Category: Parent Talk
Hi all
My son is 2 1/2 and imdealing wit him biting others. He started biting me right around the time he turned1. Now he jus bites others. He bites when hes mad/frustrated and sometime while playing wit a kiddo. He bites to the point he makes the person bleed. I have been working wit a behavior person but it will take months tl fix this. My friend & her mom told my friends 3yr olx daughyer to push him if he tries to bite her & i disagree wit that. She can push him hard & he wl hurt himself so i got mad bout that. I do get after him & spank him too. The behavior person says jus to put him in time out then show him the bite he left & tell him it hurts tbat person & makes me sad when he bites.
Anyone goin thru this or has gone thru this?? Any ideas/suggestions on how i cluld get him to stop biting??
A toddler who bites often does so because he can't express himself in a more desireable way for one reason or another. He's not a bad kid, but something's stopping him from being able to verbalize his emotions or channel them in a way that's productive instead of destructive.
You did the right thing by involving a behavioral specialist, and he or she is right on the money about how you should deal with this. A toddler is just beginning to explore his world--a lot of it is rather confusing to him and can be frustrating because of a lack of communication with yourself and with others. He needs to be taught how to communicate properly, and it seems you need to learn first how to teach him before you can correct his behavior.
I know one thing: Spanking him or pushing him isn't the answer. You say your mad about your friend telling her kid to push yours, but you admit to spanking him when he bites someone--how's that so different from a push? You're reinforcing his negative physical behavior with another form of negative physical behavior. All he's learning there is, if I'm bad, I get hit. So if someone else is bad, why can't I hurt them too. If he stops biting with your way of dealing with it, he'll start hitting people instead. How is that constructive.
After his time out, Sit him down and gently talk to him. Ask him how he would like it if someone bit him. Whenever you see him get frustrated, take him aside and ask him to tell you what the matter is. No yelling, no sounding aggressive or authoritative. Be patient--Pay him enough attention to let him get out his frustrations verbally. When you're trying to communicate with your child, you need to make yourself available to them at their level. If you're yelling at him, he'll learn to be afraid of you, but not to respect you, so ultimately anything you say to him with a domineering tone will be disregarded.
Create an environment where your kid can trust you, but where he'll get consequences for bad behavior--appropriate consequences, which, spanking is not one of them--sorry.
One other helpful thing to remember is, when you do talk to him, physically stoop down to his hight. Make yourself small like him--squat or neel on the floor and
behave like you're making eye contact with him. Being blind doesn't necessarily mean that you can't create the illusion of eye contact, and for a sighted person, especially a child, that's important.
Well, anyway, that's my take on it. Hope you find it at least somewhat helpful.
Good luck with your little one.
Siding with your behaviorist. Correcting violent behavior with violent behavior only teaches him "I'm bigger and stronger, so you have to listen to me," not "What you did was harmful".
If he bites you, don't display anger or violence if you can help it. Try to say "OUCH! That hurt!" and make an exaggerated play of being very sad and injured. Put him in time out until he can cool down, and then show him the bite, and say again "Ouch, this hurts, why did you do that?" If you can, gently take his hands and put them against your own teeth, apply gentle pressure and say "Biting more than this, hurts". Show him there are limits and better ways.
Encourage him to find other ways to express himself when he's upset and frustrated. Work on his language, or playing music. It's better for children to have something added to their life and skill set, rather than taken away.
I agree with everything you said M, except for one point. I don't think it's very wise to take his hand and bite them. I know you're just trying to show him that it hurts if you bite harder than that, but it could also show him that biting to a certain extent is okay. It is not, so I don't recommend doing that Bella. My cousin is almost 2, and she does this as well. She doesn't do it much anymore because we did exactly what the others said. We would pretend like it hurt us, and asked her why she did it. After a while, she would say, "sorry," and now she doesn't do it anymore. Well, she does every once in a while, but she will actually feel very bad about it afterwards. She will go up to the person and hug them. This is to make sure they're ok.
Good luck, and i hope you find something that works for you.
biting is never okay, period. to demonstrate this to a toddler, as others have said, telling him or her it hurts a person, and makes them sad is the best method.
I completely agree with everything said in post two. To the original poster, I don't blame you for getting upset at the other mother for telling her daughter to push your son at playgroup. I would be too. An adult telling a child to behave like that is only teaching her to be a bully to anyone smaller than herself. Completely unacceptable!
Thanks yall.. We are still somewhat working on the biting but it has moved into hair pulling. Smh. My son lovesss to pull hair. He says "i want pull ur hair." So now kinda working on that. Its so hard to deal wit his behavior & work on fixing it. Helps alot when my bf is around because my son pays more attention when my bf disciplines him. Soon though he will gets lots more help & his behavior wont be so much for me.
I remember when my daughter use to bite.
we use to put her in time out and remove her from the child.
It took time but she got it after a while.
When she cries about wanting something that she can't have we send her to the room and when she calms down she gets out the room and says I am done crying.
well, i have two daughters. and my oldest one use to do that as well when she was around 1 or 2. but her father didn't do anything to keep her from doing tat. he use to play wth her like that. but i had to show her, hey, that's not good to do. and, yes, sometimes she'd get a spanking. but her being that little, not much of one. i believe each parent, or parents, have their own way of disciplining their children, or child. but the main thing is to show them, this is what will happen if you continue to do this. and she learned after the third time. no more biting from adrianna. that, was almost 6 years ago.