Lately my 2-yr-old daughter has really escalated her scratching and pinching of her big sister (age 5). My 5-yr-old recently broke her leg, so I have to carry her quite a bit and that is likely making the younger one jealous. Also, she is definitely struggling to use her words. But to my horror my older daughter’s face looks like a cat attacked her! It’s awful! And the little one even appears to be smiling after she scratches her. The older one gets very upset but never, ever retaliates. Folks have told me that the older one just needs to scratch her back… But I don’t think that sounds like a good approach. I’ve tried taking away the little one’s favorite pink shoes when she does this, modeling “gentle touches,” telling her she needs to use her words and telling her how much this hurts her sister… But I’m wondering if you have an approach to nip this in the bud? Whatever I’m doing (or not doing) doesn’t seem to be working.
Thanks on any advice you may have!!
Dear Mama,
What a tough situation for everyone! It’s so hard to know what to do; most books I’ve read on the subject tend to say things like, ‘try to see it coming and step in to prevent it.’ Obviously if that worked, you wouldn’t be writing! So, here are some ideas for you to try. I’ll talk first about how to respond when it does happen, and then about how to help prevent it from happening so frequently.
Thanks Faith!
I have been working with scratching in my toddler program. What are your thoughts on putting gloves or mittens on someone who is doing a lot of scratching?
Liz, We did have one little boy wear gloves and it helped. They were those thin, stretchy gloves that you can get at the dollar store, so he was still able to pick things up and manipulate them; we’d take them off for meals and pottying. We spent a lot of time outdoors and the kids were used to wearing gloves, so we just had a pair of special “indoor gloves” for him to switch into when we came indoors. I also started trimming his fingernails myself a couple times a week, which helped as well.