Prince:How to Stop a Child from Biting?

Children bite because they feel insecure, or that they may have been through a traumatic experience, and biting can be a basic mode of self-preservation. However, if the children are not properly taught that ‘bite can hurts’, it will, sooner or later developed in to a habit which will be difficult to withhold. Children bite for many reasons; it can be explained in term of children stage of development and the emotional stage development of it.

-5 month – 7 month-

- Discomfort due to teething, sometimes they bite caregivers or their mother during breast feeding.

- They learn not to bite by seeing and hearing the reaction of the person they have bitten

-8 month – 14 month-

- They bite when they are excited, it can be cure with a firm “NO”

-15 month – 36 months-

- They bite when they are frustrated, and want power to control, and usually, they will stop biting as they learn that biting is not acceptable behavior.

-After age 3-

- They bite because they feel powerless or scared or going to be hurt by others.
- They have problem of expressing feelings or self-control

(Quoted from: WebMD (2005), Why do children bite?[Online] available: http://my.webmd.com/hw/raising_a_family/hw43936.asp?src=Inktomi&condition=healthwise)


Emotional Development Stage of Biting


Experimental Biting

- Usually, this is done by infant or toddlers who places everything in their mouth, and sometimes bite in the process.

- This is can be solved by telling them biting is hurts

Frustration Biting

- When they do not know how to play cooperatively, and respond to demand of other by hitting and biting

Powerless Biting

- They bite to gain power of control

Stressful Biting

- When a child is upset, distress, or under pain.
- They couldn’t express their feeling, and tend to use biting as one of the way of expression.


(Quoted from: Children's Hospital and Health System (2005), Why Young Children Bite [Online] Available: http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/3106/router.asp)

What you can do?

In most situations, children bite because they feel powerless, and when they do not know how to express their demand, or expression of rejection. Thus, a Conducive Environment will certainly be able to help, for example, you can provide more toys so that there is less fighting over the toys or buy more than one of popular toys so very young children will not have to wait long to play with them (Todd, 2005).

Meanwhile, you can separate the children into a few groups, with 2 to 3 (or less) in a group, so that they do not need to fight and wait for others for toys. Of course, you need to pay close attention to the particular child who tends to exert biting habits often, especially in situations where you think biting is likely to occur.

If the child does bite, immediately remove the child from the others. (Do this after you have checked to see that the child who was bitten is okay!) Briefly explain that biting hurts others and will not be allowed. If you consistently remove the child when he bites, he will learn that he must stop biting if he wants to play with others.

As part of reinforcement in curing the habit, compliment can sometimes help to expedite the process of changing, for example, compliment the child when he is playing well with others. This will help the child realize that you value this kind of behavior, and it will also help build the child's self-esteem (Todd, 2005). You can encourage giving sticker to the biting child as a reward for not biting for one day or two days.

Since the children do not know the proper way to express their feeling, or they may not be at the level to express their personal feeling, thus, you patient is very much needed, one of the very effective method to reduce the biting incident, is to teach the child to say "no" if another child is doing something he doesn't like (Todd, 2005). When they bite, you must explain to the biter by pointing at the pint-sized biters, that bite is hurtful, at the same time teaches the bite to say ‘No’, or ‘Move’. The following is to teach the child to comfort the victim; the process is a good way to teach nurturing behavior (Oesterreich, 1996).

You need to continuously ensure that he is safe and redirecting him / her when he tenses up. Sometimes they tend to cry out loud, or throwing a tantrum, this can be a useful way for them to express their feeling without harming anyone, and must be encourage.

Meanwhile, you can use time-out whereby the biter goes to a corner and can not play with others and receives no attention. Generally, a child is given one minute of time-out for each year of age, for example, 5 year old get five minutes of time out (PHR, 2005).

One school of thought, suggested that after the child bites, tries to put something unpleasant in the child’s mouth to deter biting. Some parent uses spicy substances (PHR, 2005), but you may use something bitter, such as balsam peer or others which appears no harm to the child, and must ensure the child has no allergic to the particular substances.


References:

Todd, C.M. (2005), When Children Bite [Online] Available: http://www.nncc.org/Guidance/dc16_children.bite.html

PHR (2005), When Children Bite: How to stop a child from biting [Online] Available: http://www.pkids.org/healthissues.htm

Oesterreich, L (1996), Understanding Children; Biting [Online] Available: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM1529A.pdf