Parenting 101: Playground Altercations – How to Handle Rough Play when Your Child is the Hitter

What do you do?

You hear a loud thud followed by an ear-piercing scream, and then another mother appears before you clutching a sobbing child with tear-stained cheeks and red eyes. Your child hit her child and now the mother, child and all eyes on the playground are on you, waiting to see what you are going to do about it.

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare and one that is never covered in the parenting books. How do you handle playground altercations in a manner that leaves everyone feeling validated and teaches your child how to handle anger and frustration in a constructive manner?

How to Handle Rough Play when Your Child is the Hitter

Calming the Situation

#1: Comfort the other child if her parent is not around and if necessary, attend to any first aid.

#2: Ask for her point of view of what happened. If the parent is confronting you, listen carefully without interruption or judgment. Clarify any misunderstandings by asking questions. Validate her feelings even if you don’t agree that the situation happened as she describes to reduce her defensiveness. You could say, “It is very sad to watch your child being hit.”

#3: Say that you need to talk to your child and you will be back.

#4: Give your child the same opportunity to talk and listen without interruption or judgment. Children have an innate sense of fairness and can often tell you what preceded the altercation. Remember that your child will likely be upset too and your job is helping him calm down. Validate his feelings of anger or frustration by repeating the triggering event, “You were angry that she took your truck?”

Ensuring Restitution

#5: Return to the other parent and child when everyone is calm, and see if your child is ready to apologize. If his is ready, that’s great, but if he isn’t, don’t force it. It doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong as most altercations involve fault from both children.

Ideally, both children should apologize to each other, but it rarely happens. You should only be concerned with teaching your child social manners and not the other child. Model apologizing by saying it yourself, “I’m sorry that my son hit your daughter. We will deal with it.”

By apologizing on behalf of your child and giving your assurance that you will follow through with your child, the other parent has her “social bandage”. There is no need to tell her how you will “deal with it”. Modeling an apology shows your child how to make amends, but respects his emotional status by not forcing him to do it when he is clearly not ready.

Following Up with your Child

#6: Do not punish your child! Instead away from the crowd and staring eyes, help him to discover techniques for handling his anger other than hitting. Walking away, breathing, and counting to 10 are all ways to handle anger that even a three-year-old can manage.

Remember that you will need to show them these feeling management techniques many times. Children up to the age of 12 instinctually hit, bite, push and throw things at other children and need many, many practices at handling anger appropriately.

Assure your child of your unconditional love and your expectations that he will make a better choice the next time he is angry at the playground.

Be sure to supervise him closely the next few trips to the playground. Nothing gets a group of parents madder than dealing with a parent who ignores her child’s anti-social behavior in groups of children.

If there is another altercation with the same child or even another child, recognize that your child is having a bad day and go home. Give your child cuddle time and one-on-one attention time because perhaps that is what your child needs most of all.