Children who bite others at nursery given ‘bite box’ to distract them

Nursery staff have come up with a new way to deal with children who won’t stop biting others.

To distract them, they are given access to a ‘bite box’.

It contains chewy toys to satisfy their urge to chew on something in a way that is less painful to those around them.

Tops Day Nurseries uses the boxes when more traditional methods to stop the behaviour, such as redirection and warnings, have failed.

Amy Alderson, the chain’s operations director, said the idea came about a few years ago when a nursery was trying to find a solution to help a child who was consistently biting others.

‘In partnership with the parents I suggested that we created basically a box that’s got various rubber toys and teethers in so that the child could basically satisfy their urge of biting but on appropriate objects and it’s actually shown really high success rates.’

She added: ‘Over the last few years, whenever we have had biters in the nursery we implement a bite box and that’s available for them to go to.

‘If we can see the children are getting a little bit anxious, or a little bit excited, which is quite oftentimes when children will bite, we can just offer them the bite box, and usually that satisfies the urge and it actually prevents them from biting other children or staff members.’

Children still need to learn that biting others is wrong, Ms Alderson said, and this is explained to them.

‘It’s not that we’re ignoring the fact that they’re biting,’ she said.

‘It’s still very important that they learn that that is not socially acceptable, children shouldn’t bite other children, it hurts them.’

Tops Day Nurseries runs 30 nurseries around the south coast of England, and around half are currently using a bite box, Ms Alderson said.

Fiona Bland, early years adviser at the National Day Nurseries Association, said: ‘Any measures that can be put in place to help prevent biting incidents is great.

‘A “biting box” is good for children that are able to recognise the impulse to bite and then know to retrieve an object from the box.

‘Not all children can recognise or control these impulses so it is important that other strategies are in place.

‘These could include mirrors, emotion dolls or emotion photo booths to give children opportunities to talk about feelings.’