Children are in the process of discovering and learning continuously from the first moment they are born. They first explore their own bodies, then the bodies of others and the whole environment.
This is a discovery that also includes social learning. Because children are not born with urges for violence and harm. Maybe they have some genetic features, but the process of harming oneself or others is a learned process.
When we look at the development process of 18-24 month old children, we see that children of this age are self-centered, stubborn and in the process of learning by taking a model.
This age child wants everything to be mine, to touch everything, to have everything. He reacts when his requests are not made. This reaction may be in the form of throwing himself to the ground, excessive crying, banging his head against the wall, making himself vomit, biting and hitting, depending on the communication and interaction with his parents.
In order to eliminate these behavioral problems of these children of reversion, who are in the period of stubbornness and can become stubborn to the last drop of their blood, the same amount of stubbornness of the parents gets things out of hand.
A child crying on one side, and parents shouting “Enough, I’m telling you shut up, suuus” on the other may sound very familiar to you.
This crying and shouting can end up with hitting and biting. The child may have a tendency to bite both himself and his parents.
Since children’s pain thresholds are much higher than ours, they may not feel the pain much, especially when they bite themselves, when the effect of their anger is added.
Again, since children are not very aware of the power they have and use uncontrolled power, they may not realize how much they hurt them when they hit or bite their parents.
The parents who are bitten or hit, push the child reflexively with that pain, the child falls to the ground and continues to cry more intensely.
This is a vicious circle…
Why do children exhibit these negative behaviors
Self-defense
– Being in a stressful situation
– Disruption of routine
– Excessive frustration or anger
– Insufficient language development
– Overstimulation
– Fatigue
– Lack of adult control
– Imitating angry and aggressive behavior around them
What about your child What should you do if it bites or hits you? Here are some tips for you
If your child has a biting or hitting behavior, you can more or less predict the event after which this behavior will occur. The first thing you should do is to prevent these behaviors before they happen.
It is important to stop your child when he tries to bite you or raises his hand to hit you.
Do not use sentences such as “Don’t hit, don’t bite, how many times have I told you not to hit you” when preventing your child.
Warning words containing “me-ma” negative suffixes cause children to do this behavior more.
Do not push your child with a fury.
In turn, do not bite or hit him. You can’t reduce these negative behaviors with behaviors such as “Come, let me bite you, I’ll hit you, look how it hurts”, on the contrary, you increase them.
For the child who is bitten by his parents, the biting behavior is now legitimate and he starts to bite you more.
Do not use expressions such as “I feel very sad when you do this, why do you make me sad, look, now I’m crying” when blocking your child or after biting occurs.
Child mind works like this. If the parents say that they are sorry for the child, the behavior that upsets them will not be stopped, on the contrary, the behavior will continue increasingly.
The most appropriate expression would be: “I don’t want you to act like this, I don’t like it when you bite me”
While saying this, your tone of expression and body language should also be clear. For example, an expression such as “Mom, I don’t want you to bite me” has no value in the eyes of the child
. Control your own behavior. Do you love your child by biting, do you love by hitting his butt while petting other children next to your child? Since children learn by modelling, they may have taken you as a model without you noticing
When your child bites or hits you, do not give him long speeches and endless advice.
On the contrary, when he doesn’t bite or hit you, talk to him about it and tell him how uncomfortable you are.
