hitting in time, and now his twin little brothers had learned to hit – and they usually hit each other.
And guess what? Mama bear was still in there.
Every time one boy hit the other, I lost it. The anger bubbled up and boiled over. No one hurts my babies – not even my own sons.
A few months ago, I quit my part-time job and found myself as a stay-at-home mom. My first order of business: to get them to stop hitting.
I knew how to do it. I just never did it because it takes time.
How many times, as parents, do we know the appropriate tool to use, but don’t even bother, because it takes too much time out of our busy day?
Instead, I consistently told him not to hit, hoping that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t.
The other day, my 8-year-old daughter paused mid-conversation and said “Mummy, I wish we were always on the same map together.”