How to Stop Children From Biting

Video Transcript

"How to stop children from biting. Are your children biting one another or other children? And is this embarrassing you from the nursery school or day school? Or maybe he's even biting you. Biting is not unusual at that toddler stage. I'm Dr. Felicia, and I'd like to share a few tips with you on how to handle that. For one thing with biting, it is a slight act of aggression. Remember, in the beginning children learn to explore their world through oral ratification, so everything goes into their mouth, that's just typical. And as they get teeth, they don't realize they have power or control, or that the teeth are sharp, so they might bite someone without even realizing that they're biting, it's their way of exploring the world. So what you really need to do is, be gentle with your child, make sure that they understand that that's not acceptable behavior, and teach them instead of biting to do something nice, like a nice touch, they might rub the side of a child's face, they might enjoy that child from a different perspective. And pull them away if they're biting. Now, it's very important that you be consistent with this, and that if you have your child in daycare, or you have other parenting persons that watched your child when you're not there, make sure that they reenact the same way that you do, in terms if biting occurs. Biting can happen spontaneously, it's very seldom premeditated, it's usually just a spontaneous act that the child commits. So at their little young age of toddler hood or so, they really don't have the deep thought to plan ahead. So remember it's a spontaneous act, it's an impulsive act on the child's part, and it's their way of exploring and interacting with another person. It's up to you to change that way, as I said, by teaching them gentle touches, gentle reinforcement, and reinforcing that it's not acceptable behavior. Now keep that in mind. And I do wish you good luck in stopping your child from biting. This is Dr. Felicia signing off. God bless."