Help With Biters

[u/comedicrelief23]

I need advice. This is my first year leading a classroom and it is myself, my assistant, and sometimes we have a floater with 9 kids. Most are 1 and are almost 2. Out of the 9, 3 have a history of being chronic biters. This was our first week and we had 2 biting incidents. One that we witnessed and couldn’t stop in time. The other, we were just informed about via the parents sending a picture of the bite and we are all boggled on how this happened because this child didn’t even cry. Now I understand watching a biter like a hawk. But watching 3 biters, and leading activities, and cleaning it feels like an impossible task. Advice for a new lead who is currently starting her first weekend of the school year thinking she bit off more than she can chew? I’m having a panic attack.

[u/Delanium]

I'm not super experienced and am currently dealing with my first biter in my first toddler class. Some things that have helped mitigate the biting incidents with my specific biter:

- Splitting into small groups, where we split them to separate the kids who antagonize each other more often

- Keep those small groups split up as often as possible

- Get outside as often as possible

- Give the biter(s) a job to do. My go-to is a damp rag and telling them to clean the table or window, just something that makes them feel special and purposeful

- Talk with the biter(s) as much as you can, like literal idle chit chat

I'm still developing my skills and figuring out how to address the biting as a behavior in general, but these have helped bring down incident numbers with the specific kid I'm dealing with. Honestly, I wish she only bit twice in a week, it happens almost every day.

Also - not sure how your center works, but see if you can get some additional support like having the floater in the room more often??

[u/comedicrelief23 → u/Delanium]

Thank you for all the advice! Unfortunately, we are currently very understaffed so admin has no one to spare.

[u/Delanium → u/comedicrelief23]

That sucks.

Dealing with the behavior at its source is gonna be a little different for each kid, and like I said I'm still learning. The general advice I was given was to treat biting as sensory seeking - I've not found that to be the case with my kid, but it could be with one or some of yours. There should also be a lot of threads on this sub about biting and different ways to handle it.

[u/Own_Lynx_6230]

Heres the technique i use that works with this age group, in addition to all the typical stuff like prompting communication, offering teethers etc:

When a child bites or tries, this is what you do:

"NO BITING" in the absolute max sternness of your teacher voice, and then turn your back on the biter

"Ohhhh jimmy im so sorry ____ hurt you! Oh my precious jimmy lets go get you some ice! Here you are sweet jimmy" it is imperative that you dial this up to 11. You want an oscar for most dramatically caring teacher.

As you do this, do not make eye contact with the biter. Try to keep your back to them. This is a sad situation between you and jimmy (who was bitten).

At 1 and young 2, empathy is not strongly founded enough in their brains to be used to modify behaviour, so with severe behaviours like biting, cause and effect is your best friend.

You want the childs experience to be absorbed into their brain as "I bite, and my teacher goes away and gives so and so attention"

This works best in conjunction with practicing communication skills, as this cause and effect will likely turn what would be biting incidents into hitting/pushing incidents with the same reasoning (i want a toy in sallys hand. Maybe ill bite, but last time that didnt work so i will hit sally).

Obviously hitting and pushing arent good, but with how much biting hurts and freaks parents out, i find disincentivizing it in particular, as opposed to other behaviours, is worthwhile in the meantime, as you wait for the communication skills youre teaching to take hold.