How do you deal with hitting & hair pulling?

wonkatalia

DD is a crazy hair puller.  Anytime she is near ANYONE's hair, she lunges for it and screams in delight as she grabs a handful and yanks as hard as she can.  It's bad and VERY painful.  Mostly, I'm the victim - which sucks but isn't so bad because I know how to avoid it and I can usually tell when she's about to strike.  Plus, I usually keep my hair pulled back (although she does sometimes grab it even then...and man, that's painful). 

The main problem/concern I have is that she pulls other children's hair.  Whenever we have play dates, the first thing she does is go for the hair.  It's awful.  I try to tell her "No" in a firm voice but she doesn't understand or care.  And when the other children are older, they think I'm saying no to them while they're getting their hair pulled.  It's so pitiful.

Any ideas?  She's not much of a hitter, but I figured it would be a similar situation and maybe more of you have experience with hitters that you could share?