Your personal angel
Your little guy is such a sweetheart. He’s always giving you hugs and covering your face with kisses. He’s constantly smiling and he’ll just start laughing and giggling for no reason. It just makes your heart glad to have such a well-behaved child.
One day you’re picking him up from preschool and his teacher wants a quick word. You’re sure it’s going to be some sort of glowing report so you’re all ears. At first you don’t register what they’re saying, it’s almost like they’re speaking a foreign language. Then it finally sinks in: your little angel is biting and hitting other kids!
Confusion
It’s a little hard to believe because he doesn’t act that way at all when he’s at home with you. A part of you wants to think his teacher could be making it all up. But you see the teeth marks and bruises on one of the poor kids and that’s when you realize that it’s true.
Why is your child doing this? Do you need to seek professional help? Is your precious preschooler on his way to becoming a bully? Are you a failure as a parent?
These are all valid questions. Let’s try to answer them together.
Biting and hitting is normal
First of all, let me put your mind at ease: there is nothing strange with your child displaying aggressive behavior. In fact, it’s all a part of your child’s journey starting from birth to communicate his wants and needs.
Your child starts to communicate by crying and grunting and using other sounds. From around 12 to 24 months of age your child may start to bite and hit to get a response, as well as to experience the world around him. In time, as he learns how to talk and use body and facial gestures the need to bite and hit starts to disappear.
So why do some children continue to act this way, even as they get older?
Some reasons why
There can be a variety of reasons why your child is getting aggressive and hitting and biting others. Here are a few of them:
- Frustration: Frustration is a hard emotion to handle, even for adults. For little kids who are overwhelmed by frustration, sometimes the easiest and fastest way to express themselves is to aggressively let it out on others.
- A reaction to their daily atmosphere: Children are very sensitive to the feelings around them and may behave accordingly. They are especially affected by the emotions that their parents are giving off. If parents are stressed because of big changes like the loss of a loved one, being fired, having to move, etc., children can easily latch onto those feelings. The negative emotions that they are, let’s say feeding on, can result in hitting and biting.
- School is scary: For many kids the experience of preschool can be overwhelming. It could be the first time in their lives where they are surrounded by so many kids. Other kids may be mean to them. They may feel it’s too crowded. Biting and hitting may be a way for them to gain some control of the situation, as well as defend themselves from others.
- A “case of the Mondays”: Sometimes your child is not having a good day, regardless of what’s going on around him. We all have those days. He is not in a good mood. It’s just that simple.
- Need for sensory stimulation: This concerns biting more than it does hitting. Some kiddos suffer from sensory deprivation.. This is easy to spot because they don’t just bite others, they will even bite objects and themselves.
A little help please?
Okay, maybe right now you’re not sure how you can help your child stop his aggressive behavior. Don’t worry, there’s hope yet! Here are some tips and guidelines you can use to help your child stop hitting and biting:
- Observe your child: You watch your child like a hawk at all times to make sure they are safe, but this is even more than that. Watch him so you can pinpoint what makes him upset. What situations, places, people, etc. contribute to making your child want to hit and bite? Take special note so that in the future you can prevent it from happening.
- Tell him what to expect: Kids crave routine. They flourish and feel secure when they know what’s going to happen next. Uncertainty leads to anxiety and frustration and…well, now you know what that can become. Life happens, and sometimes things can change at a moment’s notice. Still, as much as possible try to prepare your child so they know what to expect.
- Meet the sensory need: If your child is biting because he needs more sensory stimulus, try to provide more. Maybe give him something to eat like potato chips or crackers for the crunch factor. If you’re okay with it, chewing gum is an easy way to engage the teeth and jaws. Or if you want to go the healthy route, some meaty chunks of pineapple, carrot sticks, or the burst of a grape.
- Let him know that hurting others is not okay: Kids wear their heart on their sleeves, and that’s totally fine. That doesn’t make it okay to be aggressive with other people, or even oneself. Let your child know, firmly but gently, that hitting and biting is not permitted. Let him know that there will be consequences if he continues to bite his fellow classmates, or for that matter, anyone, including himself. You will of course make your own rules about what this looks like, but it’s not about punishing your child, it’s all about setting much needed boundaries.
How speech language pathologists are involved
In the end, most of the time biting and hitting comes down to the need to communicate something a child is feeling. Your kiddo is resorting to aggressive behavior because he can’t or won’t express his anxiety, fear, frustration, or a host of any other negative emotions. A speech therapist can help greatly in giving him the tools to effectively express himself.
Speech language pathologists can help a child with pronouncing speech sounds more clearly so others can understand what he is saying, hopefully reducing some of the frustration in his interactions with others. They can expand their vocabulary and can help give children the words they need to say what they are feeling. Even if your child isn’t talking much yet, speech therapists are trained to help them communicate with others without resorting to aggressive behaviors.
If you’ve tried all you can to prevent your child from biting and hitting and you’ve hit a wall, consult a speech language pathologist as soon as possible to schedule an evaluation.