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Children and Biting
A very common problem for many families with toddlers is biting. For typical children, this behavior occurs most often during the toddler years, while for children with developmental delays, especially language delays, this behavior can continue on into the later years. I am often asked, “What do I do when a child bites?” Most parents and professionals are often frustrated by my answer, and the answer that is given by most professionals in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. Unfortunately, there is not one specific answer on how to respond to biting. There are many people who will provide parents with a list a “what to do’s” for biting, but often there is a key component that is missing.
Much like other disruptive behaviors, there is something maintaining the biting behavior; it is serving a purpose for the child. It is important to determine what that purpose, or function is, before deciding how to respond to it. I often hear professionals say, “Anytime a child bites, they should be removed immediately and placed in time out.” Although this may be affective for the child who is trying to get to a toy, or wants to participate in fun activity, it would not be quite as effective for the child who bit the child next to him because he or she no longer wanted to play and instead wanted one on one attention from his mom. In that case, the child could learn that any time they did not want to participate, biting is the best way to get out of it. Don’t get me wrong, the child needs to be removed from the child he or she attempted to bite, but may need to stay close to the group and finish the activity.
Another thing to keep in mind with biting is that it can also be used by children to get attention or reaction from those around them. I find that it is often more effective to provide the child that was bit or almost bit with the attention instead of providing it to the child that did the biting. If it is attention the child is seeking, then they will learn quickly that biting will make that attention move to someone else, which leads me to the next point.
It is often not enough to simply punish the biting, it is also important to replace it. For many toddlers or children with language delays, the biting can sometimes be a means to communicate. If you can figure out what the child is attempting to communicate by biting, and replace that with a more appropriate form, the biting is no longer needed. Being sure not to reinforce the biting behavior by giving the child what he or she wants as well as replacing it with a more appropriate means to communicate what it is he or she is seeking, can eliminate the behavior without having to “wait until they outgrow it.”
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Comments
- annieandjack (Mar 13)Great article and very true. I have a small son who was always biting to get away from being in a social group and we never realized that he was biting for that reason.
