Hitting and Biting, What to do?

winery

J has been hitting and biting.

 

Hitting one of us, and then standing back, smiling, waiting to see what we'll do.

Same with biting.  It hasn't happened often, but it's happened at least a handful of times.

We do time outs, but I don't know how much he comprehends sitting on the steps.  I believe until the age of 3, time outs are more for the parents and not the children.

Last night, while we had company for dinner no less, J bit me on the butt and I grabbed his face and pulled him away from me as just a knee-jerk reaction.  Not at all motherly but it freakin' hurt.

This is normal right?  Any tips on curbing it?

 

AnnapolisLari

You may not want to, but this worked for M... we bit him back. He bit us on the shoulder, we said 'ow, that hurts Mommy/Daddy/Baba, and that's where he got bitten. It took 2-3 times before he realized that it hurt, and he stopped biting.

We're still clueless on the hitting, though.

Aliliv

DD doesn't bite, but she scratches or grabs - I'm interested to see responses, because I too am at a loss!

macey

It is hard, I just try to get down on her level and tell her that we dont hit. And that it hurts. I agree with the time out thing ,We dont do it only because I dont think she gets it. I think its just a phase. And we be gone soon. Good luck. Love the new pics in your blog

~iLoVeHiM~

I have the same issue with hitting, biting he hasn't tried. However, the hitting has been going on for quite some time now and it irritates the heck out of and it makes me mad. It would be like anyone hitting/kicking you, your initial reaction is to be upset and react. I thought that the stage would have passed by now but it hasn't.

We also do time outs and while I felt like they didn't work for the longest time, I have been noticing recently that if he hits me or MH one time and we do a t/o, it prevents him from doing it again for a while whereas before he'd keep doing it.

Also, as time has gone on I can see that he realizes he shouldn't do it and mainly does it out of frustration. But I notice that he actually thinks about doing it now and really only does it once and it's only when he's frustrated or not getting his way. Sometimes he even cries right after doing it b/c he realizes he shouldn't have done so.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but we went from non-stop hitting to at least some acknowledgement/control/remorse for hitting and only doing it once at a time now, so I think it's progress.

The whole "when you hit Mommy, it hurts me and makes me mad" really works for us. He seems to feel bad when you tell him hurts you and makes you upset.

GL and I know it sucks!

joseysbride

I don't really have any good advice because timeouts actually did work for us, but I just wanted to say that it is definitely normal.  R never went through biting, but she definitely did go through a hitting stage.

Maybe instead of literal timeouts (sitting on the stairs, etc.) you could just try to calmly take him to his room and tell him that if he is going to be mean to others than he needs to play by himself in his room for awhile.  We do something similar with R if she talks back or yells at us, which is the latest and greatest phase at our house, and she really understands that, and doesn't like it at all.  It really makes her realize that she hurt us by acting that way.