How do you stop a toddler from biting?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My 17-month old bit another kid in daycare yesterday. He’s never done that before. They were apparently arguing over a toy, and Aaron lunged at him and bit him. leaving teeth marks. This scares the hell out of me. Another kid, a compulsive biter, was pulled out of daycare not long ago, because he just couldn’t stop biting. He drew blood in a couple of cases (he bit my kid twice).

I want to stop Aaron from biting before it gets really serious (I think one bite is really serious, but if he never does it again, I would be much happier). He has attempted to bite us before, but we’ve been able to stop him. I understand why he does it–he’s 17 months old, is filled with confusing emotions he can’t express yet–but biting is really, really bad. We have tried stern "no"s, explaining that biting isn’t nice and hurts, time outs (he doesn’t understand time outs yet).

Any experienced parents out there with ideas?

2

Bite him back. Worked on my kid brother.

3

Maybe it’s an Aaron thing, Ceejay. My Aaron has bitten my Nathan at least twice in the last week.

4

Well . . . this isn’t my recommended advice, mind you, but it is what happened.

My older son started getting into the biting habit at daycare, and we tried the talking to him (at 18 months, like he’s going to understand much at that age!), time outs, etc.

Then one day he bit me on my shoulder. Hard – had a bruise and all. Without pause or thinking or anything, I whipped my head around and bit him. Not so hard as all that, but still, I bit my son.

:frowning:

He cried, I cried, I felt like a complete failure as a mother . . . and he never bit again.

I do not recommend this, as I said earlier, but it did work.

5

I recommend it.

It was the only way that my mom could get my kid sister to stop biting. When she would bite, my mom grabbed her hand and firmly gave it a sharp nip. Not enough to really hurt her, but enough that it hurt a little, and surprised her a lot. Mom only had to do it twice, and she never bit again.

6

You could try introducing a biting object. It takes the redirect idea and allows the bite to still occur, just not to anyone else. Biting is a visceral response, and nothing short of a visceral outlet seems to work (at least not at first).

Unfortunately, as much as you taught him that you don’t bite, being bitten taught him that biting gets results. He already knows it hurts, because he’s been bitten, so biting him back has less value (I don’t recommend it anyway, though I know it has helped at times, it also has repercussions sometimes that you then have to solve, and so forth…). Behavioral therapists actually say that biting back reinforces the behavior far more often than stopping it. So don’t. You might get lucky, but you probably will not.

Here are some tips that may apply:

16 ways to stop biting and hitting

general discipline for toddlers question, including biting

general concepts around biting in toddlers

different reasons kids bite and how to approach each

For us, it was hitting (with Gabe). We found the most useful approach was to identify the emotion, reflect that it is a feeling you know (yourself), say how it makes you feel (so he knew we understood), and then specify what was an appropriate (and expressive) response to that feeling, and what is definitely not.

So, when Gabe hit me, I said, “You seem angry! I get angry too. When I get angry, my chest gets all tight, my face feels hot, and I just want to HIT something. But we don’t hit when we’re angry. We say, “I’m angry” and scowl (make face), or cross our arms like this (cross arms in that typical ‘angry’ stance).” He was pretty verbal at the time, but the words didn’t express enough of his outrage, for him. What he did grasp was that there were okay ways to express the feeling, and not-okay ways.

The next time he got mad at me, he crossed his arms, scowled, and then stomped his feet really hard. He watched me carefully to see if that was an okay way to react (testing his self-chosen alternative), and, luckily, I noticed what he was doing. I made a lot of approving noises about how stomping showed he was angry, and it was okay to stomp to express anger (not my favorite, but allowable, and way better than hitting!). (At this point, I plan to include that option for Brendan - giving him a choice of how to respond lets him pick something that suits him… his favorite is screaming… though I’m anticipating biting any time.)

At this age, they are desperate to communicate, and they are also starting to experience feelings that can be kind of scary. Knowing that you have the same feelings and don’t bite, but do other things that are allowed when you feel that way allows them to 1) feel safe - their emotions aren’t that scary if mom has them, too; and 2) learn the basics of social rules.

At this age, the more you talk about emotions, point out when you are feeling any particular one, and show how you express those emotions, the easier it will be for them to follow your cues. Now that they are discovering that they are individuals and not internally attached to everything else, it can be scary to feel something new and powerful, either good or bad. This is also the basis for establishing empathy (a years-long process).

Good luck. Hope the links help.

7

Um, that sounded like I encourage Brendan to scream when he’s mad… that’s his preferred native response, which I am in the process of curbing.

8

My sister’s youngest was a biter. For a short time. If she bit, as punishment, she got a drop of hotsauce on her tongue, with a stern “Don’t bite!” They only had to do it twice. It eliminates the “biting them back teaches them to bite” thing.

StG

9

Oh, and the ‘explain and model’ approach has so far worked for all but one person I know who has tried it. In that case, she found the ignore the biter, focus on the bitten worked like a charm. Different reason for biting, there, though (she wasn’t frustrated, she was feeling lonely and rejected, and wanted attention - when biting got her less attention, she stopped).

I also highly recommend the book “Positive Discipline for Preschoolers” - they’re a bit young for it, still, but you’ll find that the info applies far more often than you expect, and it explains a lot of the internal process, which makes it easier to find a creative solution. I don’t like the ‘for toddlers’ version as much, but YMMV.

10

While I think hedra’s approach sounds much more enlightened, and I hope is very effective, I wanted to speak from personal experience. I was a biter. A bad one: I left bruises and drew blood on my sister several times. My parents tried everything to get me to stop, but the satisfaction of biting far outweighed any fear of punishment for me. Until finally (when I was 4, I think, maybe 3), my mom told me that the next time I bit my sister, mom would bite me. I didn’t believe her, and bit my sister again. So my mom very sternly took me aside, told me to give her my finger, and she bit it. Hard enough to hurt, but not more. Scared the crap out of me and I never bit again.

11

My mom told my sister to bite me back, and it worked. However, I agree with hedra in that she said it sounds like he already knows it hurts, and that’s why he’s doing it.

12

I knew something enlightened would come from hedra. I like the way you got Gabe to express his anger in other ways. Since Aaron’s been bitten before, biting him back doesn’t appear to be a good way to stop him. I guess we need to work on giving him additional ways to express his frustration. Thanks for the good advice, everyone.

13

:o

The whole enlightened thing works best if applied before they can out-think you or just up and decide ‘you know nothing, you’re just a mom’… 15 months to 2 1/2 - 3 years or so is your limit, get the info in before then and it seems to stick. After that, well, most 4 year olds will tune you out if you start yammering about proper expression of emotions. But when the emotions are all new and scary, it is relevant, so they pay attention.

You should see how many times I run the unenlightened experiment, generally resulting in a complete failure, before I remember to try the enlightened one. Doing the enlightened one requires stopping, full focus, not just carrying on and kind-of handling things on the fly. Its a lot of work, up front, without knowing if it will have the desired results.

I think my kids happen to require the enlightened version. Makes me look like I know what I’m doing later, but it is really just trial and error to the Nth degree with kids who respond very poorly to traditional discipline methods. I still yell automatically when Brendan runs for the street, but he just thinks it is funny. Given his other reactions, spanking would either infuriate him or make him laugh in my face. Explain, however, and it seems to sink in. (And I use a lot of methods from the “How to talk so kids will listen, and listen so kids will talk” approach. Keeps me from having to invent everything.)

14

My little one has bitten me a couple of times, but it wasn’t intentional (I think). He has run up behind me, crashed into my butt and bitten me, or has bitten my shoulder while I was holding him. These were both around 9-12 months old.

My reaction both times? Owwwwwwwww! Loudly. Both times, the kid was shocked into tears by mom’s reaction (oops…). But since I don’t think he was intentionally biting me, I can’t very well say my reaction kept him from repeating the behavior.

No bites in a month or two. But he’s a teeth-grinder, yuck. More questions for Dr. Sears! I love him!

15

Two words: Tabasco Sauce.

16

My sister’s oldest, when she was about 2, would hit - hard. When babysitting, I was told to hit her back if she hit me. Well sure enough, she started throwing a fit and hit my bare leg hard enough to leave a mark. So I gently took her hand and popped the back of it and told her NO. She straightened right up, sweet as a daisy, no tears, no yelling, no more trouble out of her. Hours later, when my sister comes home, she goes to cuddle the neice, who looks up at her mom with big wet eyes and says, “Auntie hit me!” :eek: My sister looked at her and asked, “Did you deserve it?” Niece says, “yes”. “Then ok, then don’t hit.”

I’d still try the hot sauce, though.

17

Duct tape the kids mouth shut. Will stop screaming too.