When Your Kid's Aggression is Worsening ("I hate you," hitting, and what's really going on)

In today's episode, I invite you into my real-time coaching session with a mom of a 4-year-old whose aggression has been escalating. The hitting, the screaming, the "I hate you." Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high-structure, high-nurture tools that you can use to to lead confidently at home. If you've ever done everything right and still watched it blow up in your face and wondered if you're really making things worse, this episode is for you.

I have two kids. My son is 4, and then my daughter, she'll be 6 in August. Their father and I got divorced. We actually physically started living in different places about a year ago. We have 50/50 custody, but the schedule is slightly confusing because he works as a firefighter. So it's every 3 days that we switch and not set days of the week, which makes it a little bit challenging for predictability. So initially, our daughter was the one that was having a really hard time, just really, really, really sad, missing her dad a lot. And our son, he's very smart, very perceptive. He, I think, took a lot of pride in trying to be like, well, I'm the one that's okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. So as our daughter has started doing better, she's been in therapy and she seems to be coping a little bit better with everything. We're seeing this big shift in our son. So probably like 6 months now, it's been ramping up significantly with just super control power issues. Whenever something doesn't go his way, he escalates really quickly and gets really destructive and violent. And then when you do try to set a boundary, that's when it gets to that really destructive, loud, mean language, physically, like wanting to push over chairs, hitting, screaming, just completely dysregulated. So we have been trying to make things more consistent between us, really trying to give him options to have more control where he can. Lots of attempting to, like, create more connection with him just throughout the day and really focus on, like, trying to connect before correcting. But just overall, it's tricky, especially as it starts to involve other people. You know, like, we— it's hard. Playdates are hard. Just social interactions can be hard. And then just the nature of, like, only one parent there. So if he starts ramping up and making it tricky with his sister, there's not really an ability to just easily, like, tap out and have another parent just, like, separate him for a little bit. Underneath it all, it's, like, really obvious that he's hurting. We were trying to go to therapy as well with him. He won't go without one of us there. In the very, very beginning, we had this blip of like 2 weeks where he was just so sad right after we started that and just actually telling us he misses me. He's not used to me being away prior to this divorce.

I really appreciate you drawing that out for me. I want to start off by saying that it just sounds incredibly exhausting and emotionally heavy and I also hear you trying extremely hard in all the ways to increase your connection, trying to stay patient and hold everything together. And so it makes sense that you're exhausted and it makes sense that you are not sure where else to go. From a psychological standpoint, all of these things could be grief related and that could be kind of the string underneath it all. Like you said, he was holding it together for so long and now he's kind of just letting it all out in different ways, like anger and aggression. I think the big question here is why, right? And what can we do now at this point to kind of jump in and help him in a way that we aren't already trying? So he's kind of grasping at control because in a way, this is the only way he knows how to control his environment or his emotions. And the real question that we need to get to the bottom of is, well, What purpose is it serving for him? Because once we figure out, well, he's doing this aggressive thing or throwing or lashing out or having these massive tantrums, well, then we could come up with a replacement to fill the gap for, oh, I could fill that purpose for you without you doing this, or by teaching you a different way to get what you need. And I think that's kind of the idea behind real behavior change. And that's not in an effort to not acknowledge the depths of what must be going on inside of his heart, inside of your heart.

That's just a really good point because like a huge part of this for us has also been trying to navigate how much is just like developmentally appropriate with like his temperament and this age and how much is related specifically to some of like the emotional and other stuff that's going on with the divorce. So it has been like tricky trying to figure out that balance and probably less so have we been focusing on that piece of it because of course we just go to like the guilt factor of like, we caused this, you know? So that makes a lot of sense as well.

And I'm glad you mentioned that. Of course you're feeling an immense amount of guilt, like I created this. And I think it's extremely aware of you. To step back and look at it from a kind of objective standpoint and say, hey, wait, this can't all be from the divorce, right? There— some of this has to be developmental. And, you know, this is a— what I like to call a fracture in his life. And he's going to have so many more fractures from here on out, whether it's from something you decided or something he decided or something a friend decided. This is just part of life. And so the bottom line is, how do we hold space for that while also guiding him and leading him through to keep him resilient? Do you have a specific moment that you could bring me to?

Just a couple weeks ago, we have a very small pool in the backyard, very small, and it's the beginning of the season now here in California for swimming and everything. So I scheduled for somebody to come over to our house to do swim lessons. Again, it's a very small pool. I wasn't going to be there, but my ex was going to be there. And so he had asked me, like, well, what's the plan? And I said, I'm thinking we shouldn't have him in the pool because just with how things have been lately, that might be a little bit tricky to navigate, you know, our daughter trying to be focused on her lesson and then our son, you know, it's just not— it's unpredictable and it's small. So My ex opted to still have him in the pool, and apparently for them it was fine. So all of them were in the pool together. It wasn't a big deal. It didn't disrupt the lesson. And then a couple days later, it was with me. And so I mentioned to our son before we got in, our daughter is going to have this swim lesson. If we're going to be in the pool at the same time, we can't disrupt the lesson. Um, but since you were in there last time, we can do that if it's seems like it's too hard, then we're gonna get out and we can swim later. You and I can do something special while the lesson is going on, like inside the house. You play whatever game you want, play whatever music, we could do whatever, and we could swim later if you want to. Mm-hmm. So he said, okay, that makes sense, and agrees. Swim instructor gets there, we go out, and within 30 seconds he's saying, I want to be spun around right where their swim lesson is. And I said, oh, we can't. It's a small pool. We can't fit there. Do you want to play in this other area of the pool with me? Or we could set up a game where we— I put like a basket in an area and I said we could throw like our water, our pool toys into that basket until they're done with their lesson and then we can go spin around in that area. So instantly he ramps up, and at this point he's like screaming, "I want to do it. I want to do it." Like splashing, throwing the pool toys at them during the lesson, starting to get very angry. So I said, "I can see how frustrated you are. You really wanted to swim in that area. It seems like the solutions I came up with for right now aren't working. So we're going to go inside, and we can come and swim later after the lesson, but we cannot be out in the pool right now." So he ramps up even more. I pick up his, like, sopping wet, flailing body and carry him inside where he continues screaming. At that point, it escalates to, like, kicking, hitting, telling me that he hates me, that he wants to kill me, that he's just so mad. It went on for the entire lesson. We were inside at this point, but trying to run towards the door to see if he could get it open. During this, I was just blocking him and trying to hold him in ways where he could not hurt me. I tried saying, I'm going to be over here because he would equally, as he's like trying to attack me, equally saying like, stay away from me, right? So moving my body and trying to be like, I can be over here if you need space. I'm here when you're ready. But then he would just bolt to try to go out the door again to the swim— swimming pool. So me, myself, trying to find a balance of like, I don't even know what to do here. I physically keep having to stay close to you, but then you don't want me here. And I also don't want to be getting hit or hurt. I can't remember how it finally ended. It just— I mean, it took forever and eventually it started to wind down. I feel like we tried to talk about it later. But even that, like, he didn't want to. It was like too vulnerable. Like, I think he— this is just me assuming, but like, was embarrassed and upset. Like, later in the evening when it was just him and I, him and I had tried talking and said, that was really hard earlier. We got through it together. Like, I know that you were really upset. Even when it's okay to be really upset, it's not okay to hurt me. You know, if you need space, I can give you space, kind of talking about different options there. And then at the very end, right before he was like getting ready to fall asleep, I said, I want to make sure that you know that even when it's really hard, like, I love you always. And I want you to make sure that you know that, like, we're working on these behaviors together. We are going to figure it out. But this does not change my love for you. And do you know that? And then he shook his head no. And so I just very quiet, you know, like, won't look at me in the eyes, just shook his head no. And I said, just like reassuring him again, we are working on this together. This is really hard. This is hard stuff to figure out. And I do always love you no matter what. And we will figure it out. And just kind of left it at that. So I don't know that I got the balance on any of that right. But it was— You know, it's one of those things that then I sit there and spiral on my own end of like, am I handling this appropriately? One, how do I prevent this from continuing to happen? And two, like, am I helping? Am I missing the mark? You know, all of it.

Sure. Do you notice it happening more with you than others? Does it happen equally with Dad and Mom? Do you have any input on that?

More with me than with Dad. I do. So Dad is less structured overall, so I don't know if that comes into play as well. And also though, Dad said like, well, if he hits me, I like physically hold him and like medium hard until he stops. And I mean, he's getting bigger now. I'm not even capable of probably doing that to that capacity. So there's just definitely more with me than with his dad. I think he still ramps up with his dad, but not to that same point. Also though, I mean, we're co-parenting. I'm not 100% sure how much of the picture I'm getting. His teachers tell me he's ramping up a little bit, but definitely not to that level. They are noticing a change. They're noticing more defiance, more aggression, and like more uncomfortableness with anything that could be perceived as vulnerable. But he's not hitting his teachers.

You know, so I wanna just start off by saying that under the age of 5, our kids need consistent corrective action and little to no lecturing explanations and little to no feelings talk. And I'll get into what I mean by that. One big observation that I'm making before I jump into the 3 practical tools I can send you off with is that this is hard. And I hear you trying. You prepared and you talked to him about it. You set the expectation. You laid out a consequence. You brought him in the pool. You stuck with your structure. You took him out and it still felt like you failed. And I just want to get it out there that this is not a matter of passing or failing. This is just a matter of how can we tweak this approach, right? Slowly but surely so that this behavior starts to lessen and then eventually disappear, right? That's our job. That's our job as parents is to be like, whoa, something needs to be tweaked here. What is it? Right? And that's why you're here. But I just wanna mention that you didn't do anything wrong. And in this moment, there's maybe a question of like timing that I think would make the world of a difference of like, hey. Had you done this, then we could maybe have made this happen. Mom, you have a huge heart, huge. And I can feel your love and your care for your son, like, pouring out in everything that you're doing, not just in your structure but in your nurture. I love you no matter what. I— this is hard stuff. We're gonna get through this. I know you wanted to swim over there. I get it. And blah, blah, blah. And when you're saying this is hard to your son, You're also saying, this is really hard for me. And I hear that. I hear it in your voice. I hear it in your heart where you're just like, we are going to get through this together. Our situation is unique and it's not ideal. And we're going to figure this out. And I just love hearing your heart pouring out in your words because it shows me how much you love him and how much you really care. Now let's jump into the brain of a 4-year-old. When this happens, when these behaviors start to take flight, he gets a whole lot of mama. Mom's words, and he gets mom's eyes, and he gets mom's attention, and mom sits with him inside. And hey, mom even touches him when he's trying to get out the door and mom's there blocking him or holding him in some way. And after the whole thing's done, he gets mom to sit with him and he gets mom to talk with him about it. And he gets mom to say, "You know what? I love you no matter what." And he gets sweet words from mom and he gets love from mom and he gets closeness from mom. And so, what's happening in the brain of a 4-year-old from a strictly behavioral perspective is that when I do this, I get a lot of mom. Whether it's good mom or angry mom or frustrated mom or a happy mom or mad mom, I get mom. And so what happens in the brain of a 4-year-old is this behavior is working in a way. And what I mean by that is that it's working to get more of you and more of your attention. And what we want to do is we want to retrain that association that's going on in his brain. The first practical tip is that we always want to remember, especially under the age of 5— this doesn't just like automatically disappear at the age of 5, but especially under the age of 5— that we want to say less and do more with our bodies during escalation. In the moment of the pool, before the pool, we are going to try, and if it is not going well, we are going to come out. Well, I'm going to show you that you didn't really stick to that, and it escalated before you could rein it back in fast enough. He was too far gone, and I'll show you how. When you got into the pool, the minute that he said, I want to start splashing over here or doing the spinning thing over here, No, we can't. We can go over here. He keeps pulling you in that direction. That's it. Take him by the hand. Say, we're going to walk up the steps. What he got instead was choices. We can go over here or we can go over here, but we can't go over here. He also got mom's attention in the way that you said, I get it. You really want to be over here. Then he amped up his anger. You mentioned he threw something or splashed something. And you said, I get that you're frustrated or you really want to be over here, but we have to do this or we get out. We need to be like super detectives of when that dysregulation really started to set in. Because once you got out of the pool, he was already dysregulated for like probably 45 seconds to a minute, maybe even more, because I wasn't there. And so he was already past the point of understanding the logical part of what you laid out beforehand. And so it kind of erased it all. So what I want to say is that we need to be a little more alert of his signals of when that escalation is beginning and use extremely few words and your body to make the boundary very clear. So once the escalation begins, "No, I wanna go over there." He wasn't crying, he wasn't screaming, he wasn't being aggressive yet. To me, that's dysregulation. His voice gets a little whiny, he starts to fight a little bit, he starts to show that defiance a little bit. Okay, let's go to the steps, take his hand, right? It's easy to move a 4-and-a-half-year-old that's getting bigger in the water than it is on land. So gently pull him to the stairs. And now he might say, no, no, no, no, no, I want to stay in the pool. Whoa. Okay, now we have a different situation on our hands. He realized the boundary very clearly. And now is when you can say, oh, okay. So are you looking at my eyes? And my guess is he's de-escalated and he'll look at you and you'll say, our choice is to do throwing the ball in the net over here or doing that over there. Now you can give your choices and then say, if he's calm and regulated and picks one, great. If he doesn't pick one, okay, keep walking out of the steps because you're already there. And so it's kind of like a matter of timing here that you need to recognize his nervous system first. Take leadership second and then discuss later.

I liked how you like walked that through to me very specifically, because I see what you're saying. Like, I was trying to do those things, but not organized enough, if that makes sense. And like you said, it was already getting— he was already getting too dysregulated.

My hope is that you're realizing that you had all the ingredients. You just have to kind of like shuffle them around a little bit. It's like a game of Tetris where we want them to just fit a little bit better with his nervous system. And it's kind of like when we are looking at it almost like in terms of a graph of his feelings that are going to come to a peak, we want to hit it right as soon as they start going up with a boundary, right? We can go right to the steps or, okay, we're going to watch a movie now before bed. No, I don't want to watch a movie. Okay, then we go right to bed. No discussion, right? Lay down the boundary first. Move him with his body so that he clearly understands the consequence. This helps us, actually. He is smart, he is bright, he is strong-willed. He needs to feel like he is in control, and that's a good thing. And so children that need control do so much better when the structure is front-loaded before the dysregulation. As you're standing at the steps of the pool holding his hand, before he could even put his foot in that water, one more reminder. Your sister's having her, her lesson. There will be no spinning in her area. Maybe you draw an invisible line in the pool so that he sees that line before getting in. And you're like, do you see this line? We stay to this side.

Got it?

And maybe you give him a quick test. Hey, what side of the pool is our side?

Awesome.

And the minute we pass that line, where do we go? And I want to hear him say, the stairs. Yep, that's right. And so, I want you to recognize that also by preloading this structure, you can even make like sitting on the steps the first step of getting out of the pool. It doesn't have to be so dramatic like, that's it, we're getting out and we pick them up and we bring them inside soaking wet. The minute he passes his body over there, then we go sit on the steps. And if you're flailing around on the steps or not sitting on the steps, then it's inside. This will make the structure a little more easy on you so that as you're developing these new behaviors, you're not constantly bringing a kid into the house soaking wet, right? It's kind of like the first tier and then the second tier. And once we're inside, we don't go back out. And he kind of can understand that beforehand. So that it's a little bit easier of a calm and gradual structure for everyone to swallow. And it doesn't feel so definitive as he's learning, because he might, he might, you know, deserve another chance because maybe he did calm down on the step and you're like, okay, you know what, repeat to me what the expectation was. Okay, awesome. I think you got it. We're going to try one more time. And then if we don't listen, we're going back in the house. And so that's kind of what parenting a 5-and-under child is all about. It's exhausting because it's just try again, try again, try again. Consistent corrective action comes first, right? I said this, so we're doing it. Oh, you, you think you can try again? Okay, repeat the expectations. Okay, now we can go back and try again.

I feel like I'm gonna have to practice that in my mind so that I actually remember to do that part of it and like the tiers of it as well. So that it's not always like, and now that's it, we're done and we have to like fully leave because that's hard for everyone as well. But adding the tiers so that there's just like a little, a little bit more of a chance, like especially if I'm catching it early enough for him to still, I don't know, move closer to whatever his goal is as well, right? Like both of our goals of like still being out there.

And you said it beautifully. You don't want him to fail. Right? We don't want this moment to end poorly. The more moments we end poorly with our kids, the harder it is for all of us to go to sleep at night. Right? And so we want it to go well, but the bigger the consequence doesn't mean the bigger the lesson. That's not how that works. It's just keep the consequence consistent. And then in baby steps, he will learn that lesson and nobody feels guilty about it. Because you're like, hey, I want you to go back in the pool. I don't want to go in the house with you right now. So can you do this? I think you can. And it's very simple. It's very short. You're having him explain it. You're offering less choices. There's no talk about feelings, right? It's literally just, hey dude, this is the deal. You want to stay or you don't want to stay, right? And I want you to stay. And so it's kind of having that attitude about it at all times. And you're gonna realize that emotionally it's actually gonna create a lot more stability for him than anything else, far more than feelings talk. So guiding into the last tool that I wanna give you, we wanna remember that we need to rebuild his sense of control in healthy ways. We wanna make sure we are offering him healthy control opportunities. What does that mean? It means giving him the ability to choose the routine in moments where he is calm. Hey, he wakes up. Do you want to do the pool first? Do you want to do this first?

Right?

Thank you for being so calm with your listening eyes and listening ears. I really appreciate that. Pointing these things out to him when he's doing the right thing. We don't want to overindulge him with lectures and feelings talk and how much you love him when things are hard, because that's confusing for an under 5-year-old. It's too much for their brain. And so instead, we want to just pour into them when they are showing already the behaviors that we want to see more of. Your job is not to eliminate his anger, but it's also to give him control over how he exerts his anger. So this is the last piece that I want to offer you. When he is angry, he needs a replacement. So what do I mean by that? And this ties right back into my initial statement about His anger, behaviorally speaking, is working. It's getting him what he wants— more of mom. But we want to prove him wrong, that that actually doesn't get you more of mom. So we're going to stop the feelings talk, we're going to stop the explanations, we're going to stop the choices when he's overwhelmed, and we're going to keep it short, concise, and quiet, right? Consistent corrective action with your body. If you want to go back in the pool, calmly say, 'Can we try again, please?' And what I'm envisioning— so I could bring you into the exact moment where you should say this— in the moment where it was kind of feeling like it was too far gone, when you were in that house and he was getting aggressive and running towards the door, you could calmly sit there and say, 'One quick thing. If you want to go back in the pool, you can say, can we try again, please? I'll wait. And what I mean by that is you're retraining him. What you're actually saying is your anger is doing absolutely nothing for you right now. And I'm actually going to kind of ignore it. What I'm instead going to do is offer you a replacement and say, that's not going to work. But you can try saying, can we go back in the pool, please? I'd like to try again. And wait for him to repeat exactly what you said, and he does, I want you to jump for joy and say, of course we can go back in. Oh my gosh, thank you so much for asking so nicely. Because what you're doing in every one of those argumentative, aggressive moments is giving him a better way to communicate his frustration, his disappointment. Feelings are fine. But they can't be exerted that way. And they're definitely not going to be rewarded that way. And right now it kind of feels like it is being rewarded. And so I want you to give him a better replacement.

With that last example, so like when he's, let's say that he is able to say, can we try again, please? Then are you reiterating? Like, I feel like trying to be like reiterating, okay, like we're going to, thank you so much. Yes. Of course, thanks for asking, we have to stay on this side of the pool. I feel like trying to say that, like, is he even capable of following that direction, or is it just going to repeat the whole thing as soon as we get out there?

Um, so that's what makes it so very exhausting to raise a kid who's under the age of 5. My answer to you is yes, that might happen, but that is totally to be expected and totally fine. This is also why I suggested to do this on the steps. Because they need repetition to learn. They need chances to keep trying to get it right. And the more practice and reps we can give them, the more it's going to stick and the quicker it's going to stick. So what I mean by that is, yeah, if he does and says the right thing, I want you to jump for joy and say, of course we can go back in the pool.

Yep.

Maybe you, on your way out before he steps in, you do the whole thing over again, like a repeat of exactly what just happened. What's the rule when we get in the pool? That's right. So we're going to try again. If it doesn't work, we get out. Keep your language short and simple. And that's it. No shaming, no guilting. You said that you would try again and you're not doing it. You're failing. Oh, we have to get back out. That's it. Just get back out. Give them a chance to say it again. And I don't think you're going to have to do it that much. That's the bottom line, right? Because the timing, if we shifted a little bit, and we stay short and concise and give him a replacement for his feelings, he will get there. He just needs to strengthen the lack of skill he has in communicating what he wants when he is angry. He's not communicating it properly. He's throwing things. He's, he's lashing out. He's hurting people. He's running towards doors. Whoa, what are you trying to say? Just here, I'll help you. Let's find the words. Right? Not— this has— we're not going— we're not even going to think about the divorce. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're allowed to be angry, but what do you need right now? Right? Laser focus in the moment. We want to give him literally a line each time this happens. If he's angry and he wants to be alone and he's throwing things, just say, space please. Space please. If you say space please, me and your sister will be out of here. Space, please. Okay, sure, leave the room. But don't give him what he wants. Don't let the anger work until he practices a better way of saying what he wants. Even if at first it feels like you're giving in or giving him what you just said he couldn't have, we need to reshape his behaviors slowly and gradually over time. And then you could start to tighten up your structure again.

Right?

If you're like, no, you can't have that snack right now, and he's like, and starts screaming and throwing things, and you're like, uh, say, can I just have one bite please? Or would it be okay if I had it after dinner? Then I want you to jump for joy if he repeats what you said back properly and say, of course you can. Or positive consequence, you know what, because you just said that so nicely, I'm gonna let you have half of it right now. Thank you so much. I want you to pour into him when he actually exerts control in a good way.

That sounds good. I like that. Okay. Thank you.

Less is more, quieter, more definitive, and just like zooming into each situation without letting yourself spiral into like, oh my gosh, this is a problem the size of the ocean. And more just like, Hey, no, this is just a problem right now. He wants to go in the pool and he can't, so I'm going to give him words to get in the pool. Or, hey, you know what? No, he just wants a snack right now and he can't have it, so I'm going to give him words to get the snack. And when we do that, we actually start to become calmer and more impactful and effective as leaders.

Perfect. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

As we wrap up, remember this. Your child isn't trying to control you. They're trying to hold on to the one person who feels safest. And they haven't yet learned how to do that without falling apart. That's not a character flaw. That's a skill gap. And the most powerful thing you can do isn't explain more, reason more, or find a better exit strategy. It's to stay, to get quiet. To show them that your calmness is bigger than their chaos. Thank you for joining me in the Parent Coaching Chair. Keep leading your home with high structure and high nurture, and I'll meet you back here next week. Please know that your experience here matters to me. Your ratings and reviews help this podcast reach more parents who need this message. If this episode helped you, please leave a rating or review, and please follow my show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. It really helps. If you're looking for more support, you'll find classes and practical guides over at my website, www.transformingparenthood.com. And podcast listeners can use the code PODCAST15 at checkout for 15% off my Mastering High Structure, High Nurture course. My signature systematic approach to raising cooperative and emotionally skilled kids.