Live in Nanny – The 3 Ways on How to Minimize Kids’ Biting and Hitting
It is during childhood that we do all the biting, hitting, and kicking as a normal behavior. When children hurt their playmate or their nanny, most of the time they aren’t intentionally malicious. Toddlers bite and hit as a sign of frustration and to express feelings they cannot express in words. However, it is also in the childhood that kids learn how to control physical aggression.
For live-in Filipino nanny | Indonesian nanny | Myanmar nanny, there is a way to train the child on how to refrain from immediately burying his teeth on your arm! Children between the ages 1 and 3 go through a biting phase they will eventually outgrow with the maid’s and parent’s help.
Let us first explore the following reasons why babies and toddlers bite.
– Teeth and hands are babies’ first social tools. Babies experiment on using them in different objects to know how it feels. They learn how to use it depending on the responses they get.
– When babies are teething, they will more likely use their teeth to bite on anything to ease the pain.
– Toddlers bite and hit to release anger, control a situation, to protect anything precious for them, and even to get the attention of their distant parents.
Maids and parents, cheer up! These aggressive behaviors will lessen once the kids are old enough to express themselves through words. Eden Grace Maids Agency wants to share with you these tips on how to stop the child from biting and hitting:
1. Don’t punish with harshness.
The problem with just yelling at the kids or hitting them back as a punishment is that they miss the parent’s explanation on why their behavior is not accepted. When toddlers are punished with harshness, they will resort to trying to hit and bite again to make sense of the reasons why he is being punished.
There is a common misconception that maids or parents hitting the child will change their bad behavior. The truth is, the hitting behavior will just persist if we hurt them. Parents and nannies, in the first place, should model nonaggression.
2. Redirect the nipping and the slapping.
When babies’ teeth erupt and their hands flap, they will experiment on slapping and biting their nanny and the members of the family. To minimize these bad habits, children must be taught to redirect the aggression to a more socially acceptable habit.
– Even though the child still can’t completely understand the maid’s words, telling him that the bite and slapping hurts or showing an unhappy face will make the child know that his behavior isn’t nice. After that, suggest an alternative gesture to redirect the biting or the slapping.
– Your Indonesian maid or Filipino maid can teach the slapper baby to do high five as an alternative for hitting or invite a hug as an alternative for biting.
– Don’t let the child get use to hurting you. Express your disapproval as soon as he started showing the bad behavior. “Ouch. Don’t hurt nanny,” or “Biting is bad,” will be helpful!
3. Reward good behavior
Aside from disciplining the child about his hitting and habits, you must also reward his positive behavior. Extra incentives will encourage the child to behave and will make him think that not hurting people will always have a positive outcome.
The reward can be anything: a toy, an opportunity to pick his favorite snack, or an extra cup of ice cream.
We hope you find these 3 simple tips on how to minimize biting and hitting useful! We wish you a well-behaved and happy toddler.
The family’s health and safety should be the top priority. Eden Grace offers maid services which will help us secure our children’s safety when we’re not around. The choice to hire a maid who can take care of the tiring household chores and things we cannot handle on our own will definitely be a plus point!