Monday, July 23, 2007

Does it make me a bad mother?

If I want Malka to go to bed early, so I can finish reading Harry Potter, does it make me a bad mom?

Also - seeking ASSvice. Malka's a biter. Yup. She bites. It is her emotional extreme reaction to things. if she's overly excited and happy, Chomp! If she's pissed off? Chomp. We've re-directed, done time outs, and she CLEARLY knows what she is doing. Sometimes, if I catch her just as she RUNS at me, mouth open, and if I am able to give her just the right look and stern "eye," she'll come and kiss me instead.

Dude. We are SO fucked when this kid becomes a teen.

But um yeah. I totally think being the parent of the BitER is harder than being the parent of the BitEE. Hopefully, she just bites US, and no one else. Here's a sample of her "love bites:"

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

My son Travis was a biter. The same type too, an emotional biter. Just keep trying to catch her before she does it and if you didn't catch it and she got you put her in a time out. She'll actually grow out of it once she can communicate better, but you don't want it to go from emotional biting, to 'i can get away with whatever i want' biting.

Dawn said...

Back in my early childhood educator days what we'd do with a biter like that is give 'em something to bite attached with one of those binkie strings? You know the pacifier clippies? And we'd say, "Bite the toy!" when we'd see they were about to bite. We just worked really hard on redirecting the biting because the need to clamp down was real. We introduced the toy at a neutral time and talked about it being a helpful tool because we'd say, "not biting can be HARD but it's important." And you know, it worked. It took time but it worked.

Faith said...

When I was a kid (and I'm so about to date myself), one of my siblings was a biter. We were duly instructed to "bite back." We did. The sibling quit biting.

I don't think that's advised anymore, is it?

Enjoy the book--it's fantastic!!

kheatherg said...

I'm comming out of lurkdom to say.....

My Four year old was a biter. (Emotional) and my god, we tried everything to get him to stop. It started with him biting us so we used the raised voice, the time outs, the "you hurt mommy" speech.... we tried everything. But it didnt stop. He bit another child at daycare and they had to fill out an accident report & call me to pick him up. They wouldnt even tell me who he bit but it was awful. I felt awful, guilty and shameful. I just felt terrible about the bruise i knew he left. (I actually saw it and the little girl the next day and it was horrible, i coundnt apologize enough)

Nonetheless, He was certainly a BITER. It was my pediatrician who finally told me to bite him back.

We did, it felt horrible, but within a week HE STOPPED! And as horrible as i felt, i definatly felt better than having the preschool call me to pick up my child because he bit some other child.

I was also on the recieving end, where he was bitten and really, as a parent.... it made me mad! The welt/bruise on my son was terrible!! I mean, i could understand the other parents frustration with their daughter biting but the overprotective parent part of me was upset.

Its such a double edged sword......

Anyway- Sorry so long.
I'm going back to my hole....

ArdensMommy said...

Yeah Arden took the longest nap ever yesterday and I KNEW I should wake her up b/c she'd screw up bedtime...but um, I had peace to read HP, LOL...so a 4.5 hour nap it was.

I finished it tonight. Whee!

Care said...

C was a biter - he went through the biting phase a couple of times. I can only echo the others to keep re-directing, keep what you are doing, it does get better as they can communicate and deal with frustration better. Of course C went from biting to licking. I am not sure if that was much of an improvement. I'm still trying to curb the licking. Sigh....

Eva said...

It seems to me that taking time out for yourself is an important part of being a good MOm. So wishing them to go to sleep can't be all bad.

Um, I know you don't know me, but I've tagged you.

Please visit my site and keep the circle going.

Thanks!

Lo said...

So I don't know anything about kids who bite. My dog doesn't even bite, actually.

However, I am grateful that the entire HP series has predated my parenting, because I would definitely , um, take some time for myself...

Jennie said...

My son was bitten at childcare several times. I was upset by it but SO grateful not to be the parent of the biter. Always seemed so much harder. (He did bite me, and I did bite him back once or twice, but I don't remember what finally resolved it--sorry!)

Best of luck on this.