My 2-year-old hit another kid at the playground, and I wanted the ground to swallow me. It was a Tuesday morning, the playground was full, and she walked up to a little boy, took his shovel, and when he grabbed it back she smacked him right on the arm. He cried. His mom stared at me. I apologized about nine times and left with my face burning.

She wasn’t a “hitter” before that. Then it happened three more times that week — at playgroup, at the library, once at home on her sister. Always the same pattern: she wanted something, words didn’t work fast enough, hand went out.

Here’s what actually stopped it. First, in the moment: I stay calm, which is the hardest part when you’re embarrassed and twenty parents are watching. I get down to her level, I hold her hands gently — not grabbing, just holding — and I say “I won’t let you hit.” Short. Firm. Kind, as much as I can manage. Then we leave the situation. Not as punishment, not stomping off — just “we’re going to sit on this bench until our hands are calm.” The first time I did this she screamed for ten minutes on the bench. I sat there and waited. It was awful. It also worked better than anything else I’d tried.

What flopped: saying “we don’t hit” on repeat like it was a magic spell. I must have said it two hundred times. It meant nothing to her — it was just background noise while she was upset. Time-outs flopped too. Putting an angry 2-year-old alone in a corner just made her angrier, and then I had a furious toddler AND a guilt spiral.

The part that actually taught her: practice at home, when everyone was calm. We’d sit with her stuffed bunny and I’d say “can you show Bunny gentle hands?” and she’d stroke it softly, and I’d go completely over the top: “Ohhh, such gentle hands! Bunny feels so loved!” We did this at bedtime for a couple of weeks. It felt ridiculous. But toddlers learn through doing, not through lectures — she needed her hands to practice the motion of gentle about fifty times before it stuck.

I also started narrating her feelings before the hand went out. “You’re mad she took the truck. It’s hard to wait.” Sometimes catching it early was enough. Her big sister even started doing it too — I’d hear this tiny 4-year-old voice saying “you seem frustrated,” which was both adorable and a little eerie.

It took about three weeks before the hitting mostly stopped. It still happens when she’s tired or hungry — last week she swatted her sister over a cracker at 6pm, which, fair, I get cranky about crackers at 6pm too. But the playground incidents are gone, and I don’t dread playgroup anymore. Progress, not perfection.