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saved4always 04:54 AM 05-08-2012
Originally Posted by Unregistered:
First of all, I would like to recognize the parents of children who bite. It is such a job (an awesome job) to teach and nurture our children! The issue of biting is definitely a touchy subject for parents, including this one! I am a speech-language pathologists and I work in a pediatric private practice. I have a son who will be two years old in July. He has been the victim of a girl (one month older) in a home day care setting. She began biting him approximately when teething began (9-12 months ago). She is an excellent communicator! She is able to talk in sentences, ask "wh" questions appropriately, great articulation, etc.. Therefore, a "frustration" due to lack of ability to communicate DOES NOT relate to this little one. She is the granddaughter of my sitter (her son is the father). I feel very confident that she is disciplined post biting. However, I have never been confronted or offered an adult apology from the mother and father that I see almost daily. I feel that it is somewhat overlooked by the parents as they cannot even acknowledge the harmful behavior and physical harm their child has inflicted. However, I am also confident that if roles were reversed that this mother would react 100% different. Her child's bites have continuously gotten worse! I feel that I could pretty much make a molar of this child's teeth strictly by the impressions she leaves on my child. My child has never been aggressive even with retaliating and i have made it a point o task the caregiver of such behaviors. I work with several child with autism and I have been bitten, scratched, kicked, pinched, punched, etc... HOWEVER, I know that these little ones are truly frustrated with their difficulty in communicating with others! I understand that biting is a common and complicated issue but sometimes parents need to take responsibility (even if that just means acknowledging the situation). I almost get the feeling that parents of biters play a victim role. The victims are the children at the other end of your child's teeth forcefully clinching to their frail, precious skin! Some parents need a role reversal and imaging their child as the "bitee". What if they picked up there little one and to continuously see bite marks in their precious baby's skin??? We leave our babies with those that we trust and among any one else our babies trust their parents!! It saddens me to know that mine has to "accept" that he will go to a place (because his mommy takes him there and so it must be safe) and to "accept " to be physically harmed because.... EXCUSE, EXCUSE, EXCUSE!!!!!!!!! At a nursing home when patients with dementia become combative their are often medicated, closely monitored, and/or discharged to a hospital. It the best case they are referred to rehab to assist in appropriately controlling behaviors. It is known that individuals with dementia "age backwards". That is like an 80 YO acting as a 2 YO. Most of of would not be okay if our 80 YO mother was consistently bitten by her 80 YO roommate in any facility!
I am sorry your little one is going through this. I have had a couple biters in my home childcare and both times, the parents (2 different families) were very concerned about the biting and worked on it at home. Both families of the biters felt very badly about thier child biting and apologized (in person or through me if they had different drop off/pick up times...parents knew who the biter was because the bitten child could say the name, plus I only watched 4 kids). I feel that the parents taking it very seriously and expressing thier sorrow to the parents of the bitten child went a long way in helping everyone get through the situation. The biting stage was short-lived for both of these children, thank goodness. I feel a combination of time outs when biting occurred, shadowing to catch the biting situations before they happened and the parents of the biter reinforcing no biting at home all helped it to stop quickly.
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