An interesting and not uncommon challenge when working with young children, especially older infants/toddlers. I found what is important in the process to determine the trigger for a child biting others are observations of the child's behavior, most importantly, the behavior of the child right before they attempt to bite another child. With a series of observations, I would look for any patterns in the behavior that triggered the biting and develop strategies to intervene as quickly as possible and to guide the child to learn prosocial behaviors. Finally, something I used quite often was having a supply of raw vegetables and when the child would show signs of an emotion that might lead to biting, giving him/her a raw vegetable, like a carrot or celery to bite down on to learn to manage the emotion. I found, in some cases, a cause was the child was frustrated or angry and was in the process of learning how to express the emotion in words or learning to manage the emotion over time.
I am curious to know the strategies recommended by the pediatrician and whether they were implemented consistently.
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Robert Gundling, Ed.D.
Better Futures LLC
Senior Consultant
Washington, DC
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-30-2019 09:05 AM
From: Sherry Michael
Subject: Biter
I am asking for input on how to handle a 17 month old that is having biting issues. He was breast fed and at approximately 12 months began biting excessively.He was totally weaned from the breast by 15 months because of this. The mother tried different things co-workers and the pediatrician recommended but nothing seemed to work. Now he is biting other children in his child care classroom. How has others addressed this type of problem?
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Sherry Michael
Education Program Coordinator
Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College
Keyser WV
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