Responding to the biting problem?

Question

I just saw that the "Biting" question from a while ago was "resolved" by someone saying biting wasn't normal at a young age. I'm wondering, for people who think that, how they would respond to the following?:

From webmd saying it is normal:

http://children.webmd.com/tc/Biting-Topic-Overview

From health resources:

http://healthresources.caremark.com/topic/biting1to3#s14

Penn State:

http://betterkidcare.psu.edu/AngelUnits/OneHour/Biting/BitingLesson.html

Ryerson Polytechnic:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/bbacker/articles/biting.html

Loyola University:

http://www.luhs.org/health/kbase/htm/hw43/934/hw43936.htm

"A healthy me":

http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/biting3to6#s8

Peacehealth.org:

http://www.peacehealth.org/kbase/topic/mini/hw43934/overview.htm

Quest Diagnostics:

http://www.questdiagnostics.com/kbase/topic/mini/hw43934/overview.htm

Blue Shield Health Insurance:

http://tinyurl.com/2cobdc

Heck...even yahoo health:

http://tinyurl.com/ywy2pd

Answer 1

The answer is it "normal" depends on the age and development of the child.

Provided a child does not have special needs or behavioral/emotional issues than:

Biting is definitely normal for toddlers ages 1 and 2 who have limited vocabulary. It is not acceptable behavior of course but it is normal.

The trick is to model better ways of handling anger frustration or even just the need to relieve that teething pain.by teaching

words like MINE and HURT and simply NO

offering more toys so sharing is less of an issue

and making sure there are teething toys available

helps.

That said by 3 or 4 biting is more of  a behavior

issue and is often used by a child who can not handle anger and frustration well. Again you need to model alternatives and find reasons why the behavior is occurring. Parents and teachers may be able to do this on their own b y sitting down and modeling and discussing problem solving. For example

"When Sally took your doll what else could you do?"

By the time a child reaches school age if he or she bites I think the parent and teacher might want to consider counseling. The child may need help with socialization,

problem solving ,anger management, speech and language.

BTW one flaw with ANSWERS is it sometimes has more to do with the asker liking your response than it being a legitimate or well researched answer.