Child Biting Problem

When you find out that your child bites, you want to correct the behavior as soon as possible. Here are some great tips for the child biting problem.

It can upset and alarm you when your child bites. Some experts say when children become frustrated because they haven’t yet learned to speak they resort to extreme measures like biting.

Biting can become a dangerous problem if it isn’t properly handled. It is extremely important for parents to learn how to deal with this and meet it head-on. The following tips will show you how to cope with your biting child:

Get to the Core of Your Child’s Anger – If your child bites in anger, ask yourself what might be causing this change of mood in your child. Have there been any changes in your child’s life lately? Is your child reacting in anger? If your child hasn’t been socialized with his children his age, this could be another cause of anger.

Stay Calm – If you are already dealing with a biting problem and have lost your cool with your child, don’t feel bad. Parents commonly overreact to child biting. However, shouting or spanking your child probably will not help the situation. Model the behavior you expect from your child. Take a deep breath and count to ten. When you are calm, you are better able to handle a bite incident.

Warn Her of the Dangers of Biting – Even though children are just learning to talk, they are old enough to understand pain. They are also old enough to understand cause and effect. In a calm, but firm voice, explain to your child why she shouldn’t bite. Let her know that biting hurts and she shouldn’t do it.

Teach Him To Use His Words – Some children start talking earlier than others. As your child grows and learns how to talk, teach him to use special words to express his feelings. “Tommy mad,” or “Suzie sad,” are just a couple of examples. If your child is biting but is still too young to speak, try using baby sign language instead. You can make up your own signs for pain, hurt, no, bad, etc.

Set Her Up for Success – If your child seems to have trouble socializing in certain situations, don’t place her in that situation. Give your child the best chance of success by placing her in a situation where there is no opportunity for trouble. By setting your child up for success, you can show her that she can play and socialize with other children without biting. As you see your child’s behavior improving, gradually introduce her to more challenging situations.

Praise Your Child – Calling attention to negative behavior and its consequences is important. Don’t forget to praise your child when he does well, though. Pointing out and rewarding positive actions will help your child to remember the desired behavior and reaction.

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Articles About Sibling Fighting

If you have more than one child, sibling fighting is probably all to familiar to you. In these articles about sibling fighting, you will learn more about what you can do to help your kids resolve their conflicts.

Sibling Fighting – Teach Our Kids to Resolve Conflict Peacefully

After 18 years of working with parents and families I have finally worked out the cause of sibling fighting.

Having more than one child.

Sibling fighting tends to come with the parenting territory. It is born from rivalry or competitiveness between siblings and shows itself through mindless arguments, noisy squabbles, physical means, verbal put-downs and even long silences.

Kids have L plates on when it comes to resolving conflict with their siblings. They can learn better ways of resolving conflict than resorting to reflexive means such as hitting, shouting and generally playing the person rather than the “ball”.

The key is to help children focus on the problem not their sibling.

As a parent it is difficult to know how to respond when kids squabble, fight or argue. Do I ignore the squabble or do I become involved? Good question. Bear it (if you are a saint you maybe able to ignore it), Beat it (go elsewhere when they fight) and Boot them out (noisy disputes are best settled outside) come from the let-them-work-it-out-themselves school of thought. There is a time and place for this approach.

But kids also at times regardless of their age need some positive parental input into resolving issues. Here are some ideas for you to think about:

1. Focus on emotions first. Emotional containment is a priority here. Get kids to calm down before you help them work their problems. This may mean they sit for a while on their own or go outside and let off steam physically. Once emotions are contained then you can get down to business.

2. Focus on the problem not the fight. Kids will want parents to punish their sibling for beginning a dispute or infringing on their rights. Drill down onto the issue (e.g. a better way of watching TV, sharing toys or whatever) and focus on resolving that. Direct children to focus on the issue not the fight.

3. Listen to their story. Kids generally want to be heard so listen to their side of the story and again, try focusing on how they feel about it. Give their emotions a name or label. “It sounds like you are pretty angry about it. Would I be right?” Sometimes this is enough to get a resolution to an issue. “Okay you can play with my old toys but I don’t want you playing with my new toys for a while. They’re special.” “Okay.”

4. State the problem as you see it. When kids are stuck tell the problem as you see it. Try to develop a sense of ‘other’ here by showing how a child’s behavior affected his or her sibling, without using shaming or blaming. If you can brainstorm a solution so be it. Otherwise they can agree to disagree and stay clear of each other.

5. Restore the relationship. Keep the relationship as the focus rather than focusing on the problem. With young children the issue they were fighting about is generally long-gone by the time a parent intervenes. An apology, a hug, a joint treat (and no I am not suggesting rewarding poor behavior ) or redirecting kids’ attention elsewhere are some ways to help restore the relationship between the kids.

Conflict resolution sounds easy on paper but it is hard to do in practice. Helping children resolve disputes is one of life’s most difficult tasks – ask any teacher and they will tell you playground squabbles are the hardest things to deal with. (Not to mention the children’s squabbles!!!)
Be smart. Choose your times to help kids out. Don’t respond reflexively to kids’ telling tales or you will soon join in the sibling dance. Look for opportunities to help children to resolve disputes by focusing on the problem, not the person.
Oh, and don’t forget to model good conflict resolution yourself. Your kids are watching and learning from you!
Michael Grose is a popular parenting educator and parent coach. He is the director of Parentingideas, the author of seven books for parents and a popular presenter who speaks to audiences in Australia, Singapore and the USA. For ideas and resources to help deal with sibling fighting and other behaviour issues visit http://parentingideas.oandc.com.au/pishop/index.php?cPath=21_40

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