Keep Your Hands to Yourself!

Grant and Nate are having a hard time keeping their hands to themselves these days. Brawls break out over toys every few minutes. Grant grabs for the firetruck in Nate's hand. Nate clutches it to his stomach and spins away. Grant thumps Nate on the head and grabs for it again. Nate defends himself with a big shove. Grant falls backward but quickly picks himself up and runs at Nate like an angry rhino. He swipes Nate's cheek and draws blood.  Nate flops down on top of Grant and starts rolling. The firetruck is forgotten, but the hard feelings hang around.

That's why I was so exicted to run across the book Hands are Not for Hitting by Martine Agassi at the library. I read it to the kids almost every day during lunch this week. Then, I traced their hands and cut them out. I glued the wrists to a piece of construction paper so that the hands could still move. I wrote the rule "hands are not for hitting" at the top of the page. At the bottom, Avery helped me make a list of other things we can do with our hands, like clapping, waving, building, coloring, washing, etc. Some of these are from the book. After the project was finished, I hung it on the wall next to the table so we can talk about it every day.

Next week, I plan to have the kids make handprints on paper. I will then give them pictures cut out of magazines and catalogs and have them find things they would like to hold in their hands. I'll help them use glue sticks to glue the pictures onto the hands. This will be another reminder that hands are for many things, but not for hitting.

I'm not expecting this to stop every fight at our house, but I am hoping it will be another reminder for the boys to keep their hands to themselves!