Gave biting boy marmite "medicine"

[Flamesparrow]

I'm not going to traumatise him for life am I?

He hated it before, just seemed a good way to make him connect that doing bad stuff with his mouth makes bad things happen to his mouth.

Many tears and apologies!

oh god, is marmite being smeared on a toungue really classed as a 'physical punishment'???

i kinda think yes, psycho. although i am as you can see not having a go at lovely flamey.

ffs it's marmite, not cyanide. I know Flame would have tried everything possible first and if this works, then good on her.

would lemon juice be ok? you could squirt from a distance, and have it in a holster on your belt

of course. but it is a physical punishment, that can hardly be denied.

Re the speech therapy - aitch is right. The therapists put the marmite where they wanted the tongue to go - I suppose they found out that she liked it first?

No, they didn't ask consent - hence my thinking it might have been routine. This was about ten years ago.

OH FGS....

poor Flame...at the end of her tether with a biting boy & then has to listen to this...

"imo it is bordering on abusive, certainly potentially traumatic." Catch a grip of yourself woman!!

You liken this to some abuse soome children are exposed to on a daily basis? Time to get out of your ivory tower I think....

Marmite....hardly the same as cyanide!!!!

no, i don't think that's the point, is it? it's not the substance, it's the administering of it that would require a bit of brute force (or would in our house).

like i say, though, i'm sure flamey didn't do it as a first recourse.

oooh, am loving the thought of a special holster with marmite, lemon juice and mustard being the weapons of choice

aitch, I do get that you are not having a go. you do know flamey well enough to know that this is not bordering on anything abusive

I didn't need to hold DS2's mouth opne, I just asked him to put out his tongue, he did and I put my fingertip full of vinegar onto his tongue.
This happened 3 times before he stopped biting.

I have two boys, two years apart, I will not tolerate biting or any physical violence from them or myself.

I don;t think TBVH, that the marmite was anything even near the force of a 3yr old sinking his teeth into you.

he is a strong little demon child!!

ah well that does seem more benign, if they stuck their tongues out. lol dd would never do that in a bizillion years.

absolutely, psycho, completely understood.

I do think though, psycho, that people need to be able to give an objective reaction to what's been posted by flame. Our reactions can't only be valid if we know her personally.

It is shocking tbh, and it is quite definitely a physical punishment. The more I think about it, the more upsetting I find it - more so, perhaps, than hitting. It so fundamentally denies the child's rights over his body, since it is consists of something being forced inside him against his will.

I'm aware that some will think that assessment's ott or even deliberately inflammatory. It's certainly not intended to be.

As I said earlier, it was the rather freaky 'you go girl!' responses that were posted by others which disturbed me most.

oh, and altho I was not there with flame when she did this, I can actually imagine demondude sticking his tongue out for it too

sticking tongue out... fine.

pindown... not fine.

DS2 and Demondude would prob hit it off.
DS2 stood there with his tongue out and a "do your worst" face on, as he does.

Seriously, it is far worse for a child to be a biter and socially ostracised than to put some foodstuff on their tongue.

Sorry Flame but I find this quite disturbing. It is better than biting him but not much.

and to whoever said this isn't bad on a scale of one to cyanide. That's a crap argument - the idea that, because there are worse things to do to a child, this is okay - kinell.

am kind of guessing tho that if he continues biting, at some point someone will point out that he is forcing something upon another child against their will.

marmite is better than being hit IMVHO.

I had a biter.

I tried everything (only instaed of marmite I used mustard).

the one thing that stop him???

I bit him!!

not proud by any means, but he bit his sister on her elbow so hard he drew blood (she still has a scar), and he was 4yrs old, I was at the end of my tether, so I bit him in the same place, only obviously not nearly as hard.

it worked tho.

If he stuck his own tongue out... after she asked, that what difference does it make if she has marmite or ice-cream on it? I hear he doesn't like ice-cream either, but willingly sticks his tongue out for it.....

connie, I don't think I'm in an ivory tower just because I think it's disturbing to be deliberately putting a disgusting substance into a young child's mouth as a punishment.

I don't know the OP, I'm just reacting to her request for comments. She obviously doesn't feel that great about it or she wouldn't be wondering if it will traumatise him for life.

like onebat, I find it worrying that people can think it's funny and suggest other horrible things to shove in a child's mouth.

It sounds like something awful out of the 1940s like washing kids' mouths out with soap, that is a physical punishment and is a kind of violence aside from the associations with food, force etc.

Of course it worked, psycho. So would a beating have done. That's not the point, I don;t think.

Really, it's a fucker, but the only humane way of dealing with a child that hurts others is vigilance and more bloody vigilance, I think.

"...smeared it on his tongue, and then pointed out that if he dared try to spit/scrape it out then he would be getting more of it." The not letting him spit it out puts it firmly in the realms of physical punishment, rather than cause-effect (if there is such a thing).

Buggering off now.

By ConnieComplaint on Tue 17-Mar-09 21:34:15
If he stuck his own tongue out... after she asked, that what difference does it make if she has marmite or ice-cream on it? I hear he doesn't like ice-cream either, but willingly sticks his tongue out for it.....

i don't understand. surely the only point is that he gets something he dislikes on his tongue? i fear you are confused.

Flame, it really sounds like you are at your wits end with your boy - and I for one think you are doing the right thing in terms of coming down hard on his behaviour before it escalates further. Its so hard though, isn't it? You must be exhausted. Stick with it though - be consistent and firm and have lots of nice cuddles at the 'in between tantrums' times to get you both through.

Regarding the marmite thing -well, I don't think it sounds very nice, but you know best what your DS's response to it is - and whether you have to prise his mouth open while he screams, or whether he has accepted it as a fair piunishment for something he knows he is not to do - unpleasant though it is. Desperate times, desperate measures. I hope whatever you decide helps your DS to behave better, and helps you and him to get on better