Hitting

Lately Elliot's been having a slight problem with hitting kids at daycare.  Nothing hard, just a little flap of the hand, the same thing he does to us at home sometimes, and that we've been trying to nip in the bud.

The daycare people don’t seem to think it’s unusual, or a cause of alarm.  They say it always happens when some other kid comes and tries to take a toy from him, it’s provoked, he’s not just wandering the room whaling on kids.  So I guess that explains it a little. But like I said, we’ve noticed the same thing at home, and we try to crack down hard on it.  We stay "No!' sternly, and then ignore him for a few seconds.  If I'm holding him I'll put him down and walk away for a moment. 

Watching Elliot get irritated and lash out physically is a reminder how deeply rooted the impulse to violence is.  We all get frustrated, and reacting in that way --- with physical force--- is not just a product of our violent American gun culture, or some bullshit that the extreme lefty liberals would have you believe (I love those lefty liberals, but I have heard exactly this kind of pap come from their mouths).  

We’re not all peaceful beautiful snowflakes, we have violence inside us.  Civilization has done a great job teaching us to rein it in, and we’ve all benefited from that impulse control.  But the notion that humans are inherently peaceful is a joke.  Elliot’s the most adorable kid ever, but he has violence in him for sure.