Biting is quite a common behaviour in young children. In Bumbles we understand that it is a stressful situation for parents. It can be a very sensitive topic, especially when their child has been bitten or has bitten on more than one occasion. After all, no one wants their child to be a “biter” or to know that their child is being bitten.
Why Children Bite
Biting is very common in early childhood. Babies and toddlers bite for a variety of reasons, such as teething or exploring a new toy or object (sometimes their pals!!), with their mouth. As they begin to understand cause-and-effect, they also might bite a person to see if they can get a reaction. Often though, it seems that there is little to no trigger and in our experience – children move FAST when they want to!
Biting also can be a way for children to get attention or express how they’re feeling. Frustration, anger, and fear are strong emotions and young children lack the language skills to communicate how they are feeling. So, if they can’t find the words they need quickly enough or can’t say how they’re feeling, they may bite as a way of saying, “Pay attention to me!” or “I don’t like that!” or “I want that toy”. As language improves, biting tends to lessen.
How Can We Stop the Biting?
In Day care, it is impossible to say that we can stop biting from happening all together, but we will do our best to stop it from being a regular occurrence. Every year there are a small group of children who display this behaviour. With biting, it’s important to deal with the behaviour immediately after it happens.
At Bumbles, our usual protocol would be :
- Be calm and firm. Address the child with a firm “no” or “no biting”. Keeping it simple and easy for a young child to understand. We make it clear that biting is not OK, but we avoid lengthy explanations until the child is old enough to understand. Remaining as calm as possible will help to resolve the situation more quickly.
- Comfort the child that has been bitten. We direct our attention to the child (or adult!) who has been bitten first. If there is an injury, we apply the necessary first aid and alert the child’s parents via an accident form. If a bite is particularly sore, we will follow up the accident form with a message.
- Comfort the “biter”, if need be. Often, children don’t realise that biting hurts. It’s OK to comfort a child who’s feeling upset about hurting someone, but we do give the child who has been bitten our attention first. Older children learn from being allowed to comfort their friend after a bite, so we model this behaviour with them in Bumbles. Although, if the “biter” is using the behaviour to get attention, we don’t want to reinforce this behaviour by giving comfort and attention – we will say a firm “no biting” and focus our attention on the child who has been bitten.
- Offer alternatives. When things have calmed down, we suggest alternatives to biting, like using the words “no,” “stop,” and “that’s mine” when wanting to communicate with others.
- Redirect. Distraction works wonders with young children. If emotions and energy levels are running high, we help redirect a little one’s attention to a more positive activity, like dancing to music, colouring, or playing a game.
- Shadowing a child who bites. If a child is repeatedly displaying biting behaviours, a member of staff will be assigned to shadow the child who is biting. We try to be mindful of possible triggers and consider the situations before and after the bite happens. Although, children move very fast – particularly if the child they bite is holding something that they want and it is not always possible to stop a bite before it happens, but staff will interject very quickly in this scenario.
- Use positive reinforcement. Rather than reward negative actions with attention, we make it a point to praise the child when he or she behaves well. We use statements such as, “I like how you used your words” or “I like how you’re playing gently” to reinforce positive alternatives to biting.
- The team are kept up to date. Staff keep the Co-ordinator and management team aware of biting incidents and the team are all aware if any child is currently presenting with these behaviours.
We do not “Discipline” children in Bumbles for displaying negative behaviours – for more information on this – please see our Managing Children’s Behaviour policy on our website.
For any further advice on this topic – please contact the team in your child’s room or a member of the management team.