My boys are 4 1/2 yrs. (Ty) and 19 mo. (Kaden) and sometimes my older son got jealous or frustrated with our baby and responded by hitting him with his toy bear. My husband and I tried several approaches. The first was telling Ty, “Do you want Kaden to grow up and hit you or other kids? He’s watching you and that’s what you’re teaching him.” That worked once, but soon he was back to his old ways. The second approach we used was to tell Ty that if we saw him hit again he would have a time out. That worked a couple of times, but even with timeouts he was again back to his old habit. Then my husband had an “ah-hah moment”. When Ty started to hit Kaden with his toy bear, my husband told him that his “Bear” had misbehaved and needed a timeout. Ty felt bad for his “Bear” but agreed that he should have a timeout for misbehaving. Since then Ty has stopped hitting! He’s started to hit, then stopped himself and said, “Don’t do that Bear, it’s not nice.”
Because Ty was able to see the action separate from himself, he recognized that it was inappropriate behavior. Siblings are typically very protective, and if someone else is harming their sibling they can get very angry. You can do something similar with your children by role playing where a doll acts out towards the younger sibling.
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