I agree 100% with Barbara. It is very typical for infants and toddlers to bite. Biting is a normal, yet unpleasant, phases that most children go through. It is instinctual - fight or flight - and early care and education centers should expect to provide learning experiences related to biting. It is unfair, and in my mind, unacceptable, to send home or terminate a child for doing what children are expected to do. Early care and education centers should understand that just like any other developmental stage, it may take some children longer to master the "no biting" expectation than others , Likewise, different children will need different instructional methods to help teach them alternative ways to cope in situations where they are biting. But children bit for different reasons and each reason calls for a different type of response. A child who bites out of frustration needs to learn alternate coping skills, a child who bites when teething may need teether, a child who bites when an ear infection is brewing may need a trip to the doctor, a child who bites for attentions may respond to a social story. A teether for an attention seeker is not going to do the trick. Biting signifies that a child is having a difficult time with something, and it is the job of the early childhood professional to work to figure out what is causing the child the stress and how to help the child work through it. That is what the early childhood teachers are hired and paid to do. It is a hard job, but that is the choice we make when we enter this field.
Ask yourself this:
What is your center policy if a child is still crawling at 12 months?
What is your center policy if a child is only using 10 words at 20 months?
What is your center policy if a child is biting?
What is your center policy if a child is having bathroom accidents at 40 months?
What is your center policy if a child is using a fisted pencil grasp at 48 months?
The policy for promoting developmental progress is proper used of a comprehensive, evidence based curriculum. Since no curriculum is perfect, you will quite possibly need to have more than one evidence based curriculum and I would encourage that your second curriculum is a comprehensive infant-preschool evidenced based social emotional curriculum. We understand that child development is a continuum and different children progress at different time frames. We expect some variability in student growth and need to recognize when a behavior falls within/outside of the norm. We need to know where to refer the family to for resources if the child falls significantly outside the norm. We understand that different children learn in different ways and we need to use a variety of teaching styles. We know that children learn through repetition, repetition, repetition. We Assess, Plan, Instruct, Assess, Plan, Instruct (reteach), Assess, and on and on. Biting is no different.
Social - emotional skills need to be taught, just like every other type of skills. For some children we need to break them into much smaller pieces and intentionally teach social skills that other children just seem to pick up naturally. Children, just like adults, use the tools they have to accomplish an end result. They may not be the best tools, but they will keep using them until they find a better tool for the job. Biting is an effective tool, but we can teach them other equally successful techniques to replace it.
The policy should be to carefully record the events to look for information and patterns that can help you understand what may be causing a child to bite: teething, sensory seeking, getting sick, frustration, difficulty with a peer (I can't tell you how many times I have consulting on "biting" cases to observe the biter use multiple other techniques to communicate to a peer to back off, and the other child pushes forward, gets bit, and then cries - the"bully"becomes the victim and gets the reward while the one who used a variety of coping skills first gets punished.) The parents should be keep informed, listened to, and play a role in the behavior intervention plan (regardless of if it is a simple plan or a more comprehensive plan).
Suspension and expulsion from child care has lasting negative effects on children and families. Some parents could lose jobs if they miss work. The stigma of being a "bad kid" starts early, especially when the consequences have long term negative effects on parents who in turn become more stressed and may begin to see their child as a burden rather than a little human who is trying to learn how to navigate this complicated world. Suspension/Expulsion should be reserved for very serious offenses such as intentional violence, serious threats, weapons, or drugs.
------------------------------
Stephanie Adrihan
Early Childhood Special Education Teacher
West Allis WI
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 10-16-2018 04:46 PM
From: Anne Shields
Subject: Biting
What is the policy in Daycares when a child is continually biting? It is a 2-year-old program.
------------------------------
AS
------------------------------