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Jersey Shore star Snooki recently posted a positively adorable video of herself while hanging with son Lorenzo. In the vid, Lorenzo looks insanely cute (duh), but also, he's kicking the s**t out of Snooki.
Snooki captioned the video, which she posted to Instagram, "My son likes to beat me up", and man is she not lying. Lorenzo 1, Snooki 0.
Check out the adorableness, then let's have a quick chat about babies and hitting. 'Cause you know you've been there.
Cute, isn't it? And notice how Nicole is laughing (and you were probably laughing, too)? Yep, been there. When my daughter first started experimenting with "smacking" and "pulling", etc., I would giggle just like Snooki, because, well, it's kind of funny. Your baby isn't being mean, they're just experimenting and figuring out boundaries. But now that my girl is veering into 15-month territory, I've realized that -- smacking? It ain't cool.
Now, don't get it twisted. I'm not raising a monster or a maniac or a child who's allowed to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants. But every once in a while, usually when she's cranky, my daughter will flail her arms about a la Lorenzo and smack someone in the face or poke an eye. (And yes, there has been a time or two when she's even gone to bite.) It's not cool, I know that, and it's not a habit I encourage. But you can't exactly "punish" a kid who's barely 1, and right now, I believe in "positive discipline" or "distraction" instead of screaming "No!" at my baby.
A little while ago, I started putting my daughter down if I happened to be holding her when she started hitting. And when she does something she knows she shouldn't be doing -- like climb on the table -- I try to show her something else she might be interested in, like a book, a toy, etc. A few mamas I respect and trust suggested I try that, and thus far, it's seemed to kind of work. But yeah, I obviously don't want to raise a brat, so I've quit giggling when she "attacks".
The older my child gets, the more she'll be able to decipher right from wrong, but until then, I'm going to do my best to stay consistent with what I've chosen to do. I'm sure there are plenty of people who handle these types of situations differently, but hey, parenting isn't one size fits all, and this is what works for my daughter and me.
How do you handle a hitting child?
Image via Snooki/Instagram
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
