toddlers that bite have higher IQ

[Heathcliffscathy]

now that i have your attention, albeit under false pretences, please please please can you help me find a way to stop my 17 month old ds being aggressive. if thwarted, or frustrated he bites, kicks, pinches, scratches, grabs and pushes. he does this mainly with me, but also with other children (although mostly i'm there first). i have been v depressed about this, but now am just determined to find a way to stop him behaving in this way.

I always say 'no, no biting/pushing etc, be gentle, and then am gentle with him. but this is not working. i've souted at him once (he bit me hard, but he laughed at me. he seems to find the whole thing a massive laugh. is he old enough for naughty step? (i'd have to stay with him, the idea of him staying still for more than a second is laughable). when he does it, he is usually smiling, altho if i'm trying to do something that he doesn't want me to (get him into buggy for eg) he is often thrashing and screaming his head off.

as much as he sounds like a monster, mostly he is a lovely, affectionate, sunny little boy. he cuddles and kisses far more than demonstrates aggressive behaviour.

i won't bite or hit him. It goes against everything i believe about parenting, and just isn't the solution for me. i will try almost anything else tho. sorry for posting about this again, but it's an absolute nightmare at the moment...please please help me with this...

What about removing attention when badly behaving?
If he bites/push or what ever another child.... ignore him totally and make a big fuss with the victim. Believe me if you do THAT well it works really well!

Did you watch Supernanny? SOme of her ides would work here... Get down to his level speak witha firm (lower) tone, tell him this is NOT OK... and put him on naughty step for 1 minute.

you got me all excited there...

Anyway with dd, if she's violent I use what I think is known as the "time out" method - I don't smile or look at her, I pick her up and put her somewhere else (usually the hall) and tell her to stay there until she can be nice/say sorry. She is still agressive sometimes, but it has helped. Still trying to persuade dh that this is a better method than putting her in her room though...

Oh also I've noticed that she is worse when tired - might your ds's naps need a bit of adjustment?

BTW if you tell him no and give him a warning, it's 1 warning and you're "punished"... many people give way too many warnings.... it looses all its impact.

pupuse got there first. I've only just started to explain it to dd - I found when she was younger (she's nearly 3, slightly late with language) too much explaining just confused her/made her worse.

pupuce. sorry!

I am not the greatest mother but I have a 19mth DD who occasionally bit and used to try and hit me. I told her it was not nice and I did role play with her and her dolly too and we told off dolly together for being not nice.
Now she seems much better and though she still tries lashing out occasionally, she understands what not nice means and I have seen her line her toys up and tell them off for being not nice.
It worked a bit for me - but I did have to be patient.

You don't have to go into a long explanation....
"No, you don't bite, it hurts and mummy is in pain"

he's 17 months did i say that. i do give the other child loads of attention. today i left him in the hallway while i went into the front room for a minute, he was crying, gave him a hug when i went back and explained that hurting mummy wasn't nice and that he needed to be gentle. worked for a bout 10 mins.

It'll work eventually, sophable!

Any advice on how to deal with a 12-month biter? He doesn't do it aggressively, it's usually when we are cuddling and playing. I say 'no biting', but he doesn't take any notice. He usually laughs and then does it again. I realise he's too young to understand what he's doing wrong, but I would like to sort it now before it gets out of hand. He goes to nursery and I've had no reports of him doing it to other children.

otto I may be wrong but when they are so young I think biting is still a sign of affection. Stand corrected if I a wrong tho!

DD is 2.5 and occasionally bites. Its a nightmare, and defo not a sign of affection!

That's reassuring, however I can still feel the bruise from his last sign of affection!

Perhaps you could try saying no really firmly, looing straight at him when you say it, and removing him from yourself, and perhaps walking away and leaving him for a really short time? If he knows that the consequence will be that he won't be cuddled / held by you, he may stop?

Otto, my DS did also bite when being affective, and found it funny to see any reaction (Like me saying ouch, getting angry or even sending him to the naughty step-he would run to it laughing). At that time what worked better for us was to interrrupt whatever we were doing, standup and ignore him for a little while, and then come back to him when he looked confused but without a big fuss. I really wanted to avoid him to think that I was telling him off for being affective, and was still too young to reason with him, so this aproach worked well.

Now that he is a bit older (25m), we are taking the Supper Nanny aproach and it's definitively working. The other day we went to a restaurant and he managed to stay himself happy and adorable until we finished eating, he didn't drop food from the highchair, didn't ask to go down and he didn't even request the bag of toys until the end of dessert.

bump for all you eveningers. i'm consisdering awarding a prize (booze?) to whoever can help me out with this...

Sophable - I agree with Senora and Pupuce but you must persevere....