2-year-old pulls hair, what to do?

Like kicking, hitting, and pushing, hair-pulling is a way for your child to provoke a reaction. There are two reasons your child pulls other children’s hair. According to developmental psychologists, young children in particular only see the effect of their actions: the other child makes funny noises and reacts. At this age, your child does not yet understand that they are causing pain to the other child. Therefore, it repeats the fun game to provoke a reaction again. Another explanation can be that your child wants to end a negative situation. The sister has taken the toy away from him or another child is climbing on him. If your child pulls their hair, the other child will stop or give the toy back. When your child realizes that it is successful in its actions, then it will continue to pull hair. It does not want to cause pain, but primarily to provoke a learned reaction.

Your child is pulling their hair, what can you do about it?

• Stop Your Child Immediately: If you see your child reaching and holding another child’s hair, gently release the hair from their hand, hold your child’s hand, and explain not to pull their hair , because that hurts and at best show him an alternative behavior.
• Make it clear to your childthat it achieves nothing with this behavior. If your child pulls another child’s hair, for example to get a toy or to get the other child to do something else, you must not support this endeavor under any circumstances. Otherwise, your child will learn that it can achieve its goals by pulling hair. Also, don’t try to read too much into the situation, like: the other child probably teased my child beforehand. Your child cannot yet understand such complex connections. You can also make it clear that this behavior does not achieve anything if you immediately “reverse” the behavior in this situation. For example, give the toy back to the other child the moment you explain to your child not to pull their hair. In this way, your child associates the hair pulling with the negative reaction that the other child gets the toy back. Over time, he learns that his action does not get what he wants.
• Well-intentioned distraction can reinforce behavior: Many parents resort to a distraction in such a situation. For example, you read the child a story to defuse the situation or play something with him. Unfortunately, this reaction also teaches your child that they will be rewarded with special attention for pulling their hair. Something positive happens when you act like this.
• Short break for your child: In order to further defuse the situation after your first reaction, take your child aside after the admonition and give him a short break. Do not talk or play with the child during this time.
• Talk to your child about the situation: After a short break, simply forget what happened and involve your child in another activity.
• Don’t imitate: Never pull your child’s hair to demonstrate that it hurts. Your child will imitate your behavior and think it’s okay to pull another person’s hair to show something. It cannot yet understand the connection that you want to explain to it. Therefore, always use your behavior as an example to show him that one reacts to such a situation with talk, not with aggression.
• Give your child time: Don’t expect your child to change their behavior after just one or two admonitions. Two-year-olds need time to learn something. Explain to your child over and over again that physical violence will not get them anywhere. This can get frustrating over time, but eventually your child will learn the lesson and stop pulling their hair.