Breaking Down Bites

If biting becomes a habit for your child and ongoing

positive guidance is not effective, it is time to set up a

meeting with your child's teacher(s), staff and director.

Together, you can plan an approach for addressing the

behavior that can be applied consistently at home and at

the program. Together, you can discuss and define the

behavior and find the cause behind it. Next, you and the

teacher(s) can develop a plan to address the causes and

help your child to replace biting with acceptable behaviors.

Try the plan for several weeks but be patient. It takes time to change behaviors

that have become habits. Keep in touch with your child's teacher(s) to share

information about changes in behavior. After several weeks, evaluate the plan's

effectiveness and make changes as needed.

Here are some strategies for addressing a child's biting habit.

Observe your child to learn where, when, and in what situations biting occurs.

Sometimes an adult may need to stay close to the child to prevent biting.

Pay attention to signals. Stay close and step in if your child seems ready to bite.

Suggest acceptable ways to express strong feelings. Help your child learn to

communicate his or her wants and needs ("Dharma, tell your sister you were still

playing with the truck")

· Use a reminder system to help your child learn to express strong feelings with

appropriate words and actions ("Tell Manuel that you don't like it when he gets

that close to you").

· Reinforce positive behavior by acknowledging the child's appropriate words and

actions ("You didn't like being tickled so you used your words to ask me to stop").

Provide opportunities for your child to make choices and feel empowered.

· Be sure your behavior expectations are age-appropriate and individually

appropriate for your child. Expecting a child to do something he or she is not able

to do can cause children to feel stress. Stress can lead to biting.

Offer foods with a variety of textures to meet your child's sensory needs.

· Teach your child words for setting limits, such as "no," "stop," or "that's mine."

What strategies are NOT helpful?

· Avoid labeling a child as a "biter." Negative labels can affect how you view your

child, and even affect the child's feelings about him- or herself.

· Never bite a child back to punish or show him how it feels to be bitten. Biting a

child sends the message that using violence is an acceptable behavior that can be

used to solve problems.

· Avoid getting angry, yelling, or shaming a child.

· Avoid giving too much attention to a child who bites after an incident. While this

is usually negative attention, it can still reinforce the behavior and cause a child to

repeat it.

· Do not force a child who bit and the child who was hurt to play together.

· Remember punishing a child that bites can make it harder for the child to learn self-

control and may cause defiant behavior.