2 1/2 year old is banging her head and hitting: Will she be kicked out of childcare?

Question

My daughter is nearly 2 1/2 and generally has an easy, sweet temperment. For the past month, she's been having emotional meltdowns. Usually, it's in response to stress (tired, hungry, frustrated). She'll bang her head, scream, try to hit, and won't allow herself to be distracted or comforted. 
To make matters more complicated, we had to start her in childcare for the first time. My husband has been home with her for the past year, and either her grandmother or I watched her before that. Yesterday was her first day and she did fine. (She's being watched by a SAHM who has an infant son and watches a 3 year old boy.) Today, I got a call at work. She basically freaked out and started trying to hit our Hillary (our childcare provider) when she tried to take a toy from her to put it away. Then, she tried to hit the 3 year old little boy. After that, she ran into the back bedroom, laid down and fell asleep. She couldn't be comforted or distracted. 
The source of the stress in this case was obviously being overtired. As she works into her new schedule, I would hope that things would improve on that front. What worries me is the hitting and inconsolable screaming. DH's family has Autism in his family... She is very social when she's not freaking out. 
What should I do? I'm almost full term with another baby, and I'm terrified that there's something wrong with my daughter.

? · Accepted Answer

There's nothing wrong with your daughter. She is just expressing her feelings the best way she can. She has no empathy yet so she doesn't know that it's not ok to hit other children or other people. First of all, don't stress yourself, it will pass. My son is almost the same age as your daughter and I'm going through the same stuff. The best thing you can do is try to avoid frustration, hunger or overtiredness. Always look for early signs and put a remedy to it before the meltdown is even on sight. Also, I don't understand why the caregiver would take a doll away from her. She had it coming, if you ask me. What she did it was not ok, for whatever reason. When your child is telling you something, listen to her and try to humor her, when she is starting to struggle offer ask her what the problem is and offer your help. I find it very helpful in my case to squat down and talk to my son to see if I can make him feel better, sometimes I don't know why he is like that so I start asking, and I tell him that if he doesn't tell me I can't know. Sometimes I can fix the problem and everybody is happy. Sometimes I can't and I just stay there next to him saying that I'm sorry but that he can't have that because it's dangerous, because it's not good for you, etc. The distracting doesn't help a lot. And I don't really like it, cos it's like showing him how to ignore his feelings instead of letting them out in a healthy way.

2 1/2 year old is banging her head and hitting: Will she be kicked out of childcare?

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