Within the last couple months Chase has gotten bitten a couple times at school and then all of a sudden it made him turn into a biter himself! No!!! I was always so glad he wasn't a biter so it has been so tough to deal with the last couple weeks of him biting the other kids at school. I have decided that this is one of the toughest things your toddler can do as a parent!!(I'm sure I'll say this about our next obstacle as well - ha ha) I know I am lucky that that is the toughest thing in our life right now - trust me I realize how blessed this makes us - but still having a child that bites is sooo frustrating. As a parent it is embarrassing and you feel like you are being a bad parent. It brought me to tears many times just because of pure frustration of not knowing what to do.
The most frustrating part is he NEVER bites at home so we never see it, therefore we never discipline it. When we would pick Chase up at school we would get "incident reports" which are write-ups of any biting/hitting/falling - one for each incident throughout the day. We got to a point where we were getting at least 1 report everyday - some days even getting 2 of them. I just kept saying "I don't know what to do because he doesn't do it at home!" We just kept hoping he would stop...
Finally last week D Day came and I got the dreaded phone call that Chase had bit 4 times that day and he had to go home for the rest of the day. Craig and I don't really agree with this since it probably seemed like a reward for him to get to go home and be with Mommy all day - but that is the rule so I went to pick him up. Chase felt so bad when I got there and knew exactly why I was there.. he said " I bite Cooper." Poor guy - he is such a love bug and so remorseful - which I love about him - he just was expressing frustration/anger/tiredness through biting.
His 4 write ups...
We ended up setting up a parent/teacher conference for the next day and we had a great meeting with his teacher and one of the directors of the school. They were so supportive and told us all the reasons they thought it was happening and kept reminding us that it is completely normal and developmental and not our fault. We also came up with some great ideas to help the issue. Here are some of the things we put in place:
1) We bought the book "Teeth Are Not For Biting" and we read it constantly to Chase, having lots of conversations with him about how it hurts his friends and we hug instead
2) Every night before bed we tell him we are proud of him for not biting and "Biting Hurts!"
3) Every morning we tell him "Biting Hurts" and he should hug his friends instead.. we say "Chase what are you going to do with your friends today" and he answers "Give em Hug," "Hug Cooper," etc (can you tell Cooper is his best friend!)
4) We bought a Thomas the Train electric toothbrush and a teether that he gets to keep in his cubby at school and can use whenever he wants to have something in his mouth
5) We bring his dinosaur to school now that he sleeps with at night and it is a special treat that he gets at naptime if he doesn't bite anyone in the morning
6) He gets 2 jelly beans when he gets home from school if he doesn't bite all day (we put them in a special baggy in the morning before he goes to school and show them to him and tell him he gets them if he doesn't bite)
I am proud to announce that it is WORKING!! It is getting so much better! We put all this into place last Thursday and Thursday he had one bite, Friday nothing, Monday one bite, today nothing. Slowly but surely he is doing so good! He totally understands what we are saying and is soooo proud of himself when he has good days!
I feel like we are overcoming our first parenting obstacle! One of the things I have loved seeing through this experience is how smart Chase is and how much he really does understand everything we are saying. He really wants to do well and it has been amazing to watch how proud he is of himself and how he really can change his behaviors if he wants to. He is becoming such a big boy and communicates so well. He is talking so great lately and I think this will also help with any biting issues...he will feel more understood without getting frustrated.
Love you monkey - so proud of you!
2 comments:
Glad to hear he is doing so well learning not to bite. :) You're doing great Mama!
Good job Chase! Parenting can be really tough sometimes...sounds like you guys are really trying hard helping him learn right from wrong. This is hard sometimes in the eyes of a 2 year old!
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