5 yr old biting his 2 yr old brother

[Lamanator]

Hi, Welcome any advice on how to get my 5 yr old to stop biting his 2 yr old brother. The 5 yr old has sensory issues (needs a lot of input, which we try and give him) and has a history of biting at school. He was doing much better, but in the past week started biting his brother when they were fighting over toys. Now he does it pretty much daily. We have taken away TV and tried time-outs. This morning, I promised a toy if he did not bite all day and he bit a few hours later in a squabble over sharing a toy.

[Onthemove1971]

Welcome to the group. I hope you are getting help for him and learning what tools help him. I know when in school, Occupational Therapist can assist with helping him to get the pressure ( sometime weighted vest, lap pad..etc)he needs.

Has he been seen by an OT? Your health insurance could give him this service. I would also suggest thearpy, sometimes at this age it is play thearpy. In addition has your doctor discuss the use of medication to help him with self-control?

It sounds like the best thing is to reward him instead of punish him. But it would be great if you could shorten the time you give him the reward. So maybe you can see if he can go 1/2 a day and reward him. So at lunch time he gets x... ( this should be something he really wants) then again in the evening time. I would also not take TV away from him, but use it to help. So if he doesn’t bite ( of course this depends on how much fighting there is) do your best to decrease whatever it is that is causing the problem.

I think it is also very important to make sure he gets out of the house and does some running around or jumping and playing. Children with ADHD have an excessive amount of energy.

Hope these ideas help, this is a journey and we are here to travel it with you.

Take care

[Canadianmum in reply to Onthemove1971]

I agree with Onthemove, but for a 5 year old I would go even shorter, like every hour he does not bite, he gets a reward. Asking him to go 1/2 a day or a whole day, at his age with ADHD is putting too much time between the behaviour and the reward. If you want to kill this behaviour you need to offer strong positive reinforcement- for every hour he does not bite he gets 15 mins of tv or iPad at the end of the hour? You can use a visual timer to show how long he has left to go until his reward.

Once he stops the behaviour you can start to ask him to go longer and then thin the reinforcement to the point you may no longer need it.

[mplaz]

We had some success with this book: Teeth are Not for Biting. Our daughter was younger than your son when she was doing this, and we had to read this book to her several times, but it finally sunk in.

Here's a video of someone reading the book: youtube.com/watch?v=QjXKfiH...(Not working as expected?)

You may think the book is too young for him, but I like that they offer other options for when kids want to bite. For example, take a break, get a hug, etc.