Advice needed - how to get a 2 yo to stop pinching?

[Pig Pen]

My 2 yo grandson is visiting (he will be 3 in Sept). He has developed some bad habits over the last few months, including pinching mommy when he doesn't get his own way. She is at her wits end right now and I am wondering how Dissers deal with this? I am so old that I cannot remember if I had this problem w/ my kids!

He goes to daycare so we suspect that is where he picked it up. Right now he gets put in timeout for doing it but that doesn't seem to be curbing the behavior. He doesn't do it to me or my hubby...just mommy and daddy so far.

Is it just part of the terrible twos? Any suggestions?

 

[Christine]

Kids that age generally start doing stuff like that. Pinching, hitting, and biting. I can tell you what my grandmother did to me. She pinched me back. I will forever remember it and I never did it again. I was shocked. I was probably about 3-4 years old at the time. No one in the day and age would EVER advocate that now and I wouldn't pinch my own kid back either. But, well, it did work....

Having said that, I don't know what you can do but to continue to not reward the behavior in any way and wait for the child to get past it.

 

[dancin Disney style]

I would pinch him back. You only have to do it hard enough to get the point across. As far as him only doing it to mom and dad so far....even little kids know who they can and can not push around.

If nothing else works then what's left to try?????

 

[NHdisneylover]

I would not be so quick to blame it on the daycare. It is not all that uncommon for toddlers to react physically as they have trouble expressing themselves verbally.

I would continue with timeouts. Make sure there is no extra attention for pinching--just have mom or dad react by calmly yet sternly saying "no pinching" and taking their DS to the time out chair. Have them say "you are in time out for pinching--I will come for you when you are allowed to leave" and then set a timer for 2 minutes and walk away--ignoring him completely. Just make sure he is not getting attention for the pinching or getting his way after the time out.

Toddlers can be stubborn--it might take a while and lots of consistency for the behaviour to let up.

 

[J Le]

Kids that age generally start doing stuff like that. Pinching, hitting, and biting. I can tell you what my grandmother did to me. She pinched me back. I will forever remember it and I never did it again. I was shocked. I was probably about 3-4 years old at the time. No one in the day and age would EVER advocate that now and I wouldn't pinch my own kid back either. But, well, it did work.....

In that vein and again never now (this was 40 years ago) my mom cured my younger brother's biting once and for all by washing his mouth out with soap. This last time he had bit me hard (I still have the scar). We knew we shouldn't put 'bad things' in our mouth and I thought she was killing him - I was crying "It's okay he can bite me, he can bite me" and my brother was crying "I wonno bite, I wonno bite" and then it never happened again.

I would continue with timeouts. Make sure there is no extra attention for pinching--just have mom or dad react by calmly yet sternly saying "no pinching" and taking their DS to the time out chair. Have them say "you are in time out for pinching--I will come for you when you are allowed to leave" and then set a timer for 2 minutes and walk away--ignoring him completely. Just make sure he is not getting attention for the pinching or getting his way after the time out.

Toddlers can be stubborn--it might take a while and lots of consistency for the behaviour to let up.

And this is how my brother and SIL handled it with their toddler and it worked after about a month. Of course my giggling and "what goes around comes around" comments and showing my nephew my scar from oh so long ago were not appreciated.

I love karma when it goes my way!

 

[Liberty Belle]

In that vein and again never now (this was 40 years ago) my mom cured my younger brother's biting once and for all by washing his mouth out with soap. This last time he had bit me hard (I still have the scar). We knew we shouldn't put 'bad things' in our mouth and I thought she was killing him - I was crying "It's okay he can bite me, he can bite me" and my brother was crying "I wonno bite, I wonno bite" and then it never happened again.



And this is how my brother and SIL handled it with their toddler and it worked after about a month. Of course my giggling and "what goes around comes around" comments and showing my nephew my scar from oh so long ago were not appreciated.

I love karma when it goes my way!

That's so sad.

 

[Ceila]

My DD did this when she was about 18 months old. (I agree that kids sometimes just start this stuff on their own, since she didn't go to daycare and neither my son nor our friends' children were pinchers.)

Anyway, what worked for us was that anytime she pinched, I followed this routine:
- said "no pinching" very firmly (not yelling, but very, very firm)
- took her hand and gently opened it flat and had her touch my cheek softly with her palm while saying "gentle, gentle"
This worked well for us, and I think it was because I was able to help her learn to replace the negative behavior with an acceptable one.

 

[Maridw]

I agree with the "Pinch him back" group. My mom ran a daycare years ago and had a problem with a child biting. No matter what they did, he would continue to bite kids for no reason. So when he bit one little girl, she told the little girl to bite him back. (she made sure it was not real hard). That was all it took. The little boy never bit anyone again.

Sometimes it takes feeling exactly what its like to get them to stop what they are doing.

 

[MushyMushy]

Yeah, call me a child abuser, but I say pinch back. As an adult, you would know how hard to do it and get your point across without hurting the child. I only say that after knowing the time outs don't work.

 

[Wishing on a star]

Okay, for me, I see pinching as an 'aggressive' behavior... I know that little toddlers can bite, they are getting used to their mouth and those little 'chompers'... checking out boundaries... and I can even see a little 'smacking' as almost being expected/normal. Kids can be 'mouthy' and 'handy'.

I don't know, maybe it is just me, but I see pinching as a definite aggressive and purpuseful behavior. Somehow worse than the above???? No matter the age, I would react as strongly as necessary to let the little tyke know that you just don't do that... Not gonna happen... Not on my watch. If that means a very loud, strong, mommy/adult voice... a smack to the hand or little thighs, etc... or whatever... then I would consider it.

(And, no, I am not a pro-spanking child abuser!!! I am usually very anti-spanking!!!!) Toddlers in cases like this is the one place where I see a little physical correction as acceptable.

Like some of the others, I know it sounds bad... but if really necessary, I agree with those who would consider pinching back. That might be better because the discipline really addresses the crime.

From what I hear, DH went thru a stage of this kind of thing, and MIL says she finally curbed it by returning the pinch (or bite??????).

I can tell you that this one little story is about the one and only thing that I ever really agreed with MIL on re: parenting!!!