19 month old hitting and biting - Children's Health Message Board

Tinkerbelle1 · 05-13-2008, 12:47 PM

My son is 19 months old and has been biting and hitting. He is in daycare and began biting after being bitten by another child numerous times. He bites because he thinks it’s funny. He also bites when he’s teething. He doesn’t seem to do it out of frustration. We always have something available to chew on when he's teething. We also make a big deal out of comforting the person who has been bitten and giving lots of attention to the one who has been bitten.

He also just started hitting and this bothers me more than the biting does. We will get through the biting. We'll get through the hitting too I just don't know how to respond to it. If he doesn’t like what we are doing he hits or throws objects at us. We say no and if we are holding him we put him down and walk away. We do a lot of distraction to get his mind off of whatever is bothering him. We have done timeouts as well. Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone else dealt with this?

mcr285 · 05-15-2008, 01:02 PM

a good thunk in the teeth and a firm "NO BITE!" will break the biting habit very quickly. i would imagine you are probably pretty entertaining to watch when you give lots of attention to the one who's been bitten, so make sure not to be too over dramatic with that.

a time out every single time he hits is the only thing i know of that is effective in stopping the hitting. it might take a whole day (or even a couple of days if your child is particularly stubborn!) of putting him in time out, but at 19 months, he is very capable of learning the concept of hitting = timeout. when he hits, you tell him "NO HIT!" and put him straight into timeout (no warnings!) for a minute and a half. after timeout is over, you tell him, "you hit mommy and that is a NO NO!" and have him say sorry mommy (or whoever he hit).

these are the things that i did when i worked in daycare and they were always effective. good luck!