My son loves to pull hair. It's when he's happy and playing or when he's mad or any time in between. I have to warn the babysitter's at the gym to watch him around other kids. He pulls hair of anyone he can get ahold of. Most of these kids, like his 5 year-old sister, are bigger than him and they just sit there and cry! There is one little girl at the gym babysitting room that he follows around trying to get a handful of hair! Poor babies! We've tried slapping his hand and pulling his hair back and of course removing him from the situation and distracting him with something to do that is acceptable but nothing is working.
We had no issues like this with our daughter, so I'm not sure what to do! She always listened and took "no" as gospel, but he doesn't listen at all!
How on earth do I get this bad behavior nipped in the bud? Help!
what about putting him actual time out, making him sit alone in a chair. While distracting him is excellent it's not really showing him that what he did is wrong, he needs to know thay when he pulls hair that it is a bad choice and that he now has to sit and not play.
This is a hard one. Babies just go through these kind of stages. Think of your son as a little scientist. He is just pulling hair to see what happens. The bigger the reaction, the more fun.
This is what I think is the best thing to do: Remove his hands from your hair and say "Do not pull hair. Pulling hair hurts!" Then, give him something better to do as a distraction. It will take time, but he will out grow this. Also, you might get him a furry stuffed animal to play with. He isn't pulling hair to hurt anyone, he just wants to play with it.
Also, he is too young to get anything from time-outs. It isn't until between 18 months and 2 years that children can start to learn from time outs. I would save time-outs for later.
Good luck.
Yeah, I have to agree he is too young for time outs. Actually, there is a lot of research that time outs don't work with kids of any age. And slapping his hand or pulling his hair just sounds mean. I would stop him when he does it, tell him it hurts the person, and distract him. Even though he seems young, explaining really helps a lot, especially with boys. And repitition is key.
I recently had a problem with my 14month old biting. Someone told me to gently pull his hair every time right when he did it. I HATE hurting my kids so I was hesitant to try it. I eventually had to. Just pulling a little bit (enough to make him look around like "what was that?") was enough to end the biting. It only took about 5 times. The theory is to associate an "ouch" with a behavior. It might be harder for you though, because you aren't necessarily right there when he does it (my son only bit ME!).
Good luck,
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You aren't going to like my answer, but at some point, you'll probably use it. At his age, he understands words like hurt and ouch. In as few words as possible, tell him how badly this hurts and give him a warning. At that point, when he does it again, he needs to sit for one minute in the naughty chair. Not because he pulled someones hair (he's doing that out of good intent and it gets him attention, even if its bad attention), but because he is not listening to what he is told.
To be quite honest though, I had a similiar problem with one of my children, but it was biting. One day, I just bit back, hard. To this day, that child has never bitten another person. That child is now 24.
Good luck either way, I am sure its a frustrating situation.
