Ow!

[lesliepear]

Alan came home with a bruise on his forehead tonight. Mark hadn't even noticed it.

The "incident report" read that Alan took food from another child, so the other child hit him with a toy car. Nice.
This isn't the first time Alan's taken something per an incident report. But the other child shouldn't hit him either (it's not the same child that bit him back in the fall as far as I know).
Am I doing something wrong that he's like that? Or is he just 2?

Comments

[iterrible.livejournal.com]

he's just 2. I don't know how much you socialize hime with other kids his age (outside daycare) but that may have something to do with it.
My kids and their friend are all 6 months apart from one another and that stuff goes on all the time. He was over a couple weeks ago and he tried to get phoebe's care bear and she just about beat him down for it. When we go over there, alex will frequently try to take his favorite train car and the world ends over it.
I wouldn't worry too much, but the daycare should be keeping a better eye on the kids, that's something they should have seen coming and prevented.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I only have a brief account so I can't blame the school.

Alan isn't around too many other children outside daycare (but he's there a long day). Just moving him into daycare (he'd only been with a sitter and older children) helped him deal with other kids and groups better since he started in October. He even plays better with our friend with a son 5 months older.

[silent-ic-river.livejournal.com]

He's just two.
This week TJ bit me once, Chris once and Zoe once so hard it broke the skin and is still visable three days later.
He's also running out the front door about twice or thrice a day.
I just keep saying, 'this shall pass, this shall pass'.

[silent-ic-river.livejournal.com]

I'm a pre-school teacher, I understand about constructing the environment to his developmental needs. TJ is well aware of the consequences of his behavior. It's just going to take a while for him to understand what the limits are. My daughter got the concept in a flash, that's just her nature. I understand that TJ is going to keep testing the limits and boundaries for a while, he's an awful lot like his dad (good heavens, his dad is 40 next month and he's still testing limits.

When I keep saying this shall pass, it's to remind myself not to allow either my emotions to get involved (after all, he's doing it to see what I'll do, not to piss me off) and to remind myself that once he knows the ground rules he'll move on to challenging me in some new and interesting way I hadn't yet thought of, that will make the current challenge look like a cake walk.

[secanth.livejournal.com]

"Share" is not a concept 2 year olds understand very well. (smile) They tend to be of the 'I want' mindset. And yes, he will outgrow it.

[didjiman.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, the "What did we do wrong?" parental angsts. When I figure out how we can work through them, I will let you know :-)

[catyak]

He just needs to learn to duck better. And not to just take stuff. However, he's still a bit young for both of those.

D

[lbuckley.livejournal.com]

He's just two. :-D If he's still doing it when he's 10, then you can worry.

[mwana-isimu.livejournal.com]

Hi there. I agree with everyone else that he's just two.

Hope you don't mind that I friended you. We have two friends in common (mamawrites and cheesepuppet), so I took a look at your journal and liked what I saw. :-)

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I'm always open to new friends. You might want to meet lkeele as she's also an american abroard - she's in Cario!

[hippybngstockng.livejournal.com]

Just 2

2 year olds are all thieves, and many of those same thieves would probably also turn around and bash another kid in the head with a toy car for their thievary ;) Perfectly normal, and also not permanent. Working on it early is good though! For all I complain about K, I did manage to teach him to wait until a kid was done with a thing, or to ask before taking- he doesn't do it 100% of the time (some things are too hard to resist) but he's muuuuuch better now at nearly 4

[mac-arthur-park.livejournal.com]

What are you doing wrong? You gave birth to him 2 years ago, thereby making him 2. ;)

Sounds like normal 2 year old behavior to me. He'll grow out of it. {{{hugs}}} for mommy.

[ericainohio.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a totally normal 2-year-old altercation to me. It'll be all right. He'll learn to interact in a much more civilized way in a few years, really he will - until then, he has to practice and learn "cause and effect" this way. :-)

[dstroy.livejournal.com]

um... He's TWO. Bruises happen! Without them we dont learn!!

[stitchinthyme.livejournal.com]

Not exactly the same situation, but this reminded me of a post on Irony Central (http://www.ironycentral.com), which contains a series of articles by a guy I used to know, who writes about the trials and tribulations of raising his toddler-age daughter. In this particular post (the one dated December 9, 2004 if you want to read the whole thing), he talks about how he tried to take her to a barbecue place but was forced to leave when she had a tantrum. (I forwarded this to a coworker who has a 2-year-old and he shared it with his wife, who quoted the last paragraph below with a big "AMEN!")

So, you might think, why don’t I punish her? Why can't I control my child? Well, she's two. It's hard to punish someone who's two. Her brain isn't quite capable of grasping the subtleties of a time-out. I can't take anything she likes away to punish her, because she doesn't really like anything but lying down and screaming. And I can't hit her, for three reasons:

i. Beating on a two year old is really kind of mean.
ii. If my main goal is getting the people in the BBQ place to not think I'm a terrible parent, beating on a two year old is probably not the best route.
iii. I'm trying to get her to quiet down. You can't hit someone quiet. Well, OK. You can hit someone quiet, but that's taking things way too far.

You might also be thinking, "Well, why don't you reason with the child? Explain to her what she is doing wrong, in a calm, ration[sic] voice." If this is what you're thinking, I would love to visit your planet. I bet it's lovely there.

So the only solution: become a shut-in. Give up. Wait until her psyche develops enough that I can shame, coerce, and extort her into behaving in a way that doesn't embarrass me.

And, in the meantime, I'm taking her to spend lots of time playing with this other two year old we know. One who is in a real hitting phase, and goes after Cordelia all the time. The way I figure out, it is immoral for me to hit Cordelia, but nothing is preventing me from outsourcing the job to another toddler.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

That's funny!

[chained2u2.livejournal.com]

Normal. Don't sweat it.