Monday night as I was picking up Little at babysitting at our gym, one of the sitters pulled me aside. “She’s been hitting tonight,” Angela said. “I’m just surprised because I’ve never seen her do it before.”

I took a deep breath. I’d had a feeling. We’ve always commented that Little “holds her own” very well. With two older brothers, she has to keep up with them. She finds ways to get attention and we know she hits at home. She hit me recently, when she didn’t want me to brush her hair.

Of course, I wouldn’t stand for that. I referred to an article I stumbled upon, reminding me that she needs to listen on the first offense. She’ll learn that there are no warnings; that I mean business. Immediately, I put my two-year-old in time out for two minutes. Hitting is unacceptable.

A part of me sighs, though. I mean, it is unacceptable, but she’s two and she’s a very typical two in her behavior. She pushes. She grabs. She says “no” all the time.

Except when we review our rules, “Is it okay to hit?”

“Yes,” she always responds.

Little hates time outs. She cries through them. She used to move to a different spot, which we saw as her way of getting power in a powerless situation. She almost always exclaims that she has to go potty when in time out. She’s learned to hold it in and wait two minutes.

But we’re stuck. The time outs don’t seem to be working. I believe in a firm, immediate reaction. I don’t want to hit her, and I certainly don’t want anyone else to. So what kind of reaction will teach her that hitting needs to be stopped immediately?

When I approached her preschool teacher, she shared that they’ve noticed Little hitting in the classroom recently as well. Pushing, too. They’re trying put a stop to it. Usually, the hitting and pushing occurs over toys. In most instances, it’s because Little is playing with something someone else wants. So when the second child reaches to take it, Little responds by hitting or pushing. Her teacher mentioned that she’s keeping an eye out now and praising Little when she doesn’t hit. Usually that means catching her right before it happens.

At two, she has an amazing vocabulary, but children don’t always access that vocabulary as quickly, especially in the heat of the moment. I talked with licensed Marital and Family Therapist (MFT) Shelby Riley:

Physical aggression is a normal, innate, human response to anger, fear, and even excitement.  When kids are very young, they often push or hit when they don’t like what’s going on.  They don’t yet have the ability to identify the emotion, name it and problem solve healthier ways to respond.  Hitting and pushing are natural, and effective, ways to get their needs met. Pushing a kid down and taking the truck back gets the truck back pretty effectively.  It just has other negative consequences that make it an undesirable option.  Young children often don’t have the ability that think through the situation in such a layered, complex way.  Our job as parents is to help kids learn to identify their feelings by teaching them a vocabulary for them, i.e. “You look mad.”  And then teaching them ways to calm the feeling enough to be able to think through safer, nicer ways to get their needs met.  Identifying a feeling, soothing it, and problem solving how to express it in an appropriate way is actually a fairly complex process that most young children don’t do naturally.  It needs to be modeled and taught.

Her preschool teacher asked how we’re handling the hitting; what our response is. I told her about the time outs and talking about it, and that at the gym, she responds by hiding, so the babysitters have to coax her away. Her teacher said that they’re talking, but time outs probably won’t work for her in the classroom (which is true. Little is far too comfortable in every nook, cranny, seat and corner in the school for a time out. Being sent to the director’s office is a happy field trip for her. So is the Rabbi’s office.)

How did you change your toddler’s inappropriate behavior? What reaction have you seen to best teach her that hitting or pushing is not acceptable?

Julie Meyers Pron is a parenting and education writer, using her experiences as a teacher and parent as inspiration for her daily posts. As a mother of 3 children (ages 1, 5 and 7), a PTO Director and a former MOMS Club President and Vice President, Julie has years of experience and lots of stories to share about toddlers in her Playgroups to Preschool series on the SCI Blog. Julie is also A Parenting Guru for Yahoo! Shine and a member of the Yahoo! Mother Board. To learn more about Julie, visit her personal blog, Just Precious.