worried if i have kids i will hit them

Post Reply New Topic

i know im 16 so i shouldnt worry about kids, but i already have a 4 month old niece and im already very rough with her. i dont think i could handle having a child. im good with kids in certain ways but i tend to hit a little too much, im worried that i might hit my niece when she gets older.

You're already worried about your behaviour towards your niece.

This worry is a good thing; encourage it.

Do you want your niece to grow up fearing you? Eventually hating you?

If you cannot learn to control your behaviour towards her, then you must learn to keep away from her.

What reason do you have to hit your niece? Please find the answer to that, and then try to address it by finding a non-violent solution instead. If you can't, I'd encourage staying away from her, along with other children as well, perhaps.

Last edited by Norepinephrine on 16 Jan 2014, 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It is very good that you can recognize and acknowledge this. That is the first step and a very crucial step that many never make. Because you can recognize this you can do something about it so that is your first victory and be very excited about it. Like the poster above said, see if you can identify what makes you want to hit her, what triggers it. Once you identify those things you can prepare yourself for the trigger and have alternative behaviors to substitute. You can train your mind by teaching yourself to be as gentle as you are violent. For example, if you feel the urge to hit, step out of the room, take some deep breaths and try to tell yourself to caress as softly as you can. You can even practice by caressing your own face like you should do for a baby. Once you can do that then you can go and try to caress her face as well with a very delicate finger touch. This will help you so that you can learn to control your actions and channel them to make them positive and good. If it is simply too overwhelming for you you may need to step out of the room and distract yourself with something that soothes and calms you. But take much courage in the fact that you can recognize this and speak openly about it. This is very good.

It's good that you fear this, now that means you can work on controlling yourself better.

I think if you think about what's happening you'll come up with more information. Are you not recognizing what is too rough because you aren't experienced? Or are you actually angry with her. As I read your post, I also wondered whether the people who know you are cautioning you and making you and themselves worried. If you don't enjoy playing with her you could do other things, but if you enjoy her, is it possible you need more experience, maybe with someone calm hping guide you? Just a thought, that maybe if she's fun for you to be around, it just takes getting to know each other and what works. I would focus on what you want and how you feel around her as well as whether she is happy to play with you or not and go from there to either spend more time together or watch and learn from a distance.

Oh and if you were hit too much I hope there's someone you can talk to about it--because that's very scary! And otherwise, it's hard sometimes, I get cued by what people do and sometimes they don't like being copied. You might just need practice with responses to rough children that don't involve mirroring the behavior--so you have a different response than hitting if a smaller child hits you or is tough, even for fun. I think a gender thing, too. Boys seem to be tolerated when they are rough more and girls are corrected more. And we as a society tend to treat female infants more gently. It could be a sensory thing too, about you liking something different than a lot of other people.

Kids shouldn´t be hit at all!

First: Very good thing, that you openly take up the question yourself!

I would suggest, that you take a look at your own frustration/anger in life.
Hitting a 4 months old baby could be the result of having a "forbidden" anger.
Perhaps this is the time to discuss your situation with a professional.

Last edited by Jensen on 17 Jan 2014, 11:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Beside some psychotics, that decide to hit other people on purpose, for most people hitting is a sign of overwhelming feelings. So first step would be to analyze yourself honestly in that situations, that you feel overwhelmed to find out the reasons.

Is it more psychical stuff, so are you adding self esteem issues into certain behaviors of your niece? A matter of feeling disrespecet, when she shows certain behaviors.

Or is it more about physical issues, so you are getting tired and exhausted to fast, due to a rather fast changing dayplan with a kid, that might decide to do something else every few minutes? Or simply about the sensory issues of the yelling and so on?

As well that there is nothing bad about accepting your limits, but in the opposite that helps you and your kids. Its the people, that denie their limits, that end finally getting overwhelmed by their feelings, and then acting without any control violently against their kids. When you simply accept to be at the border at your limits, and dont try to denie that, that gives you as well the opportunity to simply tell someone about that and say: "Right now, I cant handle her anymore and need a break. Please could you care for here for a certain time, so I can relax again?"

Violence is never a good thing, especially not towards kids. They'll grow up traumatised, and end up hating her. Do you have trouble expressing your frustration in words and so resort to actions instead? Because it seems that way. Or is it because you feel she's too young to understand words?

How do you feel about your niece? Do you like her, or dislike her? I'm just confused here.

I want to applaud you for recognizing this as an issue for yourself. The urge to hit anyone is scary. As others have said I would encourage you to explore why you feel a need to hit - Is it just kids or do you do it with your peers/ adults too?

You may need to get some help from a professional or you may want to check into parenting classes/ information that may be available for ideas on how to deflect your anger (if that is what is causing your hitting) There are plenty of adults out there who have this same problem and there is information available to help them - I see no reason why you couldn't take advantage also.

Good Luck

Of course, if one is around people who are rough, this might go away when one is around gentler people. Just wondering what Zombiegirls classes are like is all.

if have got unpredictible behavior then dont have kids,they shoudnt be made to fear their relatives never mind hit for punishment but thats another topic.
the anxiety around fearing hitting them woud also be another problem getting in the way of having children.

the social services safe guarding team say am not allowed to be on own in the same room as the two nieces of mine [both coming up to three,the other coming up to two] without being accompanied,due to unpredictible challenging behavior and its something that have accepted because woud never wish to harm them both,am also going to be doing volunteer buddy/mentor work with special needs kids and will always be supervised closely.
perhaps shoud do volunteer work with kids long term if want to gain confidence and make sure are not going to end up smacking them one,itll be added responsibility because if the kids get hit will end up in a lot of legal sht for that.