Author’s practical guidance
Biting
Source named in the book: PCIT · AAP
Biting clusters at the age when a child has strong feelings and almost no vocabulary to spend them on.
Say this now
Flat, quiet, immediately:
“No biting. Teeth are for food.”
Four words, no volume. The dullness of the response is the part that works.
“You wanted the truck. Biting hurt him. Come, we get a cold cloth together.”
Keeps them present for the repair instead of removed from it. Being sent away teaches nothing about the other child.
Do this
- Keep your reaction small and boring, every single time.
- Attend to the bitten child first, with the biter present rather than banished.
- Write down what happened in the ten seconds before — tiredness, crowding, a taken toy. The pattern is usually visible within a week.
- Change the trigger rather than the child: feed earlier, separate sooner, thin out the room.
- Offer something legitimate to bite for a child who bites when excited.
Avoid this
- Biting the child back so they know how it feels.
- A loud dramatic reaction — memorable, and therefore worth repeating.
- Asking a two-year-old to explain why they did it.
If it repeats
Biting that continues past about age four, or that appears suddenly in a child who never did it before, is worth raising with your pediatrician.
Why the book suggests this
Biting clusters at the age when a child has strong feelings and almost no vocabulary to spend them on. It is also unusually effective: it ends the situation instantly and produces an enormous adult reaction. Both of those make it likely to happen again.
The mouth is also how children this age investigate. Some bites are affection at full volume, some are frustration, some are experiments in cause and effect. They look the same and they need different responses, which is why what came just before matters more than the bite itself.
From this collection
Same Words: Two Children
45 prepared situations in this family area.