July 18, 2009

Time to teach Jack how to stop biting…again

"Ouch! Biting hurts."

“Ouch! Biting hurts!”

That’s what the book says and the book is right.

We thought we were doing a pretty good thing by teaching Jack, from a very early age, not to bite. We read this book to him so many times we had it memorized. Yep, we were pretty confident that we’d been proactive and nipped it in the bud. Jack wasn’t going to be a biter, we were sure of it.

Then one day…he struck!

It was sudden and totally unexpected. Jack bit Mama on the shoulder and it hurt. “Ouch! Biting hurts.”

Where did that come from? We’d moved on to Hands Are Not For Hitting for cryin’ out loud. Now he’s biting! What do we do?

First of all, we did the wrong thing and yelled at him. “No! That’s bad Jack. Biting is mean.” Didn’t work too well. He broke down and bawled when we called him “mean”. Poor kid. He probably thinks he playing and now he’s been told he’s a miscreant.

When it comes to parenting, you usually have to screw it up first, then get it right and move forward. With biting, we definitely missed the boat. Back to the drawing board. Time to recover the boy’s self-esteem and start teaching him why it’s not good to bite people all over again.

Thought we’d share what we found out. Here’s where it comes from…

Kids bite out of frustration, self-defense or just to explore the world around them, among other reasons. When your child can’t express his frustration through words, he may bite instead. Many times, your child is attacked or bullied and biting is how she defends herself. Sometimes biting is just another way that kids learn about the world. Touching, smelling, and tasting aren’t enough so it’s time to bite. These sites talk about some of the other reasons kids bite.

What to do about biting – from Missourifamilies.org
Biting: Why it happens and what to do about it - from one of our favorites, babycenter.com

Now that you know some more about why kids bite, time to learn about how to stop them from doing it. Here’s what’s working for us…

Never, Ever Bite Back!
Be firm, but don’t yell. “No biting” or “Teeth are not for biting” seem to work well.
Don’t give the biter that much attention. Caring for the one who’s been bitten sends the message that biting will not get him more attention. (Since Jack has been biting Mommy and Daddy, this works well because he usually gets jealous when we pay attention to each other.)
Make the little bugger apologize. That’s teaching accountability. (Standard operating procedure for any disciplinary action.)

Here are some other sites with great tips:

How to stop your children from biting – from fellow Examiner, Tonya Kemble
Taking the bite OUT of a biting child – tips from actual child care providers, courtesy of About.com

Seems like we may have started teaching Jack about biting a bit too early. Everything we’ve read tells us this is a toddler phase. We’ll get it under control and so will you.

Next on the agenda…tantrums. Jack had a major meltdown this morning. Time to discuss that in our next post.