Jenna Mazzillo floods attention to prevent hitting

Jenna Mazzillo’s advice is basically a behavior strategy dressed in plain English: stop waiting for hitting, and start paying hard attention to all the moments when hitting does not happen. In a short video posted in late April, she tells parents that if they already know why the hitting happens and they’ve already taught a replacement behavior, the “next layer” is to “go even more offensive” by flooding the day with attention for “safe hands.” ### What is she actually telling parents to do? She’s not saying “ignore aggression and hope for the best.” She’s saying the adult should massively increase attention to the behaviors that compete with hitting — gentle touch, walking past a desired toy without grabbing, tolerating “no,” waiting during play, greeting a peer calmly. Her core idea is simple: behavior that gets attention tends to grow, so give the attention to the non-hitting version before the child reaches the flashpoint. ### Why call it “flooding” attention? Because the point is intensity. Not one quick “good job” after a rough morning. More like catching dozens of tiny ordinary wins that adults usually miss. Mazzillo’s examples are deliberately boring — and that’s the point. She wants parents to notice the invisible moments where a child could have escalated but didn’t. In behavior terms, that makes the alternative more reinforcing than aggression. In normal-person terms, it makes being calm pay off faster. ### Why focus on the calm moments? Because once a child is already dysregulated, the learning window is worse. Mazzillo’s second move is “teach before the moment, not just inside the mistake.” She says parents should rehearse the exact situations that usually trigger hitting while the child is calm — turning off the TV, losing a game, sharing a toy, losing adult attention, making an appropriate request during play. Then practice with instruction, modeling, role-play, and feedback. ### So this is prevention, not punishment? Exactly. The whole frame is proactive. Instead of building the day around what to do after a hit, she builds it around making the hit less useful and less likely. That matters because a lot of families get stuck in a loop where the child hits, the adult reacts big, and the biggest burst of attention lands on the worst behavior. Her fix is to reverse that ratio. ### Who is Jenna Mazzillo in this space? She’s a BCBA, special education teacher, and creator behind ABA Naturally. She’s also been described in podcast and profile material as having served as a CSE chairperson, instructional coach, and district behavior analyst, with a focus on making behavior analysis usable for teachers and parents without heavy jargon. That background helps explain why the advice lands in social-video form instead of textbook language. ### Is this a full behavior plan? No — and that’s the catch. In both the YouTube and TikTok versions, Mazzillo explicitly says this comes after identifying why the hitting is happening and after teaching an effective replacement behavior. So “flooding attention” is not her whole answer. It’s the next layer once function and skill-building are already in place. If the hitting is driven by escape, access, sensory needs, pain, or communication breakdown, those still have to be addressed directly. ### Why is this getting traction? Because it gives parents something concrete to do today. Not a theory lesson. Not “be consistent” and good luck. Just: watch for safe hands like a hawk, reward the ordinary, and rehearse the hard moments while calm. That’s a much more usable script than waiting for the next incident and improvising. ### What’s the bottom line? Mazzillo’s point is that hitting often looks sudden, but the prevention work starts earlier. If adults pour attention into the calm alternative and practice the trigger moments before they explode, the child has a better option ready when frustration spikes.