Biting?

My son is normally a wonderful kind angel:) Seriously though, I mean when we go to the playground he runs up to the other kids and hugs them and kisses them. Two weeks ago I put him into a child care on Fridays and since then he's started biting and slapping. I don't know if its something he picked up from the day care, or something he's doing because he's upset. In any case my partner said bite him back, so I half heartedly did, which did nothing at all. Then after being on the recieving end of a rather hard chomp I broke down and followed my partners advice, I returned it with a chomp of my own. But afterwards Carter seemed so upset he wouldn't even hug me goodnight, I'm afraid he's scared of me now! Help!

pandora,

It is really hard to know what sort of approach you should take to parenting, especially when you haven't been faced with it before or don't know the root cause. I would strongly suggest that you don't follow dh's advice with biting back. I am no expert, but this is how I see it looking in. I think that the adjustment to childcare is huge and I know when things are different or children don't get as much attention as they are used to (especially when they are used to one on one care), they can be naughty and develop behavioural issues during adjustment. By you biting back, he probably feels twice bitten, as one of the only people he can truly trust has hurt him - he may be thinking, who do I trust now? It's hard for little ones to express their frustrations in other ways, they can't come out and tell you whats bothering them.

I guess the best thing to do would be to apologise to him with an explaination (never too young to hear an apology) and I am not too sure how old he is but still say that you don't know why he bites and it's not nice to bite people etc. It may take some time, but if he feels he is getting undivided attention to talk about him and what is upsetting him, which is not anger or being bitten, he will want to understand and learn more.

Anyway, as I mentioned I am no expert, but from listening to others and watching my daughter grow up - who resorts to biting every now and again when she feels she isn't getting attention - I feel that this is the problem. Perhaps you could spend some one on one time with him elsewhere and talk about biting and childcare (what he does, does he like it, etc) and all that stuff. They are not as silly or unintelligent as we think ;)