How to handle biting and hitting in toddlers
Young children often resort to biting, hitting, and hair-pulling out of frustration or when told no, sometimes resulting in injury. Parents dealing with these intense, defiant behaviors are left feeling exhausted and uncertain about how to respond or whether this phase will ever end.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Saying a stern no
- 2Removing hands or pulling away
- 3Trying to redirect
- 4Withdrawing attention briefly as a consequence
- 5Trying to figure out the trigger
- 6Using a crate to force the puppy to switch off and sleep
- 7Practicing collar grabs and handling
- 8Looking into help from a professional trainer and asking for advice
- 9holding boundaries
- 10roleplaying alternative scenarios
- 11looking into child psychologists
- 12maintaining consistent consequences
- 13putting him in timeouts
- 14reminding him to keep his hands to himself
- 15Going to therapy
- 16Keeping routines predictable
- 17Implementing ways to express emotions
- 18Trying to remain consistent with rules and boundaries
- 19sending disruptive students to the office
- 20having supportive administration or free staff push in to assist
- 21refusing to engage in power struggles and immediately removing the student
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am at a loss for how to help my 4 year old son.”source ↗
“This week he started preschool and it has been an absolutely nightmare... He has been pushing kids and hitting and spitting at his teachers and throwing things at them when they seperate him to calm him down.”source ↗
“How do you deal with the super defiant students who will flat out say “no”, refuse to stay in their assigned spot, refuse to stay in the “chill out chair” (basically timeout but not allowed to call it that), talk over you, try to wander the room and go where they want, hit other kids (or sometimes me), throw things, et cetera.”source ↗
“Sometimes I get so overstimulated that I know I don’t handle things the best way, and when I reflect later I have ideas that I just couldn’t think of in the moment.”source ↗
“My 18 mo when she gets told no or when she gets frustrated will just try to bite you, on occasion she will hit too or pull hair.”source ↗
“The other day she bit so hard I started bleeding”source ↗
“Parenting right now just feels like I’m in hard mode all of the time.”source ↗
“He is so strong willed. Does not listen to us at all. Is a hitter, biter, etc.”source ↗
“I am struggling to figure out what will get through to him or wondering if these challenging behaviors have an end point.”source ↗
“I just don’t know what to do.”source ↗
“I feel like I've been at my wits end with the behaviour from my 6yo. He calls me names (he's heard his dad do this), hits, kicks, screams etc.”source ↗
“None of it seems to work or help. One of the reasons I left my ex was because of how reactive he is. Now I feel like I'm turning into a reactive parent.”source ↗
“Any advice for how to parent them through separation and how to stay the firm but kind parent I want to be is appreciated.”source ↗
“Honestly I feel like a failure because I can’t get the same few kids to listen, so I think that’s part of why I haven’t.”source ↗
“However, she has recently started hitting other children at preschool.”source ↗
“Please help! I feel like it’s an impulse control issue more than a “we didn’t teach her how to act” situation, and I don’t know how to help her improve her impulse control.”source ↗
“We’re getting to the point where we feel completely overwhelmed by his behavior and don’t know how much longer we can handle it.”source ↗
“the problem is that he can be genuinely aggressive toward us.”source ↗
“he can suddenly turn on us growling, lunging, ripping at our clothes and biting.”source ↗
“for almost the entire three months we’ve had him, I’ve felt more stressed and unhappy than happy about having him.”source ↗