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Nearly 4 yr old biting his sister - please help!

1 reply

emy72 · 03/07/2010 10:14

My son is going to be 4 in August and will start Reception in September. He started biting children, including his older sister since he was 10 months.

Whilst we successfully broke the hit at nursery when he was about 2 and a half, we have not managed to break the habit at home.

We've gone through good phases when he appeared to stop doing it and we are going through a horrible phase where he does it every day.

The pattern is: sister returns from school, she is really mean to him, says she doesn't want to play with him, wants to be left alone. He will follow her around then they seem to play a bit, next thing they are rolling around on the floor and he bites her.

I have tried everything: isolation is generally what we do, ie tell him in no uncertain terms that you don't bit people and put him on naughty step/his room.

We also talk to his sister to encourage her to play with him but it's not working. He seems so aggressive towards her, there is a real problem there.

I am at the end of my tether because EVERY DAY after school my house descends into chaos. I also have 2 younger children and it's not fair on them to witness this every day.

Any advice?

He is otherwise a really good boy, perfectly behaved at preschool, lovely to all the other children and never displays any aggressive signs (quite the contrary, he is a gentle, placid little boy).

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
Tori27 · 03/07/2010 17:10

My mum has told me many stories of me being exactly like this with my older brother. Mum had no idea what to do until one day my dad told my brother he could bite me back (Dad had a chat with my brother and explained that he only had permission to bite me back once to teach me how it felt). My brother wasn't aggressive at all and the shock of it stopped me from doing it again.

I know it's not very PC and I am a mum who doesn't believe in smacking ect, but it may be worth a go if you've tried everything else.

Good luck! xx

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