Bitting - Seattle,WA

be proactive & watch him closely.....when you see him trigger, jump in & tell him NO BITING. Hopefully, just redirection will stop this!

DO NOT BITE HIM BACK!!!!! Number one, violence does not end violence. Number two, your child will not understand that "Oh, mommy bit me, that hurt, I should not bite." Your child will be hurt, confused and afraid because mommy bit him!
Try to figure out what sparks the biting and address the issue before it gets to that point. Is your child tired, hungry, frustrated, teething....
Remove your child from the situation. Have your child stay by you and not play with the other child. If it is you who he bites say "Ow, that hurts, no biting" and put him down (do not walk out of the room, but put him in a safe place out of your arms.)
Have him "help" help who he bites. Have him rub the wound (assuming there is no blood) nicely, bring a cool towel.
Use a clam, strong voice and say "NO"

I would love to hear how it works out. Again, DO NOT BITE YOUR CHILD BACK.

B. Davis

http://www.ChildAndFamilyCoaching.com
Because nothing is more important than family

I didn't bite my daughter back so I don't know about it's effectiveness or not. I just want to say as a parent of a former biter...she stopped biting once her verbal skills developed. For about six months, we avoided all kid types of activities which seemed to increase the biting and then it stopped. She began speaking and had other ways to communicate her wants and needs. (Oh, we did give her timeouts but it didn't seem to matter. Still you have to do something!) My idea is NO fun but for a little while we just stopped putting her in situations where she was "tempted" to bite and after a few months she stopped.

Little ones aren't able to understand feelings of other people. They are too self-centric. So, when he bites, he doesn't really realize that it hurts.

Watch for whatever triggers it, frustration, over-excitement, tiredness, playing for x amount of minutes... and then once you see that happening, get in there and prevent him biting.

He'll outgrow it. Lots of babies bite - or hit, or pinch or any other type of aggressive actions. It's an age-level reaction. There's a great set of books called "Your One Year Old" (or whatever age) by Ames & Ilg that lists the common behaviors for each age. Its a developmental thing and better to just monitor until they outgrow it. (if that makes sense)

Some things you can't really teach until they're able to get it. You're not trying to teach him to ride a bike or handle money. The same goes with manners and emotions. He's not able to understand the nuances yet. Things are very concrete at his stage and this is more abstract.

I know I, and a few others, have posted this before and have been repremanded to no end for it--but bite him back. I'm not saying to do it where you leave a mark or draw blood. Just do it so he can feel it and comprehends that it hurts. The same goes with pulling hair. Don't rip their hair out, but do it so they can feel it. Please don't take this to the extreme!!!! Again, just do it so he can feel it and knows to stop.

Kids this young bite for several different kinds of reasons. They are too frustrated or angry and can't express their needs or get an injustice corrected, or sometimes they are overexcited and lose control of themselves, and nip like an overexcited puppy. Occasionally kids bite when they have sensory integration dysfunction and need oral stimulation, but that's less common.

My grandson bit 4 or 5 times over a few weeks at his preschool at around that age, but the teachers were experienced and shadowed him, and once they realized what triggered the bite, they swooped to the rescue as soon as he started to get agitated, picking him up and moving him away till he calmed down. It always happened when one older boy tried to take something from him, so they worked with teaching both boys better ways to handle the situation. And of course, his parents gave him frequent coaching at home, including role-playing potential incidents with puppets or stuffed animals.

People often advise to bite back. This can shock or frighten some children into stopping the behavior. But it can also create a logical problem: why do big people get to do what they are telling little people to stop doing? There are studies that show that kids who are physically disciplined with force show more aggressive behavior, as a group, in later years. There are wide variations within that group, of course.

And biting the child keeps the "solution" externalized: I won't bite because I might get hurt and punished, not because I learn the Golden Rule. I've met an awful lot of adults who behave only when they think they'll get caught. I can't help but wonder how many of them did not receive guidance that allowed them to logically internalize an ethical code. Social researchers argue that there is a measurable connection.

Only answer really is to keep putting him in time outs or removing him from the situation and telling him 'no'. He is still a little too young to understand time outs and punishment, but eventually he'll get the picture. Kids usually bite out of frustration that they can't express how they're feeling. Totally normal...

My mom bite me back when I did it and I never did it again. It shows him that it hurts and that no one else likes it when he bites. Then you ask him did you like that? If he says no then explain to him no one else likes it. If he continues maybe a time out or a pop on the bottom whatever suites you. Good luck.

We didn't have this problem at 16 months, but at 3 or 4 years old. A family at church that never disciplined their children, had a son that bit. He introduced it to all the kids his age at church. One family quit going to our church because of it. But that is another story . . .

Our child in his class brought it home, and its like the measles, a disease that spreads. We finally got it stopped by telling our kids, that it didn't make any difference why the biting occured. Whoever bit got swat. (I couldn't bite the biter back.) The one that did something that brought on the biting may or may not get punished, but the biter always got spanked. It seemed like it took forever, but it actually took only 6 weeks or so to stop the biting.

My kids were old enough to understand. I don't know about explaining it to a 16 month old. Good luck to you and yours.

Ditto to the other ladies. Bite back, and again, not hard at all...the point is not to hurt him...but to show him that it hurts others. If he knows it hurts others, he may stop. Tell him over and over again that it is a NO NO. If that does not work, we start taking away toys for every infraction. My kids don't get ANYTHING back until the behavior has stopped. Good luck!! (BTW, totally normal for toddlers to try biting!!)

We had a real problem with our son biting (between ages 1 and 2) at daycare. Being taken to the supervisor's office, time out, yelling at him, nothing seemed to help. Finally, he had to leave that daycare. We then put him in an in-home daycare with three or four other kids and he bit once more the first day when a girl pushed him off the bike, but that was it. He never bit again. We decided he must have been feeling overwhelmed in a room with 11 other kids and felt his only way to make it go away was to bite, but once he was in a quieter setting, he didn't need to do it. I'm not a big fan of the biting them idea because you're doing exactly what you tell him not to do and I don't think a 2 year old can understand the idea of not hurting someone else because it hurt him. It may work as a surprise tactic, however. Good luck, and he WILL grow out of it!

Yes, pull him away, say very loudly, no! If that doesn't work, put him in a room by himself after you say no.

Do not bite back. Violence does not stop violence.

Stay calm. Just remove him from your love should tell him that biting brings isolation from what he needs most. He is at an age when biting occurs, but biting is culturally a big transgression, and you really need to extinguish it as soon as you can.

I know many will be against this... but yes... when all else fails...bite back! My brother's doctor told my mother to do it...and it was the ONLY thing that worked! So when it came to one of my daughters...It was the ONLY thing that worked. It was hard to bring myself to do it..but you can tell a child that hurts mommy, put them in time out.. so many times...and no matter how consistant you are they don't get it! My son was the same way! But WOW! A quick bite back...(not telling them you're gunna do it) They'll get the shock value of an unexpected OUCH! That HURT! Then the discussion (short and sweet at 16 mos) of why we don't bite takes place. Repeat if necessary..but may not need to be done for a long while! Best of luck to you in whatever you decide.