Xavier Bitten, Again

Xavier got bitten in school today. The bite mark is pretty big and you can almost count the teeth from the marks; four on top and four below. From his communication book, it happened when he and another kid were fighting over a book.

However, this time I'm not even half as mad as I was when he was bitten for the first time almost one year ago (see my post on it). Sure I'm irritated that it happened to Xavier but I have learned over the months that its normal for kids their age to bite. They usually do it out of frustration (from not being able to express what they want or be understood) or due to irritation and soreness from teething.

And I know how is it like to be the parent of a kid who bites others and it does feel embarrassing. Xavier has his fair share of biting incidents especially when he just transitioned from infant to playgroup. But do remember  that because your kid bite others doesn't mean he/she is a bad kid or you are a bad parent. Its perfectly normal and most kids grow out of it once they find other better means of expressing themselves.

Both images of the book covers are from www.amazon.com. 

I have two books which I would like to introduce. They are part of the Best Behavior Series and it's Xavier's current favourite bedtime books.

The first one is call Teeth Are Not for Biting by Elizabeth Verdick and the second is Hands Are Not for Hitting by Martine Agassi Ph.D. They are both available in board book format so they suitable for young toddlers. They use colourful illustrations to show why kids should not be using their teeth to biting other and what they fun things they use hands to do instead of hitting. Although Xavier stopped biting other just before I bought the book, the illustration brings across the message to him that biting hurts others and he should not do it.

I got the Hands book from Amazon together with other books for Xavier. The Teeth book was piggyback purchase from Alan when they were ordering other book from Amazon for their baby girl Thea. And with the low SGD/USD hovering around 1.3000, you might get quite a bargain when you shop at US sites. If you need information on how to shop on US sites, see my post on it. Alternatively, you can try to look for it at the bigger local book stores (like Kinokuniya, Borders or Page One) or get them to order in for you. Or just borrow them from our National Library Board.