My Daughter Hits Kids at Daycare: What I Learned and What Actually Works
My phone buzzed halfway through my granola bar lunch last month, the little colorful icon I’d saved for daycare popping up on my screen, and my stomach dropped before I even answered. Lead teacher Ms. Rosa was calm, but direct: Lila, my 3-year-old, had hit another girl across the cheek over a blue bucket of sand shovels. Could I come pick her up early?
I grabbed my keys and drove the 10 minutes to the center, going over every possible mistake I’d made in my head. Did I let her watch that episode of Bluey where the kids wrestle too rough? Did I not discipline her enough when she swatted her baby brother last week? When I walked into her classroom, the other girl was perched on the assistant’s lap holding a blue ice pack to her face, and Lila was slouched on the small wooden calm-down chair in the corner, picking at a sparkly unicorn sticker on her rain boot. She didn’t even look up when I walked in.
That was the first of four notes from daycare in two weeks. Once over a spot on the rug for circle time, once after a boy accidentally knocked over her 3-block tower of “doughnuts.” I started avoiding the other parents at pickup, hovering by the door so I wouldn’t have to make small talk with the mom of the girl Lila had hit. I stayed up late googling, scrolling through forum posts calling toddlers who hit “bullies in training” and articles that just said it’s a normal phase, which didn’t do anything to loosen the knot in my chest when the phone rang.
I finally sat down for 10 minutes after pickup with Ms. Rosa one afternoon, Lila was playing on the playground slide eating a goldfish cracker, and Ms. Rosa’s chipped ceramic coffee cup sat between us on the bench. I expected her to tell me I needed to be stricter at home. Instead she pointed to Lila, leaning over to help a smaller kid retie their loose sneaker, and said, “Hitting at this age isn’t about being a bad kid. It’s about your kid’s brain working faster than their mouth.”
That clicked. Lila’s baby brother is 10 months old, and he’s just started crawling over to grab her crayons and tear her half-colored coloring pages. Most days, she’d yell and swat at him before she could even get the words “that’s mine” out. I’d been so focused on stopping the hitting after it happened that I never thought about teaching her what to do before the anger got too big to handle.
We started small, with things we could do at home and at daycare that didn’t require big lifestyle changes or expensive interventions. First, we practiced “angry words” when she was already calm, not mid-tantrum. Every morning at breakfast, we’d do a quick role play with her stuffed animals. I’d be the rude kid that took her bear’s cookie, and I’d prompt her to say, “That’s mine, I’m mad!” instead of hitting the bear. It felt silly at first, but after a week, she started finishing the line before I could prompt her. Ms. Rosa explained that most toddlers don’t remember what to do when their brains are flooded with frustration, so practicing when they’re relaxed helps it stick when they need it.
Second, Ms. Rosa gave Lila a quiet out she could use on her own, no teacher permission needed. If she felt her “body getting tight” – that’s what we settled on to name that buzz-y, angry feeling you get when something goes wrong – she can go shake the calm-down jar on the shelf for a minute before she does anything else. It’s just a mason jar full of glitter and water Ms. Rosa made extra for the classroom, nothing fancy, but it gives her something to do with that big energy instead of lashing out at the closest kid.
Third, we changed what happens right after she hits, which was the biggest shift for me. I used to immediately kneel down and demand she say sorry to the other kid, which usually just made her scream and hide behind me. Now, first we check on the kid who got hurt. Lila stands with me while we get an ice pack or a band-aid, so she sees first hand that hitting hurts someone, even if it was just a split second of anger. Then I name her feeling out loud: “You were so mad that he took your sticker. That mad feeling is okay, but hitting is not okay.” We don’t force an apology right away. Once she’s breathing normally and calm again, she can choose to give the other kid a sticker or a high five if she wants, no pressure.
It’s not fixed. Two days ago, she hit a boy that cut in front of her in line for the slide. I got the quick note in my inbox that afternoon, and I sighed instead of panicking. We practiced our lines again that night over bath time, and talked about what she could do next time someone cuts. Last week, when another kid took the unicorn sticker she’d brought for show and tell, she took a deep breath, walked over to Ms. Rosa, and said “I’m really mad that he took my sticker.” No hitting. That’s a win, even if it’s small.
I used to think if my kid hit another kid at daycare, it meant I was doing something wrong, that I’d raised an aggressive kid. Now I know it just means my kid is 3, and she still needs help learning how to handle big feelings that are too big for her limited vocabulary. We’re still working on it, some days are better than others. I don’t hover by the door at pickup anymore. If I see the mom of the girl Lila hit first, I wave, and if she wants to talk, I tell her straight: we’re working on it, and I’m so sorry it happened. It’s not perfect, but it’s where we are right now.
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