Biting -- HELP!

haem0702

The past couple days we have been having a lot of issues with my 3-year-old biting friends at daycare. 

He moved up to the pre-school room from the toddler room about a month ago and seems to have a hard time transitioning. I know he doesn't like his teacher, and frankly, my husband and I don't care for her either. She is new to the daycare and much different from the toddler teacher he had, who we all loved.

The biting has gotten to the point where it happened four times today and now we have to pick him up early. My husband and I are desperate to find solutions to this problem. It is so hard for us to understand why it happens because he is so great at home. He has a 8-month old baby sister and he plays so great with her. He is gentle and shares and never uses aggression.

I find it hard to scold him for what went on at daycare when I pick him up in the evening because I know it's hard for him to process that I'm talking to him about something that happened earlier in the day, instead of something that just happened.

 I'm going to talk to his teacher today about it when we pick him up early and any suggestions on how to handle this issue would be greatly appreciated! 

anngeewhiz

DS was a biter.  At this age, we did discuss it immediately when we left daycare.  Expressed disappointment and talked about what he lost for what he did.  For biting we took away five toys--that he had to earn back.  He had MANY cars, so we put them in a jar that he could see (and want) in the kitchen.  He would also loose TV or other fun things.

But I agree that setting a meeting time with his teacher is a great idea.  They have ideas of why it's happening, what to do to stop it, that sort of thing.  And if they know what you're taking away, they can re-emphasize that if they catch the pre-behavior.  And you might ask if they have an ABC (action, behavior, correction (I think that's right)) for biting/these incidents in the classroom.

We found that the transitions were the problem.  But providing positive feedback (like getting a gift for not biting for a week) from us and the teacher really helped.  As did all of us being on the same page.  

haem0702

Taking away a toy is a great idea. Did you do that if they bit at daycare or just at home? 

The only thing I would be worried about is doing that and him not understanding why I'm doing it because he bit earlier in the day. The most frustrating part is that this behavior is only happening there, and not at home. 

anngeewhiz

We took away the toys (and make sure to grab mostly favorites--it makes a bigger  impact {but we never took lovies or the like}) no matter where/when he bit.

And at three, he definitely knew (and we talked about it--yes sadly with tears) that he was in trouble for biting earlier in the day. The teacher would talk to us at pick up and mention it--so he also heard that we were in this together.

We commute, so a lot of the discussions happened during the commute, so that when we got home the toys were immediately put away.

PrincessBear

My daughter went through a biting stage right around her 3rd birthday.  It happened 3 times in 3 days.  After the first 2, we talked to her about it extensively that weekend (it was a Friday).  We explained that we don't bite our friends because it hurts.  We also told her that if she bit again, it would be an automatic time out when she got home from school.  Monday, when we dropped her off, we reminded her that if she bit her friend (it was the same bitee over and over) she would get a timeout.  Sure enough, she bit again that day.  We came home, did an automatic time out and it hasn't happened since then.  For months when we picked her up and asked how her day was, she said "I didn't bite my friends."  Although I don't know your DS, you might not be giving him enough credit to understand a punishment at home for a school event.  My recommendation would be to discuss it...try to get him to tell you why he's biting, who he's biting, anything at all about it so that he can make the connection between the events happening at school and it being important at home.  Then institute some sort of punishment.  If you can get school on board with the punishment (our won't do timeouts, for example) that is even better.  But for us, simply following through on our word with the automatic time out and talking about it, constant reminders that that isn't appropriate behavior, worked like a charm.  GL!