My daughter has always "randomly" hit for NO reason since she was walking. At first, we thought it was just developmental and learned from daycare. Then, we thought it was done because she was just frustrated. As we have watched her grow, it is neither of these things, nor lack of sleep, diet...VERY strange. She doesn't go to a traditional daycare, so it is not learned there. (She goes to a fabulous in-home daycare provider.) She is very sweet natured but has always been a little bit behind developmentally. (walked when she was 18 months, traditionally been about 3-6 months behind, really not a big deal.) She seems to be quite a normal little girl by all accounts, except for this. Oh...she will randomly bring things up that make no sense or happened days/weeks ago, but I believe that to be developmental at this age.
Does any one out there have any advice? This random hitting happens often (at least once a day) and she also throws things randomly, as well. WHen we ask her why she did that, she says, "I don't know" but does seem to remember doing it. When I say "random", it is truly that...RANDOM and for NO reason.
my daughter did this .... You might try getting her to do verbalize wht she feels. that is the onlyadvice i have
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I understand what you are saying and I have a question to you...are there any consequences for hitting? I would put her in time out for 3-4 minutes everytime she does it. The first couple days you may have to do it a lot, but eventyually she should figure out that hitting is not okay. Hope this helps.
Hi A.,
This sounds familiar to me as my middle son struggled with the same problem. He walked late, talked late, and had incidents of agression for no apparent reason even though he was a sweet boy, and would randomly bring things up that make no sense or that have nothing to do with the topic we are discussing. I took him to a phsychiatrist and was told they thought he might be autistic. Of course, he was much older by the time I finally took him so I was actually happy to know there was a diagnosis so I could try to help him.
If someone had told me he was autistic when he was younger, I would have thought they were crazy because, in my mind, autistic children were like "Rainman". Anyways, after some testing, it was determined that he is high functioning autistic.
A good book to start with (which has the test questions in it and will help you determine if you need to have your child formally tested) is "A Parent's Guide to Asperger Syndrome and High-Functioning Autism" by Sally Ozonoff, PhD, Geraldine Dawson, PhD, and James McPartland.
As far as her behavior, you could help her by telling her social stories. If you would like me to explain them to you, please feel free to email me.
Take care,
J.
I would make the spanking that follows as predictable as breathing. My youngest is developmentally delayed, too - but that hitting throwing phase lasted about 3 weeks.
S.
I would definetely speak with your pediatrician regarding this behavior. Maybe they can make a recommendation on what type of professional help might be needed in your daughter's case. If he/she thinks this is normal behavior for a child of her age, it might be more of a discipline issue. In that case, I would recommend time-out and consistent discipline if she hits. I am not sure what type of discipline you have tried up to this point. Good luck!
Hi A., you could look into seeing about hypoglycemia. My child did the same thimg at that age and it was very impulsive. I tried everything like the books said to do. After not being able to stop it I finally went the route of finding a doctor that specializes in children and ad/hd. He also happened to believe in the whole picture. He suggested I have my son tested using a glucose tolerance test. My son had to fast for so many hours and then we did this test for 6 hours. Every hour blood drawn. Horrible to have to watch, but in the end we discovered that my son had hypoglycemia (reactive...the doctor deamed it). He said that often the symptons from reactive hypoglycemia can cause irriatability which in return would end up in hitting out frustration etc. We ended up working with a nutritionist and learned that our son needed to eat slightly different. High protein/low carbs in particular. If we fed him fruit then we needed to provide a protein with that fruit. Little things like that.
My youngest daughter doesn't hit but has similare issues. She is almost 7 and finishing kindergartern. She is a foster daughter and the parents are my brother and ex-sister-in-law. As I know my brother's background, I recognized it immediately in my daughter. She has a short term memory loss combined with ADD (not ADHD). The short term memory loss means we could be sitting at the dinner table and she will suddenly ask questions or make comments about something that happened perhaps six months ago while no one had been talking about the subject or possibly even talking. She will also get mad at someone for something that happened a long time ago. It is a unique problem. Sometimes kind of freaky. Sometimes a little funny. On some level she knows because we used to ask her if she remembered doing something and she would say yes but would actually look a little blank. Or she might remember the result but lose the train of thought as to how she arrived at the resulting action. Number and letter recognition were almost impossible. We would have her memorize a letter till we thought she had it, turn the page to work on the next letter, go back and she would have forgotten the first one and truly looked at it as if it were the first time she had seen it. What we do is work with it. On the mysterious outbursts, we have learned to stay in her converation because it helps our memory skills. It helped greatly to have her repeat kindergarten. Would suggest starting early - like now - on alphabet and number flash cards. Don't worry that she can't remember. In six to eight month it will click.
Hi A....This sounds very familiar!! My son is 4 and does the same thing, but on a much more severe level. He does have Down Syndrome but that's not what causes his impulsivities. He was recently diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder. The main issues we struggle with is his impulsive throwing and pushing people that are in his "space". These kiddos (ones w/o Down Syndrome) also tend to be somewhat delayed developmentally so that would make sense. We take him to Pediatric Integrative Therapy in Plano (also one in Dallas). You could also get the book The Out of Sync child...it is great...to see if she may have any other symptoms . I also wanted to ask how you know it is not diet related? We recently started a gluten-casein free diet and I am extremely optimistic based on the extensive testimonals I have read on the subject. I know it is VERY challenging when our kids act inappropriately but sometimes there are reasons that are out of their control. I would hold off on continual punishment until you know for sure...Good Luck and let me know if you need any additional information.
I don't have "professional" answer to the issue, but we had the hitting thing going with a younger than 4 child. We tried reteaching her actions as soon as it happened. As she had just hit, we would take her hands and rub them softly over our face or arm and say something to the affect that we treat others"gently". It got to be very repetitious but it finally worked. We even saw her hit and then rub her hand over the "hit" and say "gentle". I wish I knew the source of these aggressive behaviors....as apparently in your home, she certainly didn't see them modeled. Blessings!
i have a 7-year old boy-he has now escalted and is cussing and throwing remotes-holes in walls......and cussing like a sailor-yet to no one else-i am in same boat!!!!!
