A health visitor is urging parents to use a simple four-word statement to help manage toddlers’ challenging behaviour including hitting, biting and tantrums
A health visitor in England is encouraging parents to deploy a four-word phrase to swiftly curb children’s troublesome behaviour.
Ruth is a health visitor who’s gained recognition for sharing content on TikTok to support parents through various stages of their journeys, offering guidance for expectant mothers, families with newborns and parents grappling with toddler conduct.
Earlier this year she posted a clip aimed at parents dealing with toddlers or youngsters who’ve begun displaying behaviours like hitting, grabbing, biting and bolting off.
All of these actions represent typical developmental milestones for any child. The NHS states that temper outbursts typically begin around 18 months and are extremely common amongst toddlers.
One explanation for this is that little ones want to express themselves but struggle to do so. They become frustrated, and this frustration manifests as a meltdown.
Once a youngster can communicate more effectively, they’re less prone to tantrums, and by age 4, such episodes become far less frequent.
Ruth outlined that ensuring children understand certain behaviours are unacceptable involves implementing consequences rather than yelling or employing the ‘naughty step’.
She said: “Always talk about how I just do not agree with the naughty step, I do not agree with punishing, or shouting or taking things away from your child when it has absolutely no correlation to the behaviour. So this is how I parent my children, I use consequences and I’m going to give you some examples of everyday situations where you may lose your temper.
“Your toddler or child has hit another child, they get removed from the situation, they have to leave the toy that they’re playing with behind and you come with them, you’re going to move them away. If they can’t be kept safe from hitting another child then they have to be moved away from that child and then let them have a tantrum.
“They’ll get over it and then you can try again. Running away from the pram, this is a safety hazard. If they run away from the pram, that is it, they get strapped in, kicking and screaming, I do not care.
“For the rest of the duration that you’re out from the house, they are in that pram. Yes, if you get to a park they can get out and play but they’re back in the pram and it’s a consequence. ‘You ran away from mummy, you have to stay in the pram, we’ll try again tomorrow’.
“The really important thing is holding your boundary whilst remaining calm. You really want to get out the pram, it’s tough, you ran away, I can’t trust that you won’t do it again.”
Ruth also provided examples of other scenarios including youngsters hurling objects and biting fellow children, behaviours which are equally prevalent amongst toddlers. She advised: “[If] they keep throwing items or something like your phone that you don’t want them to throw – firstly, give them a warning, ‘if you throw that again my phone gets taken away’, do not give it back for the rest of the day. We’ll try again tomorrow, that’s always the consequence, an immediate reaction, it gets taken away, we’ll try again tomorrow.
“Deal with the tantrum. Show them what they can throw and where they can throw it because the throwing isn’t actually naughty. Throwing is a real developmental milestone. Take them to the garden, let’s throw the ball to each other, we don’t throw mummy’s phone but we can throw the ball, we can throw teddy bears to each other.
“Biting, if your child is biting, firstly you need to be present to help prevent bites, because bites are the more serious end of behaviour. [It] doesn’t mean your child’s naughty, it’s very, very developmentally normal and expected for them to be biting, hitting, throwing and snatching.
“What you need to do is again, similar to hitting, we remove the child from the situation, maintaining that contact with you, we’re not isolating them.”
Ruth also emphasised the importance of understanding your child’s behaviour, particularly when it comes to biting. Especially with children that are teething, Ruth explained that they could need some kind of stimulation.
Another parent offered additional advice for parents in the comments section, stating: “May sound obvious, but remember to tell your child the behaviour you expect, like, ‘ You have to stay next to/hold on to the buggy when we’re walking’.”
