What To Do When Your Child Bites

There are few worse feelings as a parent of a young child than hearing that your child bit another child. There are also few experiences more shocking as a parent than the first time that your child bites you or another caregiver. Yet, despite the stigma around biting, it is an incredibly common occurrence among young children and does not mean there is anything wrong with you, your child, or your parenting.

Research finds that biting tends to peak around 13 to 30 months and gradually decreases as children develop and learn new skills to express their needs in other ways. So what can you do while your child is going through this phase? How do you respond to biting when it happens and is there anything you can do to prevent biting?

How Do You Respond to Biting?

1) Assure safety and calm yourself down: Separate the biter from the bitten child and assess the bite for damage. Biting can activate your own flight-or-fight response so remember to use your own coping skills to stay calm in the moment.

2) Console the child who was bitten first: Attending to the bitten child before the biter achieves three goals— 1) Makes sure that the bitten child is not seriously hurt 2) Avoids giving attention to biting behavior (remember that attention usually increases the frequency of a behavior even if that it is negative attention), and 3) Models to the biter and other children around how to show empathy when someone is hurt.

3) Explain the rule: After consoling the victim, firmly and calmly explain to the biter the rule: “No biting others. Biting hurts.” It might seem obvious to you but young children may not yet understand that biting is painful to others.

4 ) Encourage the child to apologize or make amends:Ask the child what they could do to make the bitten child feel better. If they can’t name anything, then you could suggest that they get an ice pack or a bandaid or do something kind for the child that they bit.

5) Problem solve:Once the child who bit is calm, help the child to think about what he or she could have done instead of biting, such as asking for a turn, walking away, or chewing on a teether.

6 ) Do NOT shame the child or bite the child to “show them how it feels”:These strategies are not effective and may even increase their tendency to bite again in the future.

How Do You Prevent Biting?

Although it is important to know how to respond in the moment to biting, it is also important that you address the root cause of biting by understanding why your child is biting. Understanding the why is ultimately how you prevent this behavior in the future. When you understand the underlying need behind the biting, you can help your child to use an appropriate strategy to meet their need instead.

You can identify the why by really paying attention to the situations in which the biting occurs and what happens before, during, and after the biting. Here are the five main reasons that children bite and the strategies you should use for each reason:

Five Reasons Why Children Bite and the Strategy You Should Use

1. Frustration/ emotional dysregulation: Your child may be biting due to frustration or emotional dysregulation when you notice signs of emotional upset around the time of biting, such as whining or yelling, crying, tense body language, seeming restless, furrowed brows, red face, or a change in the tone of their voice. If you think your child is biting due to emotional dysreguation, help your child to first label and express their feelings and then use coping skills. For example, “I notice you are getting frustrated— do you want to try belly breathing?” You want to also make sure to notice and praise your child for using feeling words and coping skills in the future after you teach them these skills.

2. Lack of communication skills: A young child may bite because they lack the communication skills to express a need, such as wanting a turn with a toy or needing help or space. Help your child to learn to use their communication skills instead of biting. Teach them to say or sign “help” or “my turn” or “space”. If your child has more trouble communicating their basic needs than other children their age, consider a speech-language evaluation.

3. Testing boundaries/attention: These bites seem to come “out of nowhere” or when a parent is involved in something else and the child is calm. The child may even be smiling or laughing. These types of bites can be prevented by giving children more attention for appropriate behavior and allowing more choices throughout the day. It may also be important to clearly explain to the child that biting hurts other people since young children may not yet understand this concept.

4. Teething: Teething is associated with increased biting. A sign that biting is related to teething is when you also notice increased drooling, rubbing of the gums/ears, face rash, increased chewing on everything, swollen gums, and decreased appetite for solid food. The bite may also seem more like a chew or nibble. Research finds that parents report that the most effective remedies for teething include teething rings and gentle massaging of the gums. The American Academy of Pediatrics also recommends rubbing a frozen washcloth on the gums and teeth and administering ibuprofen/acetaminophen if needed.

5. Sensory needs:A child may bite because they need more or less sensory stimulation. A child who needs more sensory stimulation will bite as a way of getting more sensory input (this will usually happen when the child is bored or in a less stimulating environment). A child who needs less sensory stimulation will bite when they are overwhelmed (this will usually happen in a loud or busy environment). If your child needs more sensory stimulation, provide opportunities for oral stimulation with teething toys or chewlry (bracelets or necklaces designed to be chewed on) or crunchy snacks (such as pretzels or carrots). Other sensory toys such as fidget toys may also meet this need. If you think your child is biting due to sensory overwhelm, create a calm down space that they can go to when they are overwhelmed. This space could include headphones, a special blanket or lovey, and objects to help them calm down such as fidget toys or stress balls. Seek help from a pediatric occupational therapist if your child keeps biting for sensory reasons.

Overall Translation

If you’re a parent of a toddler, chances are you’ve experienced that heart-stopping moment when your little one bites—whether it’s you, a sibling, or another child. Although it might be shocking, biting is a developmentally normal impulse among young children. Yet, there are effective ways to respond to and prevent biting. My new book What To Do When You Feel Like Biting can help parents to teach their children positive coping strategies to use instead of biting. You can order the book at Amazon or other retailers. This book is jam-packed with gentle, kid-friendly ways to help your little one understand their feelings and discover safer, kinder ways to express themselves instead of biting. Grab a copy of my book today and let me know if it helps you and your family to end the biting phase once and for all!