What to Do About Biting
Biting is a confronting, but common occurrence in early childhood, and Dr. Billy Garvey has some great advice to help you handle (and hopefully prevent) a biting incident.
BY HEJIRA CONVERY, KINDICARE
Whether your child is the vampire or the victim, biting is something that comes as a shock to us parents.
Seeing those teeth sink in, or finding a bite mark later, can be really upsetting, worrying and embarrassing, especially if it happens a lot.
However, there is some comfort in knowing that biting is pretty common amongst under-fives, and there are ways to watch out for it, and react in the right way.
To help you do this, we’ve spoken with Dr. Billy Garvey, who’s a very experienced developmental paediatrician and founder of Guiding Growing Minds.
He’s also co-host of the Pop Culture Parenting podcast, and has just released an excellent (and very easy to read) book called Ten Things I Wish You Knew About Your Child’s Mental Health.
Photo credit: Meagan Harding
All in all, Dr. Billy is a fount of knowledge, and he explains that there are actually two types of biting – calm biting and dysregulated biting.
Dr. Billy says calm biting happens for lots of different reasons, but often occurs because a young child is testing out their environment, and learning about the world with tactile stimulation.
Under-fives, and especially under-threes, are sensory learners who do a lot of exploring with their mouths.
So, calm biting can happen when they’re testing and tasting, or alternatively, when they’re teething, and happen to use a person as a chew toy!
Dr. Billy explains that us parents can also, unintentionally, lead children towards calm biting, because a lot of our play with little kids is kissing and pretending to bite them.
He says, “This is a fun, joyful experience for the child, and then they’ll be in a play setting and not understand that they shouldn’t actually bite.
“For young children, it’s hard to understand that there’s a difference between Mummy playfully biting their belly, and them actually biting the child next to them.”
Meanwhile, dysregulated biting is a form of defensiveness and a cry for help.
Dr. Billy explains that, “This type of biting shows that a child is getting stressed and wants help, and they know that if they bite, someone will come straight to them and unintentionally reinforce the behaviour by giving them attention.”
He says, “Dysregulated biting can also happen when a child is angry or frustrated, and they lash out at another child who’s doing something they don’t like,” such as cramping their space or hogging that toy.
And because young children are still finding their words, and learning emotional regulation, dysregulated biting can be their way of saying, “I want this!” or “I don’t like that!”
Whatever the reason, a biting incident does send shockwaves through the friend group or childcare community.
Parents and educators don’t like to see little teeth latching onto live flesh, and children who bite a lot get a bad reputation amongst their peers, which can mean social isolation.
However, it’s important that us adults take a measured approach to biting, and when an incident occurs, Dr. Billy says we need to, “Stop and observe the kids, and think about what’s actually happening for the biter.
“If they’re calm, we need to think about how we can teach them better ways to play; and if they’re dysregulated, we need to help them learn a better way to ‘help seek,’ or a better way to say they’re not enjoying an experience.”
In the heat of a biting moment, Dr. Billy says, “We want to help the biter try and understand what’s happened to the other kid, without being harsh or punitive, then quickly shift to a show of care for the child who was bitten.”
In practice, this means you might say, “Look, Emily is really upset, because that really hurt her,” and then quickly provide comfort to Emily, rather than pressing the biter to say, “Sorry,” or hug and make up.
The reason for this, is that giving the biter lots of attention (even negative attention) can unintentionally show them that biting is a way to get attention and support, so it’s much better to swiftly move the focus to the bitee, and avoid the risk of reinforcing the biter’s behaviour.
Of course, it’s always better to stop a biting incident from happening in the first place, and Dr. Billy says the best way to do this is with something called ‘shadowing.’
Shadowing just means that grown-ups stay close to children who are vulnerable to biting someone else, and watch for signs that something may be about to happen.
Dr. Billy says, “When we see that a child is becoming a bit dysregulated, or they’re calm and exploring their environment with their mouth, we need to think about how we can guide them to alternatives.”
With a dysregulated child, this could mean intervening in a simmering social situation by saying, “Ok, Thomas, let’s give Ollie a little bit of space,” or “Would you like a turn with the xylophone now, Jessica?”
It can also be helpful to provide quiet areas where children can go to chill out when they’re feeling stressed or over-stimulated.
And if you see a calm bite about to happen, it helps to offer the chompy child a new thing to touch and taste, that’s not a fellow child!
There’s definitely evidence that biting decreases when children are given safer ways to have their stimulus needs met; and Dr. Billy says, “Research has found that some of the childcare centres that offer up a lot of oral, tactile stimulation, like chew toys and crunchy foods, actually have a much lower incidence of biting through their centres.”
This definitely makes sense, and if you’re interested in learning more about children’s mental health, with lots of evidence and practical experiences thrown in, then we recommend Dr. Billy’s new book.
It’s something you can refer to throughout your whole child-raising journey, and although biting can be a big issue in early childhood, it’s definitely not the only challenge you may encounter, so a book full of easy-to-read professional insights won’t go astray!
