Toddler biting and hitting

[Rainatnight]

Hello all,

I could just as easily post this on the Muggles' board, but I'd be really grateful for your views. As ever, don't know if this this a normal toddler thing, or an adoption thing.

DD is come up to 2, been with us since 8 months old. Removed from BM at three days, with FC till she came to us.

She settled in really well and is an absolutely joy. Seems really well attached, esp to me. Slightly problematic with DP as she shows a marked preference for me and kicks off sometimes if she has to do something with DP rather than me. But in general, seems happy and settled. Very, very advanced verbally (I only mention it cos it always comes up in discussions about what I'm about to talk about).

The problem is that she bites and hits, quite a lot, and it's mainly aimed at us. She's with a (really lovely) childminder three days a week, and has only done it there occasionally.

It's happens more often when she's tired, but definitely not exclusively. And it's much more likely to happen when she's being made to do something she doesn't want (eg being prevented from running into the road).

I know lots of toddlers go through this phase but this has persisted for a long time now, and it feels as though nothing we do makes any difference, which is quite dispiriting. She went to bite my DP's face the other day, and I've had a couple of real whoppers recently.

The thing is, I'm inclined to think she probably doesn't have any control over it. She's pretty amazing at remembering what she is/isn't meant to do in other ways, and will repeat instructions back to you, and follow through (for example; there's a little sign in our local park that I don't like her to touch cos it's covered in bird poo. When we're passing it, she'll say, 'we don't touch that, it's dirty'). So she understands stuff and can 'obey' (as well as a toddler can!) but I think has total loss of control when it comes to biting/hitting.

Any thoughts? Advice? Anything we should be doing?

Thanks.

OP, did it start after she started at childminder/nursery?

Thank you for replying.

I should have said, it's been going on for months, and she just started three days a week with childminder last month (though with quite a long, slow, settling in period). We think it's got worse since since she started but it was definitely there before.

We've had scratching - so i (literally!) feel your pain.
My first question would be was there alcohol in pregnancy - are you seeing lack of impulse control because of damage to executive brain function. (She'd still be able to follow the instructions you talk about.)

Your dd can communicate - and my god have i had to bite my tongue at all the people insisting it will go away for my dd as her speech comes on. And yes toddlers don't like being told what to do - but you're right it's more of a reaction than others her age.
I'd be tempted to go with the "all behaviour is communication" viewpoint. She's telling you she's overwhelmed - and maybe not telling nursery because she doesn't trust them as much to share her real feelings. (Not because their childcare skills are better than yours!)
I hate to say it but it's probably by focusing on attachment that you'll get the most results. And by waiting it out - if there is alcohol involved then you need to start doing the thing of halving their real age to get their emotional age. I don't want a misery but if she's preferring one of you above the other then there probably are attachment issues to work on.
For us it was a real lightbulb moment seeing a baby half her age flailing its limbs around and gnawing gummily on its mum's arm. Didn't stop it hurting mind.
I say all this like we confidently breezed through the worst of it. We so didn't - at times each of us felt so hurt it was really hard. We felt like we were being abused - and my dh was turning up to business meetings looking like he'd been in fights.
I'll hold my hand up and say i scratched her back once - and the violence came back at me tenfold - along with her total bewilderment and fright. It really rammed home to me the lack of intent that i'd begun to imagine she had.
We did yell help to the post adoption team (and yes i told them i'd scratched her so it's on my records) and they were marvellous - reassuring and supportive. It's lessening now but still there.
The plus side is you do get faster at moving out of the way!

Thanks for replying Just. We don't know definitively about alcohol. There's definitely no signs of FASD but no one knows if BM drank in pregnancy though there's every likelihood she did. TBH, though, I don't think that's it. She doesn't really have any signs and I don't want to jump to conclusions.

Same with the attachment thing. It's just very hard to know what's an adoption 'thing' and what's not. But there's definitely something up with stepping up the hours in childminder's.

Oddly enough, we've had a much better week with it over the past week. A friend who's a psychologist advised us to avoid saying 'no biting' and instead to say 'I prefer it when you're gentle', which I was a bit about cos I wanted some firm boundaries about it, but it actually does seem to be making a difference.