- At some stage, there is a good chance
that your little one is going to bite someone.
It might be you, a sibling or a friend.
But the way you respond
when that bite happens can make a huge difference on whether
or not it continues, or whether you can bring
the biting to an abrupt end.
You can actually stop biting in its tracks
if you respond early and the right way.
And unfortunately the right way isn't a natural response
that we as parents have.
In fact, our natural response actually encourages
more biting.
So in this video, I'm gonna cover what you should do
to reduce that biting.
Before we talk about what to do,
it's important to talk about why toddlers bite.
Now, if you have a toddler who bites,
it doesn't mean that you are a bad parent
or your child is bad because they wanna hurt others.
In fact, biting is completely normal behavior for toddlers,
and really it shouldn't be that surprising,
when we think about the skills that our toddlers have.
In general, toddlers find it very difficult
to manage emotions, they are extremely impulsive,
they're not yet thinking about how their actions hurt others
and they also have a limited number of words
that they can use to communicate.
And as a result, they often communicate by using actions.
And unfortunately, a really effective action
that they can use is biting.
When a toddler bites, they get an immediate response
and attention from an adult or peer
and they can instantly change their environment
so they can get what they want or avoid doing
what they don't wanna do.
Now, typically the immediate response
that a little one generally gets from an adult
once they have bitten someone is a very large response
where the adult tries to either lecture the little one
on why biting isn't good and what they should do
in the future, or they result in punishing the little one
to try and stop that biting behavior.
Now, this natural response that parents often has,
does not actually stop biting and in fact can increase
the likelihood of it occurring in the future
and that's for a number of reasons.
Firstly, when you have a big response to that behavior
where you essentially stop whatever you are doing,
you race over to the little one, get in their face,
and then you raise your voice, use lots
of animated facial expression and arm movements
to tell them that what they've done is wrong,
that action in itself can be extremely interesting
and exciting for toddlers.
So they might just do the biting again
to see you reacting that way.
Also, toddlers do not care whether or not
the attention they're getting is negative,
which is the yelling or positive attention.
To them ,it's all attention.
So if that is how they're gonna get that one-on-one time
with an adult, then they might result in biting more often
to get that interaction.
Secondly, we often use the time immediately after
the biting instant to try and educate our little one
on why biting isn't helpful
and what they need to do instead.
Now, unfortunately this is not the time
to educate your little one.
When a toddler has bitten someone,
they're in a high emotional state
and they are unable to learn a new skill.
Also when we are trying to teach them
why they need to do another skill,
we often use lots of words and toddlers just get confused
when you're using so many words,
when we really should be limiting
how much we are talking to them in this heightened state.
And lastly, using physical punishment,
which might be biting the toddlers so that they know
what biding feels like or hitting
the individual doesn't actually stop the biting behavior.
In fact, what they've found is that
by using physical punishment, it may stop the child
from doing that behavior when you are present,
but they haven't internalized
why they shouldn't be doing that behavior
or what other behavior they should use.
So it often results in the biting behavior occurring
when you are not present.
Also it sends the message that using violence is
an acceptable behavior that they can use to solve problems.
So given that our response can have a huge impact on whether
or not our little one may be biting or continuing to bite,
let's talk about what you can do instead to reduce that.
The very first thing that you want to do is
when you see your toddler bite,
you wanna react immediately, but you wanna stay calm.
So you would approach your little one,
get down to their eye level.
Now this is extremely important because if you stand up
above your toddler, you are intimidating
and it can be really overwhelming and that can move them
into the fight, flight or freeze response.
And then you wanna use a calm voice with a neutral face
and limited arm movements, it's not a lot
of over attention that they're getting.
And what you wanna do is state what you saw happen
and what emotion they may be feeling.
Now, this is important
because it helps your little one understand
that you are there for them, and it builds that connection.
It also helps to reduce that emotion that they are feeling,
and it helps them to start to learn
what those body feelings mean when they're feeling angry
or happy or sad, and this will make it easier for them
in the long run to correctly identify the emotion
and then use an appropriate response to manage that emotion.
So, it might sound something like,
I can see you are really angry that Mia took your toy.
It is okay to be angry,
but the next thing you wanna do is state
that biting is not okay.
So you would say, I can see you're really angry
that Mia took your toy.
It is okay to be angry, but it is not okay to bite.
After you've clearly stated that biting is not okay,
you wanna move your focus on to safety.
So you wanna keep everyone safe.
So if your little one is biting you,
then you would put them on the ground and move away.
And you would state, I'm gonna move over here
because you are not playing safely.
Or if they're biting a sibling or a peer,
you would say, I'm gonna move with Mia over here
to play because you are not playing safely.
By doing this, you are effectively moving the attention away
from that behavior, and by giving sympathy and engaging with
the child who has been bitten, you are sending
a clear message to the child who did the biting,
that that behavior is not going to get them
the desired response.
So if they bite a peer to get the toy,
it shows them that they're not gonna get the toy
or the attention from you by biting someone.
Once your one little one has calmed down,
so that might be 30 minutes after the incident
or later that day, it's really important to talk
about what happened with your little one
and identify other ways that they can manage their emotions
in the future that doesn't result in biting.
If you miss this step,
then your little one is definitely gonna keep biting
because it's an effective way to get what they want.
So, this might look like saying to your little one,
I could see this morning that you were really angry
with Mia because she took your toy.
Let's think about other ways that you can tell Mia
that you're still playing with the toy.
You could say, stop.
You could say, I'm still playing with that toy.
You could say, it's my turn.
Or you could say, I'll give you the toy when I'm finished.
And if Mia doesn't listen, then that is when you can come
and tell an adult, and then I will come and help you.
Then once you've gone through alternatives options,
I would then role play it with your little one.
So I would get on the floor with them,
and if it's around that sharing, I would sit on the floor
with them and pretend to play with them.
And when they're playing with a toy, I would say,
I'm going to pretend I'm Mia and I'm going to grab your toy.
Let's practice what we've just said.
So then you'd grab the toy
and then you'd get your little one
to say stop, I'm still playing with that toy
or to practice the agreed upon strategy.
Then when you see your little one using these skills
throughout the day, you would obviously praise them.
And this is really important, and you want that praise
to be very specific.
So if you see your little one playing with their sibling
and they wait their turn, then I would say,
Max, that is excellent waiting.
I can see you're waiting until it's your turn
to play with that toy.
Or you might say, Max, you do really well at telling Mia
to stop because you were still playing with that toy.
When we praise our little ones for doing
the desired behavior, we actually encourage that behavior
to occur more often, and it will help
to decrease the biting.
Biting is often extremely common
when a toddler is tantruming.
So, one way to effectively stop biting is to prevent
that tantrum from occurring in the first place.
So, make you check out this video where I talk
about 10 ways that you can prevent tantrums from occurring
and reduce that biting.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you next week
where I'll share more parenting tips and tricks.
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