What strategies can I use to stop a two year old from biting others?
I work in child care and need some strategies we can use in the centre to stop a two year old from biting other children. Also some strategies I can offer to parents to use at home?
I work in childcare also, so I know what you mean — sometimes our toddler room is bite-crazy. It seems that once one child starts, all the others follow.
Firstly, childhood regs state that you can NOT harm the child (ie. You cannot bite back, squeeze their cheeks etc as other answerers have suggested). In our centre, we use the time out method. If a child bites, they are given a warning "You have to be nice to your friends! No biting!". This is followed by a warning "If you bite again, you will go in time out". If they bite again, they get told "You bit again, so you are going in time out" and then we place them in time out for 2 minutes (approximately.. we dont time it). We go back and say "You were in time out because you bit one of your friends. Do you want to come and play nicely now?" and we make them go to the other child and give them a hug and apologise (if they have the verbal skills…).
If it continues, we remove the toddler and place them in a separate room (with the older kids, aged 4-5 or we put them in the nursery in time out) so they cannot bite again. For serious re-offenders we place them with the director of the centre by themselves so they physically cannot bite anybody.
At the end of the day, if it’s been a serious problem, we let the parent know "We’ve had some problems with Jake biting today, and we were just wondering how he’s been at home?" and we’ll let them know the disciplines we’ve used and talk with the parents on ways we can collaberate to overcome this problem. Consistent approaches to discipline (ie time outs at both home and daycare) will be most likely to stop the child from biting again.
One last tip is to praise the child when they are interacting positively (gently, being friendly without biting etc).
Hopefully this helped!
first you should try and talk to that child
then you should say a consequence such as "If you bite any more people today, you will get a time out."
if all of the above doesnt work, be very stern with it and when he bites someone, but him in a time out. and dont smile when you do it. my brother has this same issue. We did the this one and it worked.
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Bite him back
Now, I realize that you have limitations in what you can do, but when I had a child bite me, I warned him not to do it. he bit me again, I bit him back and that stopped him
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Pull them aside, and tell them sternly NO BITING.
In addition to saying that, I found if I squeezed my sons cheeks together while saying it (not hard enough to hurt – just to relay WHAT I’m talking about) – that he understood I was talking about. Maybe it was just because he was under the age of 2, but until I did that, I don’t think he realized what biting was, and once I started doing that with his cheeks at the same time, he seemed to suddenly get it.
Whatever discipline techniques they use there at the center, such as timeouts, warnings and such, are to be followed as well – they should have a laid out plan for you as to what to do and when. Myself, I find I give the stern warning with the cheek squeezing , second offense gets a time out while I count to 20 (and I repeat the NO BITING before he can leave), and third time he gets put in his crib/playpen for a few minutes. Luckily for me, it’s only progressed to the crib/playpen once.
Older children require a different approach I’m sure, such as removing toys, removing them longer from whatever is going on, having them do chores or something – but as long as you stay consistent to what guidelines you’re given at the center, you should be alright.
They likely have a policy about children that refuse to stop biting, and the parents are likely to get involved at that point in order to find a solution. They probably have a policy about reporting any severe bites or repeat offenses, so be sure to speak to your director to find out what you should be doing.
References :
Give them an apple (or something they can bite) and say "You can’t bite Tommy but you can bite this"
References :
I work in childcare also, so I know what you mean — sometimes our toddler room is bite-crazy. It seems that once one child starts, all the others follow.
Firstly, childhood regs state that you can NOT harm the child (ie. You cannot bite back, squeeze their cheeks etc as other answerers have suggested). In our centre, we use the time out method. If a child bites, they are given a warning "You have to be nice to your friends! No biting!". This is followed by a warning "If you bite again, you will go in time out". If they bite again, they get told "You bit again, so you are going in time out" and then we place them in time out for 2 minutes (approximately.. we dont time it). We go back and say "You were in time out because you bit one of your friends. Do you want to come and play nicely now?" and we make them go to the other child and give them a hug and apologise (if they have the verbal skills…).
If it continues, we remove the toddler and place them in a separate room (with the older kids, aged 4-5 or we put them in the nursery in time out) so they cannot bite again. For serious re-offenders we place them with the director of the centre by themselves so they physically cannot bite anybody.
At the end of the day, if it’s been a serious problem, we let the parent know "We’ve had some problems with Jake biting today, and we were just wondering how he’s been at home?" and we’ll let them know the disciplines we’ve used and talk with the parents on ways we can collaberate to overcome this problem. Consistent approaches to discipline (ie time outs at both home and daycare) will be most likely to stop the child from biting again.
One last tip is to praise the child when they are interacting positively (gently, being friendly without biting etc).
Hopefully this helped!
References :
N.