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Social Story for Keeping Hands to Yourself
A keeping hands to yourself social story gives a child something their hands can do instead, because “don’t hit” tells them what to stop but not what to start. For a young child the feeling arrives in the hands before it arrives as words. A tower gets knocked down, a toy gets taken, and the arm has already moved before anyone has decided anything.
So the story below doesn’t scold, and nobody in it is a bad kid. It shows a few things hands can do when the feeling comes (squeeze, press, pockets) and then the words that come after. Read it on a calm night, not straight after an incident, so it is heard as a story rather than a verdict. Free to read aloud, or make one with your child in it.
Rafi and the Hands That Knew What to Do
A free story to read aloud tonight
Rafi’s hands were fast. They could catch a ball, and build a tower nine blocks high, and do up a zip nearly all the way by themselves.
But sometimes, when something went wrong, Rafi’s hands moved before the rest of him had decided anything. When his tower got knocked over, his hand pushed. When someone took his digger, his hand grabbed. And then everybody was crying, including Rafi, who hadn’t meant it, not really, not all the way.
So his grandad taught his hands some new jobs. The first job was squeeze: make two tight fists, squeeze as hard as you can, and let go. The second job was press: put both hands flat on the table, or the wall, or your own knees, and push, and count to five.
The third job was pockets. Hands go in pockets and stay there, warm and busy, while you have a think. And if you haven’t got pockets, you can sit on them, which is silly, which helps.
The next day at the park a big boy took Rafi’s spade. Rafi felt it come up, hot, all the way to his hands. And his hands squeezed. Squeeze, and let go. And because his hands were busy, his mouth had time, and it said: “I’m cross. That’s my spade.”
It didn’t work every time. Hands that have been fast for a long while take a while to learn new jobs. But that night in bed Rafi squeezed his fists once under the blanket, just to check, and let go, and his hands lay quiet on the pillow beside him, and he went to sleep.
Read it a few nights running rather than on the morning of. Familiarity is the part that works. The aim is that by the day itself, none of it is new.
Why do young children hit?
Hitting, pushing and grabbing are very common in toddlers and preschoolers, mostly because the feeling arrives faster than the words for it. It usually isn’t cruelty. Giving their hands a different job, and their feeling a name, is a common approach in parenting guidance, and it tends to land better on a calm day than in the middle of an upset.
Should I read this right after my child hits someone?
Usually not. Straight after an incident a child is either still upset or already ashamed, and a story about hitting lands as a telling off. A calm bedtime, a day or two later, is when new jobs for their hands can be heard. Some families practise squeeze and press together as a game, so the moves are already there when they’re needed.
What if it’s happening at preschool or school?
Talk to the teacher so you are both using the same words and the same alternatives; a child picks up a plan more easily when it is the same plan everywhere. If hitting is frequent, getting worse, or hurting other children, it is worth raising with your pediatrician, who may suggest talking to a child psychologist.