June 2006

Last month, I wrote about the Mother and toddler group, and mentioned that one mother had a situation that was causing her concern. Her child is going through a 'biting' stage and this is, understandably, causing her a lot of anxiety. Faced with a million and one questions, I tried to reassure her that this is a normal developmental stage for her child to be going through, and that the first reaction for her to bite her own child back, is not the solution. I then tried to explain to the mother that a child of this age (one year to three years) expresses a lot of their emotions with their mouth. A firm "No" and support is generally enough to deal with this. I did however advise her that if this continued, it would be worth slowing down introducing the child to a wider social circle, as some children find it overwhelming, initially, to meet a few children in a new setting, let alone being faced with 7 or 8. (I also offered to try to get hold of more information-leaflet wise-if she was not 100% happy with my advice, as the solution to this problem is a personal choice)