Hello Moms, I have two year old twins, boy/girl, my little girl is a biter. My little boy bites occasionally but my girl bites almost anytime she gets angry. She bites her brother and even my husband and I. They are getting ready to start preschool and I don't want her to bit or hit her class mates. We try redirecting we try stern voice telling her now, we try telling her it hurts not to do it. Nothing seems to work. Any advice to control the biting and slapping? She knows what she is doing because after she does it she will say that she bite. Thank you in advance for any advice.
This may sound mean but I had to do it to my son and my mom had to do it to my brother when he was little, and that is to bite her back so she can see that it does hurt. It worked for me and my mom. Good Luck!
Have you tried biting her back to show her what hurt means. Do it only when she has bitten you and you are telling her it hurts and show her by biting hard enought to hurt but not hard enough to HURT her. Telling her that its not a good thing to do and you don't like hurting her and hope she doesn't want to hurt you or others like that anymore.If her brother bites her you could use it as a learning point for both of them. Funny story that my mom use to tell on my brother when he was 2 they had a puppy and in playing the puppy bit my brother on the arm and my brother bit the pup on the ear and there they were under a bush biting each other and neither one wanting to let go-and both of them crying.
I have to agree with Brittany. I think you should definately try other things first but when they just don't get it or just don't care, sometimes you have to immitate the bad behavior bad to them so that they can understand that it doesn't feel good. Just because she knows that she is biting, doesn't mean that she understands how it feels and that it hurts. Same goes with pulling hair. Slapping is a little bit tougher because you can't really teach a child not to hit by hitting them. I usually tell my girls not to hit and what the consequence is for hitting if they do it again. Most of the time, time outs will work. I also ALWAYS make my girls appologize as part of their punishment. They are not allowed to get up and play until they have given the victum a hug and say they are sorry. I think this also helps them understand what they did was wrong. She will grow out of this stage but it is frustrating in the mean time.
I'm sure some people will fall over from a hear attack from me saying this, but with Emme, we just bit her back. By NO means was it hard but just enough to get her attention and for her to see, "Oh, that doesn't feel good.". That was when she was 16 months and she's 2.5 now and hasn't done it since. I'm sure she just honestly doesn't know that it hurts. Sometimes redirecting just doesn't work. I'm all for it in situations that it works in but this is physical harm and in our house, it's unacceptable.
