Biting, Shoving....ugghh!

Over that past couple of weeks, my one son has started being very agreesive towards his brother. If they are fighting over a toy he will come up and bite him in his back or arm. He also will radomly just come towards him and give him a shove. I have tried talking to him sternly, showing him the bite mark and telling him that hurts his brother, time outs....but it still continues.

Neither myself or my husband are agressive people...in fact we are both quite calm so I just don't know where he gets this from. They don't go to daycare where they might observe other children who hit or bite and we don't watch violent TV. The only thing I can attribute it to is that we are struggling to get them to take naps now that they are in toddler beds. So I think they are tired.

Oh...please help with any suggestions. Is this just a phase or is there anything I can do?

 

Oh, Im so sorry. This stinks to deal with - you can't watch one of your kids get hurt and it stinks to punish the other!

DD has been biting DD since they could crawl. She still bites - maybe once a month - either in frustration or when she is excited and hugging her brothers.

We have always separated her immediately and then talked about it, and talked about it again at bedtime. Really, I don't know that it works, maybe it helps a little. We never came up with an alternative that felt ok to us. So many people told us to bite her back - we could never do that! The little DS has bitten her, and it didn't change anything.

The best advice I have is to be very observant, figure out what the triggers are and when it usually happens and then try to intervene before he bites. Not great advice, I know, but it is all I've got and all that has seemed to work for us.

Good luck and if you come up with something else - let us know!!

 

I agree. If you can possibly step in before he has a chance to bite and help him express himself in another way or just move him away that would be good. Knowing the triggers/reasons he bites will help you work out the best way to stop it.

I'd also try and work with him on better things to do in the situations where he's biting. One of the best lessons on childcare I've learned is that you can't take a behaviour away from a child without giving them another behaviour to replace it. So instead of saying 'when x happens don't do y' say 'when x happens you can do z'. So like when they fight over toys he probably bites his brother because he's angry/frustrated. If you can give him some things that are ok to do when he feels mad it might help. I'd work on sharing/taking turns (a timer can be good-your brother gets to play with it for two minutes, then when the timer beeps it's your turn), using words to say how he feels, and calling an adult for help. You could also give him something he can bite/hit. This takes a long time to sink in and get to the point where they can do it unpromted but if you keep it up it will work eventually, and I think it's a skill for life really (to be able to mangage your emotions in a reasonable way).

Another trick is to make a big show of showering attention/sympathy on the bitee and, except for saying something like "no biting", ignore the biter altogether. That works best if the biting is being done for attention though.

I've heard good things about the book Teeth Are Not For Biting, although I haven't read it myself. It might be worth a try though.

Good luck, I hope this is a short phase for you!

 

We have the book. I would recommend it! I think mine are finally at an age where they understand it. DS occassionally bites. We do TO's and then when the TO is over we will pull out the book, read it and talk about it.

 

Thanks so much for all of the wonderful suggestions. I really like this suggestion of showing him an alternative to his behavior. I'm definately gonna try this. And I plan to check out that book. Thanks everyone! You all are the best!