I had a call today with a parent who has a 2 year old that bites his 9 month old sister to the point she has marks all over

I watched a talk show about a couple who adopted a baby boy. They already had two girls but wanted a boy as well for their family. The mother said as soon as the boy was crawling he would crawl over to one of his older sisters and try to bite a chunk out of them. Then other bad behaviors started after he got older. They eventually sat him down and told him he was adopted when they felt he was old enough to understand. From then on he was threatening to kill them, and burn the house down. They hid all of the knives, scissors, matches etc. and had to watch him like a hawk. They were on their guard every minute and had counseling etc. What the parents found out later was that the father was in prison for serious crimes and the mother couldn’t afford to raise the baby so she adopted him out. The couple had requested to the social worker that they wanted a child who came from a stable home without the parent having mental issues. They eventually had to turn custody over to the state because he was too much to handle and a great threat to the family.

The point is when a child is this young and biting or doing other destructive behavior to family members it is a huge red flag that some serious issues are happening with that child.

Yeah biting the kid back probably just makes them think biting is okay 🤷 like yeah it might hurt but they also might just think "oh, mama does it too so it's not bad".

Idk how to tell other parents what to do but with Naya I just sternly address what she's doing. I also tell her why it's wrong & what happens if she does that. Back in jail I watched parenting videos where they explained how with kids you gotta be realistic when you tell them their consequences. Like not just "if you do this, you'll be in trouble" type of thing but for example like "when you hit people, that hurts them. It's mean. & When you're mean then people don't want to play with you"
Naya is a sweet kid so somehow that works. After that she usually says sorry & will even try to give a hug. But most importantly, she actually stops & switches to being nice because she WANTS to be nice. Not because I'm telling her to

Obviously given the circumstances via both ends of the phone Id say foremost you handled; just that...both sides of your phone.

Well done.

In terms of relating emotionally and physically I to have ovaries that kick me monthly just to say ...whats up be' atch!

Feel ya

That sucks so much. Hopefully that call lives with her for a long time. Hope you get through this period in one piece :\

Omg he’s a canibal

Yeah it’s sad how many parents think that’s a solution to that behaviour. Sounds like you did a good job of encouraging nervous system regulation and circle of security stuff. I hated working with parents for this reason.

I have no words, or rather too many 😤😠😡