by Mary Rice

Created on: July 09, 2009   Last Updated: July 12, 2009

When my daughter was around three or four she started biting; herself. Then she'd come out, hold up the bitten appendage, usually her arm, and declare that J___ bit me! It's incredibly hard to keep a straight face when faced with that, but somehow I managed and would calmly inform her that she shouldn't be biting and that she should tell J___ to not bite her.

I wasn't worried too much, she was only biting herself and the marks were fading within half hour. I assumed it was a phase and she'd stop as soon as she realized that she wasn't getting a reaction out of me. Then one day, while over at a friends house things changed. Our daughters were all playing in the bedroom, with some Cheerios as snacks. They'd been fairly quiet, until the high-pitched shriek of pain that is.

We were a sight, playing Keystone Cops as we dashed to the bedroom door. The sight that et my eyes had me stunned. J___ had decided that the best way to defend her snack from unwanted poachers was to sink her teeth into the offenders hand, thus wringing the shriek. Once we determined that no blood was drawn I called my daughter over to me and asked her why she bit K____. I got a shrug for an answer. Typical for the age and the child, but biting still wasn't okay with me. Without warning the child, I grabbed her hand and firmly, but gently bit it in the same location that she'd bit K___. Of course my daughter yelped and started to cry a bit. I asked her if she liked being bitten, to which I got a snuffly reply of no. Good, that was the answer I'd hoped for. I then calmly informed her that if she didn't like it, then why would she think anyone else would. I also had her go apologize to K____ for biting her. End of story, so I thought.

Maybe a week later though we had a repeat, this time with seemingly no provoking. This time I warned my daughter that every time she bit someone I would bite her in the same place and just as hard, if not harder. Biting was not acceptable, and that there wold always be someone out there that could bite harder then her, no matter how big she got. I proceeded to then bite her, same location as she bit and harder. She again had to also apologize for biting.

That seemed to be the end of the habit of biting others, though she still bit herself and then told on herself, but not as often. Perhaps a month went by with no further incident. Then came the day that put an end to my daughters biting for good. Once again, the friend was over and the girls were playing together.

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