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QUESTION: How can I get my three-year-old to stop biting?
“My three-year-old daughter has started to bite her siblings when she is angry. She does it hard enough that it bruises and breaks the skin, and bleeds a tiny bit. She is the youngest of four.”
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Community Answers
The following top answers have been selected by a moderator from hundreds of responses to the original question.
“Time out. Say, ‘You gave sissy/brother an ouch and it wasn’t nice.’ Have her apologize every time and ensure she knows it hurts others.”
“Safe child-rearing is not a parenting choice. Have her be the one to tend to the wound and patch it up and then do a time out for 3 minutes. If you did something that hurt your partner but didn’t know it hurt and they did it back to you, would you feel cared for and like you learned. I don’t care for the biting back method as I’m trynna be a kinder softer parent. I don’t want one of my children’s memories to be that I hit them.”
“I bit my daughter back when she drew blood on her older brother and he needed stitches. She’s 2, he’s 10. I didn’t bite her hard just enough to get her attention and she didn’t like it! She hasn’t bit anyone is about 6 months.”
“I used to grab my son’s chin, look at him and say “don’t bite” when he was 2. It stopped him from biting.”
“Depends on what’s started the biting and what’s setting her off? Being the smallest isn’t easy, she might just be trying to assert herself when she’s angry and has taken to biting because she will get an instant result. It’s not just a “you” thing to sort out, your other kids need to work with you to change her behavior especially if they want to stop getting bitten, you need to work out what sets her off, stop it before it starts, and redirect her to something else or just try talking to her.”
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