What Can I Do to Stop My Kid’s Aggressive Behavior?

1. 0:00 – 0:00

   Intro

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy0:00

      [typing]

2. 0:00 – 1:01

   Good Inside Membership: expert-guided parenting support and community

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy0:00

      Why is it so hard to find reliable answers to parenting questions? How is it in 2022 parents still search on Google for answers from strangers? [typing] Well, now there's a better way. Introducing the Good Inside Membership, an expert-guided, community-powered platform redefining modern parenting. In our library, you'll find hundreds of bite-sized videos, articles, scripts, and workshops tackling the trickiest parenting topics, and it doesn't stop here. We've created a private community guided by me, Dr. Becky, and coaches trained in the Good Inside Parenting method. Here, you can ask questions, connect with other parents, or attend a live event on a topic that matters to you. This is the parenting handbook that doesn't exist. This is parenting advice at your fingertips, where you need it, when you need it the most. This is Good Inside Membership. Hi, I'm

3. 1:01 – 1:31

   Core philosophy: parents and kids are “good inside,” even during struggles

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy1:01

      Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available

4. 1:31 – 3:22

   Reframing aggression: protect the child being hurt—and the child doing the hurting

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy1:31

      to us in that moment. So even as we struggle, and even as we are having a hard time on the outside, we remain good inside. Today, we're going to be talking about managing really difficult behaviors and situations, a child biting, kicking, hitting, throwing. Before we jump in and go into a ton of actionable ideas and strategies, I want us to consider something together. When we have a child who's engaging in these dysregulated behaviors, we often think about the kids that are doing these things, too. So maybe it's my older son who is kicking his younger brother. Maybe it's my older daughter who's pinching or hitting her younger sister, and I think we often think of this question: how do I protect my child who's being kicked and who's being hit? Now, I think that's a really important question to consider. Of course those kids need protection, but here's something else. How do I protect my child who's doing the hitting? How do I protect my child who's engaging in these behaviors? No kid likes to kick or hit or feel so out of control and then witness their body act so out of control. It feels awful, and one of the things we also need to consider is how do we protect our kids from feeling like bad kids? How do we help those kids regain the feeling of being good inside? With that in mind, let's jump in and hear from our first caller.

   2. P1Parent Caller 13:20

      [phone ringing]

5. 3:22 – 4:49

   Caller 1: Twin toddlers who bite each other—what’s going on?

   1. P1Parent Caller 13:22

      Hi, Dr. Becky. Thank you for your service, and thank you for setting up this podcast. I'm very excited about it. I wanted to share a struggle that I've been having for a super long time. I'm a single mother of two-and-a-half-year-old twin boys, and I would say for at least a year and a half, um, [laughs] almost the majority of their lives, they have been engaging in biting each other. They primarily take turns, so it's like a phase that one of them will go in for a few weeks biting the other one, and then when one is done, the other one will then use that as a, you know, a, a means of aggression. And I have tried all sorts of different methods, including, you know, redirecting, explaining to them that we don't bite, biting is for food, smothering the victim with a lot of attention. Uh, tried blocking. It's just impossible for me to be next to them twenty-four/seven and constantly prevent it, and it's really heartbreaking. So I'm looking for advice with respect to that, um, because although they do, like, also occasionally hit each other and take away toys and that sort of stuff, that sort of stuff just seems like it's just not... You know, just more typical, and it's easier to deal with. The biting is really painful and is, is really ongoing. Thank you very much.

6. 4:49 – 6:50

   Biting framework: separate the urge from the action to create “space”

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy4:49

      Stephanie, thank you so much for calling in and sharing this story with us. I want to start with this important truth. Nothing is wrong with you, and nothing is wrong with your kids. I know that's not something you explicitly said or asked, but I think so many of us go there right away when we see something that feels really upsetting with our kids, and we always need to ground ourselves in our goodness when we see our kids spiral or do something far from ideal. The other thing I think we need to ground ourselves in is the moment versus our fear. When we see a behavior in our kid that's particularly aggressive or boundary violating, I think many of us project down the road, and we think something like, "Oh, no. I can't have my kid who's a biter. I can't have my kid be the kid who bites other kids when they go to preschool, when they go to kindergarten, when they go to fifth grade. I can't have my kid be the kid who..." Fill in the blank. I think a really important skill to develop is just saying, "Oh, doing that future thing." Come back to the moment and remind yourself this. "Nothing is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with my child. I can cope with this Let's talk in more detail about biting. I want you, Stephanie, to kind of place your hands out in front of you with some space in between them. I want you to think of one hand as the urge to bite, and the other hand as the act of biting. Biting, hitting, throwing. What's so important about these seemingly impulsive behaviors is to separate urge from action. So you have your hands separate. Now bring them together almost like they're clapping. This is what happens when your kids bite. There is no space between the urge and the action. Now, what's really important is this framework. The problem isn't the urge to bite. The problem is the lack of space between the urge and the action, and we end up changing behavior

7. 6:50 – 8:51

   De-shaming conversations: whisper voice, naming “mouth energy,” and connection

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy6:50

      not by changing the urge, but by inserting more time and space between the urge to bite and the actual biting. And so this is where some interventions are going to be aimed. So where would I start? I'd probably talk to each of my kids separately. I'd say something like this: "Ooh, when something happens you don't wanna happen, do you ever bite? Hmm." Why would I kind of use that whisper voice? Whispering feels kind of sacred. It feels really special, and when we're talking to our kid about something that is kind of encoded in some shame or kind of, quote, "badness," we wanna really establish that we're connected with them and that we wanna enter their inner world with them, and there's something about a whisper voice that accomplishes that. Then I'd keep going, and I'd say this: "Sometimes when I'm mad or when I'm upset, I have so much energy in my mouth, and I want to get it out." I feel like that sometimes. So what am I doing there? I'm making my kid feel less alone, and I'm also giving a little nuance to the idea of biting, which is seen as just such a awful behavior. A child who bites has energy in their mouth. Their angry energy is kind of exploding out of their body there, and most of us wanna get out our energy, and so that's what a bite is. Now, what's really important and what this language is building is even that idea, the energy is building in your mouth speaks to an urge that's separate from the action. What I'm not doing to my child is this: "We don't bite in this family. Where did you get that idea?" Right? We don't wanna shame a behavior. Shame is sticky. When you add a shame, you make a child more stuck in the behavior that you are seemingly wanting to help them shift out of. Now, after I kind of joined my child and started to de-shame, the next day I would wanna

8. 8:51 – 10:22

   Practice and role-play: chew tools, moving away, and rehearsing the new skill

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy8:51

      practice, have some type of role play. It might look like this. Build a block tower with your child, right? And let's say yours falls. I would say this, or you gonna make it fall, "Oh, my block tower fell down. Oh, those feelings are coming. They're coming into my mouth. I kind of wanna get it out, get it out, get it out. I feel like my teeth wanna bite, bite, bite." [sighs] And then I would have a chew necklace or a pillow or something else in my mouth, and I'd actually model moving away from the situation, moving away from my child, turning to that object, and having it in my mouth. I am modeling awareness of an urge, and then I am modeling moving away instead of moving toward and discharging that urge in a way that's not harmful to someone else. Then I'd reverse roles. "Ooh, that was really helpful. Ooh, do you wanna try? I'm gonna knock down your tower. I know we're saying we're gonna do it. I'm gonna knock down, and you might feel mad, and here's your chew necklace." And I would teach my child to take a deep breath, "Ooh, I have that feeling," and I would teach him literally to move back. The moving back is key, and space, and turning to the necklace. And then I give him a high five. "Wow, how awesome. We're gonna keep practicing this. We're gonna keep practicing this so we have other things we can do when all that energy builds up." Stephanie, I have one more thought. So

9. 10:22 – 11:39

   When biting happens: sturdy boundary + immediate coaching without “bad kid” labels

   1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy10:22

      what about when the biting actually happens, right? So great, I'm doing all this, but the biting happens. I'm a realist. These things don't change overnight. When it happens, you wanna put up a boundary, remove your child from the situation, and affirm that your child is a good kid who's still working on this new skill. So what might that sound like? I'd pull my child away, and I'd say this: "I will not let you bite." My tone is purposely firm, not scary, firm, sturdy, showing my child that even when he is out of control, I can be a container to help keep him safe. Then I'd pull him away from his brother, and I'd say something like this: "I know we're still really working on the other things we can do to bite a necklace instead of a person. Here's that necklace. Let's practice now." I would probably also look at my other child and say, "Ouch, that really hurt. I know we're really working on not doing that in our family." What am I doing? I'm acknowledging the experience of both kids without casting either child into the bad kid role. Kids have to feel good inside to make changes, and so we need to remind them that we see that goodness and their ability to work on things even when they struggle. Let's hear next from Kristen, who has a question about her eight-year-old son.

   2. P2Parent Caller 211:37

      [phone ringing]

10. 11:39 – 12:38

    Caller 2: Preparing an 8-year-old for playdates when impulse control is hard

    1. P2Parent Caller 211:39

       Hi, my name is Kristen. I live in Los Angeles. I have two kids, son age eight and a daughter age six, and my question or my comment, I guess... No, it's really a question [chuckles] . Um, my question is, around time when we're going to either a play date or a park meetup

    2. SPSpeaker12:00

       Or something where we're gonna be meeting up with friends. I know that my son sometimes struggles with impulse control and often lashes out if he is feeling bullied or if another kid is wanting to do something that he doesn't wanna do, for example. What can I do to prepare him or to talk to him about what we expect other than just saying, "I expect not to hit" or have you not to hit other kids? Just kind of what's the language around that when we're on our way to the play date, just to prepare him for the best situation. Thank you.

11. 12:38 – 14:09

    Emotional vaccination: prepare for the feelings, not just the rules

    1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy12:38

       Kristin, thank you so much for calling in with this, and one of the things I love about how you're thinking is that you're aware that it's the before the difficult moments, that that's where we have kind of our bang for our buck. We can't do anything amazing in the moment our kid hits. It's actually how we kind of prepare our kids for that moment, and I wanna focus on that word prepare. I think a lot about the term emotional vaccination, which really means preparing our kids for the feelings they're going to have in difficult situations. I think often when we know our kids might struggle, let's say I know my kid might hit, or my kid tends to push other kids on the slide in the playground. We tell our kids what to do. We say, "When you go to the slide, keep your hands to yourself," or, "If you're mad, don't hit." But we actually don't prepare our kids because what's underneath the behavior is a feeling, and if we're not preparing our kids for the feelings they're having, then they're no better able to regulate those feelings when they come up and convert into behavior. So given that, here's what I would do with your son before going to the park. How would I emotionally vaccinate this moment? I'd say, "You know what I'm thinking about? There might be someone at the playground who says something not nice to you. They might call you a name. They might say, 'We don't want you on our team.' Ugh, what would that be like?" And then pause. Pause and almost look like you're wondering, so you're not jumping in.

12. 14:09 – 16:55

    Role-play peer conflict: practice words, body moves, and self-blocking hitting

    1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy14:09

       You're kind of modeling curiosity, 'cause actually this is something we want our kids to do, to start anticipating what something might be like for them. You might also add, "I would get if that made you mad. Yeah, when people say not nice things to us, it makes sense that we feel angry. Now, there's so many different things we can do when we're angry, and I know for me," I'm kind of modeling it myself, "sometimes my anger can come up in my fingers, and I just have energy to hit. But there's definitely better ways to handle that anger. So if you feel angry, I wonder what else you could do." Again, pause. If your child doesn't volunteer information, model a couple things and then role play it. I might back up my body and say, "I don't like when you say that. I might not even have words. I might just put my hands across my chest and move my body away from someone so I get in my own way of hitting." Hmm, and then maybe I'd role play and say, "Say something not nice to me." I'd say that to my son to kind of make it playful. "Say something not nice to me." Who as a child wouldn't love the kind of invitation to call their parent a name? "Mom, you're a loser." [gasps] "I do not like when you say that to me," and then I'd move my body back. Huh, that's something I'm gonna practice, too, right? So you're actually getting into that circuit of the angry feeling, adding a realistic regulation skill, so then when the moment comes up, your child has actually the skill wrapped around that feeling. You've vaccinated this moment. You've kind of developed these emotion regulation antibodies by your willingness to name and validate the feelings that might come up, and then engage in some problem-solving with your son. One more thought, Kristin. I hear a lot of parents wondering, "But if I bring it up in advance, am I gonna make this more likely to happen? Might it be better just to kind of avoid it and cross my fingers?" I totally understand this worry, and yet to me the opposite is true. Feeling alone in a feeling is always one of the things that further dysregulates a child, that makes it more likely for a feeling to turn into a behavior. When we talk about something in advance and we normalize and validate the feeling, now that's key. I'm not validating that it's okay to hit. I'm validating that it's understandable to feel angry. Now when the anger comes up, my child feels connected to me, feels like it's okay to feel that way, and that makes feelings easier to manage. Let's hear from our last caller.

13. 16:55 – 18:02

    Caller 3: Serious sibling aggression, injury, and the consequences question

    1. SPSpeaker16:55

       Hi, Dr. Becky. My name is Key, and my kids are five and a half, four, and almost two, and we are having some issues with hitting, kicking, other types of aggression. Tonight my son actually kicked our, my daughter off of a couch, and she hit her head on the floor. It split open, and she's bleeding, had to receive stitches. So this podcast actually comes at a great time because we're really needing advice on just how to deal with the consequence of, you know, the child who isn't really seeing that aggressive behavior hurts his siblings. Um, we also have a biter. The two-year-old bites a lot, and he bites his sister, and finding some logical consequences for him, too, is hard for us to just know what to say, what to do, and it just keeps happening, and feel like nothing's really working.

14. 18:02 – 22:07

    After harm: empathy develops through empathy—punishment confirms “badness”

    1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy18:02

       Hi, Katie. Let me start by saying that I hear in your voice how much you care about your kids and what's happening in your house, and I hear that you have two good kids who are really struggling. So maybe you can start, I'll do it at the same time, place a hand on your heart, take a deep breath, and remind yourself, "I'm a good parent. There's some struggles in my home. I'm going to figure this out. We're going to get through this," and I'm here to help be part of that process. So first of all, when our kids are dysregulated, it's helpful to remind ourselves that what's going on on the outside is a reflection of what's going on on the inside. We act how we feel. Your kids seem out of control. They feel out of control, and when we remind ourselves that, we can intervene in a way that's still very boundaried and firm, but also helps our kids remember that they're good kids, 'cause they need that to change. Second, our feelings are forces, and if we can't regulate our feelings inside our body, that doesn't mean suppress them. That means manage them in our body, and if we can't give ourselves permission to be having those feelings in our body, then those feelings catapult out of our body into disruptive behavior. And so I don't have a ton of specific information, but that's a framework. What feelings feel so big, so overwhelming, so overpowering that they come out in the form of this violent behavior? That feeling must feel so violent and unmanageable and disorganizing inside. That's what motivated this behavior in the first place. A couple other things. So often I hear from parents, "My child is so cold-hearted. You should see the thing my child did to her sister, to his brother, and he didn't even care." And when we see that, we wanna go to our kid and say, "Do you even care? Do you see what happened?" Right? We wanna really double down. It's actually quite the opposite for these kids. When a child sees that his out-of-control behavior actually hurt someone, this terrifies him, because a child feels how out of control he feels and is so desperate for confirmation from anyone that these feelings actually aren't so bad. They're not so dangerous. They're not actually as awful as they feel inside, and you have to hold onto the idea that my kid will develop empathy once he learns to manage and feel at home and not scared of the feelings and sensations in his own body. Children also only develop empathy for others when they receive empathy over and over and over themselves. Now, this doesn't mean we say to our kid after this incident, "No worries. Everybody kicks their sister sometimes." Of course not. That, that wouldn't make any sense. That would be very unraveling. But it means separating the behavior from who your child is, because if your child is actually, as I bet your child was, overwhelmed with guilt, a child feels bad and unlovable, and that makes a child identify further in the bad kid role, which makes kind of, quote, "bad behavior" that much more likely. So here's something I would say to your child. "I know that scared you. I also know you're a good kid, and you care about your sister. I know you didn't want that to happen, and I am going to work with you to keep everyone in this family safe. We're going to get through this." A consequence, a harsh punishment to a child, this doesn't change behavior. All this says to your child is that your child becomes more convinced that he is actually bad. He has to be banished. He has to be sent away. He has to have things taken away from him. We have to feel good inside to make changes, and so we cannot confirm

15. 22:07 – 25:09

    Prevention plan: closer watch, intervene earlier, teach safe discharge, use “I won’t let you”

    1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy22:07

       a child's badness through punishment and expect him to start acting in a more pro-social manner. We also change behavior by learning to regulate the feelings that come before the behavior, not by focusing on the behavior and punishing something after. The order is totally off. So what would I do practically moving forward? Number one, I'd keep a closer watch of your kids. I'd keep a closer watch of your kids so you can start to notice what happens before the kick, before the bite. We have to intervene before the urge and the action, and when you take closer watch, you start to notice these little flinches, these little moments, and you go, "Oh, oh, never noticed that before. I'm gonna jump in then." Or you notice when your child says, "I want that pillow," and you think, "Ooh, I'm gonna get closer," because, "I want that pillow" could convert to a kick very quickly, and that's when I jump in, and I pull my child away, and I say, "Oh, Mommy's here. I'm here. Let's take a deep breath. Let's calm our body. I know that was hard. I'm gonna help keep you safe." We help keep our kids safe before the behavior, not by focusing on it afterward. I would teach your child to move away his body. I would teach him to stomp, to get a pillow, to get out some of that energy away from another child. I would also definitely tell your child separately when you're calm, at night, maybe when you're in, going through a bedtime routine, some stories of you're having a hard time as a kid. We underestimate how important it is for our kids to hear that we also struggled, again, so we're protecting our kids from feeling like bad kids so they can access that goodness so that they can change. Katie, one more thought that's really, really important. I would encourage you to start practicing this phrase: "I won't let you A child who feels out of control has to feel a parent's sturdiness because this is the start of how a child starts to feel contained because they feel that boundary, and I won't let you really establishes that kind of steady authority. So here's how that might sound when you intervene before your child, let's say, kicks. "I won't let you kick" while I pull my child away. "I won't let you kick. I'm here. We're gonna get through this moment together." Or even after the kick when you pull your child away, "I won't let you kick. You're a good kid. You're having a hard time. We're gonna go calm down your body together in the other room." I won't let you is really, really important when our kids are having a hard time because these words show our kids that we aren't scared of them, and that we can still be regulated. We can still be strong. We can be a sturdy leader in their difficult moment. [gentle music] Thank you so much, Stephanie, Kristen, and Katie, for sharing

16. 25:09 – 27:58

    Closing synthesis: behavior is not identity—protect kids from becoming the “bad kid”

    1. BKDr. Becky Kennedy25:09

       your stories with us and allowing us to really dive in and learn together. Let's tie this all together. I often think about something Richard Schwartz says, who's the father of internal family systems theory. He says, "Kids have the developmental tendency to take experience and turn it into identity." And this really inspires a lot of what I think about in terms of trying to help our kids not identify as the bad kid, and it speaks to the importance of always differentiating behavior from feelings or behavior from who my child is. And if we don't explicitly differentiate this, our kids will take the example of our responding to their behavior and form identity around this, and we don't want that to happen. So instead of saying, "Why would you hit your sister?" "I won't let you hit your sister. I know you were having a hard time. I won't let you hit. We'll figure out what was happening for you together." I'm showing my kid I see a struggle. I see a good kid while I'm clearly also saying that the behavior is not okay. Differentiating behavior from who our child is is critical in helping your kids change and learn and grow and continue to feel good inside. Thanks for listening to Good Inside. Let's stay connected. At goodinside.com, you can sign up for workshops and subscribe to Good Insider, my weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox. And if your child struggles with hitting, biting, pushing, kicking, or other dysregulated behaviors, check out my foundational course, Managing Meltdowns and Building Emotion Regulation. You'll end that course feeling so much more hopeful, so much more equipped for handling tough moments when they arise, and teaching your kids the skills they need so these moments become less frequent. You can find that course and many others at learning.goodinside.com. For more ideas and tips, check out my Instagram, drbeckyatgoodinside. Good Inside is produced by Beth Rowe and Brad Gage, and executive produced by Erica Belsky and me, Dr. Becky. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside. [gentle music]

Episode duration: 28:15