BITING THE BULLET!

For the last several weeks I have been consulting with a central Pennsylvania school adminstrator about how to safely and effectively manage serious aggression by students against teachers.  This in and of itself is not unusual considering that I am longtime PPCT Disruptive Student management (DSM) Instructor Trainer.  What IS unusual – at least to me – is that she is one of the adminstrators of a preschool dealing solely with three to five year-old children.

So, here we go.  If you are a preschool caregiver/teacher, maybe an elementary school teacher, or even a parent,, you might be interested in reading about some of the tactics and strategies I teach on managing threats by small and young children, starting today with how to escape and evade serious bites.

SELF-DEFENSE AGAINST BITING

(1)  Reasons Children Bite:  Lots of reasons a child might bite you.  I might go into these in a subsequent post, but, I believe, if you are a teacher or caregiver, it behooves you to take a proactive preventive step by doing your best to understand why a particular child(ren) may try to chomp on one of your body parts.  Is she or he being bullied?  Are there serious problems at home, including maybe psychological or physical abuse?  Is the child frightened and biting in self-defense?  Is there perhaps a misguided need for attention.  There are more reasons a child might bite, but, in this limited venue, I’d rather concentrate on what you need to do to stay – literally – in one piece.

(2)  Escape and Evasion Strategies:  Allow common sense to prevail here.  A child can’t bite you if you maintain a safe distance.  There are two types of bites.  For lack of a better term, one is the “Dracula Bite,” where the child swoops his or her mouth (and teeth) onto a body part and bites.  The other is probably more common where the kid bites while his/her teacher or caregiver is either being grappled by the child or the child is in the grasp of the caregiver.  A key here is identifying the signs (red flags) characteristic of a child who bites, including profiling a child who has bitten before or other body language indicative of a possible assault.  You may not have to profile a biter, but simply identify universal signatures of danger and stay the heck away from that child until whatever psychological issue is bothering him/her.  I have written about the Four A’s Of Self-Defense in previous posts.  You might want to study on these (Assess/Aware/Anticipate and Act).

(3)  RELEASING THE BITE:  Take it from me, there aren’t too many more painful attacks, not to mention dangerous.  We are talking about 3 to 5 year-old children here, so some of the ways I would release a bite might cause an injury, so I will not talk about those, although, if my finger is being bitten off, sorry, but that child is gonna get hurt a little.

RULE ONE – Never, I repeat, Never try to pull that body part away, or out of the biter’s mouth.  It won’t work, but, worse, you will only cause yourself a worse injury, possibly ending in hospitalization.  Instead, LEAN INTO THE BITE.  Push hard into the bite.  Now, push the jaw upward and back and follow this with rubbing your free index finger underneath the septum (nose) back and forth as if you are trying to draw a mustache.

You can also use the knuckles of your middle fingers into the point between the ear and the jaw on either side of the head (if being bitten on a body part other than a finger).  This may cause some discomfort for the child, but it should work and there should be no injury to the child.

Whatever you do, however, be sure to accompany your escape technique with calming verbals.  Try to stay calm.  Hard, I know, but, still, important.

Next post.  More sensible self-defense tips when dealing witn aggressive children.

Until then, Stay safe

Hammer

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