Oh no!! Biting at preschool.

[rin]

Oh man! So for the past few weeks, DD (24 months) has been coming home from school and telling us stories about her biting one particular boy in her class, or stories about how this boy hit/bit/hurt her stuffed animal. We didn't really pay much attention to these stories because (a) she's been extremely interested in this one boy for the past year, and was always coming home with made-up stories about him, and (b) we figured that her teachers would have told us if there were any actual biting incidents.

Well, today, I went to pick her up, and decided to ask her teachers if anything had happened. They were telling me that in fact she had tried to bite this boy a few times, but they'd managed to catch it each time, when . . . we heard wails, turned around, and she'd just bitten him!!! I'm sure she heard us talking about biting, and decided this was a great opportunity since no adults were paying attention.

I'm horrified by this, not to mention kicking myself for being such an idiot as to bring it up in front of her. Anyways, the whole point of my post is: what should we do? Obviously we don't want to raise a biting sociopath, but what's the best way to clearly communicate that this is absolutely not ok? In the car on the way home we talked a bit about how sad that had made the boy who was bitten, and how sad it made us that he had been bitten. I don't want to dwell on it, or give her lots of (negative) attention over it, but I really, really, really don't want this to become a problem.

Any advice/BTDT?

[brittone2]

My DD was a biter (she only ever bit my DS1 though). I had to learn her triggers. For ex, she'd do something fairly benign to DS1 that he didn't like, and he would get in her face. She'd bite. So we started teaching her to stomp her foot and say "give me space" or "I don't like that." She was probably more like 2.5 when she did that, but I don't remember. (eta: and we had to address things with DS1 as well). But you can start teaching things like that if you can identify triggers. Even if she doesn't follow your example yet, you are setting the stage for other ways to get what they want or need without biting.

I can't help as much with the preschool end of things, but would hope staff could closely supervise as much as possible for a while until the habit was broken, if it became a regular thing with the child.

[StantonHyde]

Totally normal. The teachers are doing the right thing of trying to catch it. Its up to the adults at this point in development to prevent/catch the incidents--a 2 yo isn't going to have the control to curb themselves. My DD got bit, but never badly. And the 2 kids in her class that were "the biters" basically just bit each other!!! :rotflmao: I just accepted it as part of preschool/daycare.

Ask the teachers for feedback and make sure they have brainstormed her triggers so they can step in before she results to biting.

[SnuggleBuggles]

It's pretty darned normal and nothing to really get worked up about. Don't drone about it when you get in the car or at home- let them handle it at school. They have seen it a lot before and can likely share some good strategies with you if you ask.

FWIW, both of my boys had some impulse control issues and have been hitters and biters. Both got over it. :)