Teaching Children Not to Hit

Today I would like to share ideas about ordering your family's emotional life so conflict is eliminated (or at least reduced) and challenges are worked through without hitting.  I taught a class recently and found that, in the families of all seven children, hitting was a common way of resolving conflict between them and their siblings.

This was somewhat dismaying to me because I believe children that hit will become adults that hit, whether it be as husband or wife, or as parents inappropriately hitting their children.  When children are left to hit without teaching them how to resolve conflicts verbally, we are producing a generation that cannot appropriately cope with the pressures of life.  

May I encourage you today to begin an initiative in your own family:  "We don't hit in our family."  Begin to teach your children not to hit each other.  You can simply say, "We don't hit in the Smith family."  This will be a little difficult at first because children are very apt at hitting.  Very, very small children will often hit or slap you in the face.  One of the best ways to work through this is to simply hold their hand softly, but firmly and say, "Hitting is not permitted."  They, of course, will do it again just to see what will happen.  Again hold their hand and in a soft but firm voice say, "Hitting is not permitted."  Repeat this over and over again. 

When older children squabble with each other and begin hitting, you have to separate them to resolve the issues and work with them to verbalize what they are feeling, what happened, and how to find answers.  You have to teach them to resolve their challenges by talking through their challenges.  Teach them that mature people do not hit to resolve problems.  They talk through their problems.  If your children aren't quite ready to do that right after the squabble, separate them until they have cooled down and are a bit more teachable. 

I encourage you also to work with your spouse and come up with ways to work through the friction which often happens in a marriage and which might lead, from time to time, to physical hitting.  This simply cannot be the best way to have order at home.  

So begin a "no hitting" initiative this week with your family:   "We don't hit each other."  Please know that if you do this there will be more peace and harmony between your children.  There will be more love between you and your spouse.  And there will be more order in your life in general.  There will be chance for a new generation to grow up learning how to peacefully handle life's many pressures.