Today I hosted our small playgroup at my house and my son bit another child. I feel so mortified. He has never bit another child before. Me and his dad? Yes. Especially when he wasn’t quite talking yet, but then that behavior went
away when he got more words. And then
with the onslaught of the terrible twos he started again during tantrums, but
that also waned and seemed to be under control. He’s always been more rough and tumble than the other kids, which we’ve
been working on, but it’s been more from not knowing his own strength than
being aggressive in a mean or bullying way. He also seems to have a high pain threshold so it’s been hard to teach
empathy to a kid who brushes off pain even while his skinned knee is still
bleeding.

I’m feeling at a loss here. And angry, and upset, and frustrated, and sad. It’s not like we’ve ever let him run wild, or
give him his way at a drop of a hat. I’ve read the behavioral books. And
two of my brothers had varying degrees of ADD so I learned that structure is
important (plus I just didn’t put up with a whole lot growing up the only girl
in a family of boys). He has good (I
thought) boundaries. I’ve never been
hugely concerned with volume control so he can be louder than the other
kids. It just seems like lately he is
pushing his boundaries a lot. I know part
of it is, yeah, terrible twos and a lot of changes lately… but you know that other part, because there always is
another part to everything, just feels like I’m failing at my job

I know that he knows he is not supposed to bite. Hurting other people is just not
acceptable. 

No one wants their kid to be that child.  (It’s hard to
even write that.) Or labeled as that child when you know the bad
behavior is the exception and not the norm.

If anyone has had experience with this I’d be so grateful to
hear how you handled it.

 – wg

P.S. The other playgroup parents were incredibly gracious about the incident which just made me feel worse.