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Incidents give parents something to sink teeth into

BUSY MAMA

By Lisa Pemberton | For The Olympian • Published January 11, 2009

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Our daughter was 3 when we received a scary incident report from her child care.

The boiled down version: She was bitten by another child. Ice was applied. There were no witnesses.

At that time, our daughter hadn't spent much time in a child care setting, so, naturally, we were mortified about the ordeal.

We examined our daughter's finger for puncture holes. (There weren't any.) We interviewed the teacher and center director about biting policies. (They seemed unclear.) We asked wehether the biter could be banned from her classroom. (He wasn't.)

We were ready to see that the suspect was banned from all child care settings for the rest of his life, press criminal charges for our daughter's pain and trauma, and ask a judge to yank out all of his baby teeth. But we didn't.

After talking with other parents, we learned that biting happens pretty frequently in child-care settings, and that it's not necessarily the result of bad parenting, bratty kids or inadequate supervision.

About two years later, at the same child care, our daughter was bitten again. This time, our oldest son, who was about 15 months at the time, was the lead suspect.

Yes, somehow, our seemingly quiet, gentle, loving son decided to express himself with his teeth. We were again mortified, especially since our son had been bitten a few times in the toddler room, and we expressed our shock and disdain that both of our children had been victims of such violent abuse.

Fortunately — at least for the other children at the child care — our oldest son only bit people he cared about, that he was comfortable around. Besides his sister, he occasionally sunk his teeth into me, my husband and our little neighbor boy. He only bit twice at child care, but both incidents involved his sister.

We spent months trying to figure out what might trigger him to bite. For a while, it seemed like it might be because of chronic ear infections. But then he got ear tubes, and those chompers kept causing trouble.

Sometimes he'd go weeks without biting, and then all of a sudden he would do it two or three days in a row.

He bit when he was upset, bored, sick, excited, wound-up and alone with a sibling.

Last summer, we were driving somewhere, when from the backseat of the car, my son announces, "Mama, brother and I are playing chicken leg. It is so much fun!"

"If chicken leg involves your teeth, stop it right now," I yelled, while adjusting the rearview mirror to see what was going on in the backseat.

"Well, what if we play meatloaf?" my son asked, with a slightly muffled voice. I looked in the mirror, and noticed his brother's fingers were in his mouth.

"No! Keep your teeth to yourself," I hollered.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing or saying. Neither could my mom, who was silently laughing in the passenger seat.

I ended up pulling the car over and giving my oldest son a stern lecture. He technically hadn't bitten the baby, but he had gotten close to it.

A few weeks later, he actually did bite the baby's hand, although it was barely hard enough to leave teeth indentions. We gave him a scolding and a spoonful of lemon juice — which was a tip that we had gotten from a child-care provider — and sent him to his room for an extended time out.

We were at our wits' end, and wondered whether he would ever grow out of this terrible habit.

But we didn't need to wait very long for it to happen.

Within a few weeks, our youngest son — who was clearly tired of being treated as a baby and being pushed around by our oldest son — sunk his teeth into his brother's shoulder so hard that it drew blood and left a big purple bruise.

It was an awkward moment, because part of us wanted to celebrate the fact that karma had finally arrived — but, on the other hand, we wanted to nip that habit ASAP, so we broke out the lemon juice.

Meanwhile, our oldest son was obviously in pain, and we felt bad about that, but we couldn't have asked for a better "teachable moment."

He certainly got a little taste of the terror that he had inflicted on others, and hasn't bitten anyone since.

Former Olympian reporter Lisa Pemberton is busier than ever with her three children, ages 1, 3 and 8. She can be reached at lisapemberton@rocketmail.com.