I have a very busy son who’s about 15 days shy of turning 2 and I’m finding I’m really struggling as a parent with him lately.
We’re in prime emotional discovery phase. Huge tantrums, poor listening, testing boundaries. I’m mostly okay with managing this and trying to talk about feelings but this past week has been a nightmare.
On Sunday he bit my best friends daughter (same age) twice and we ended up leaving, because I wanted to make sure other kids were safe and also I’m the mom of the kid who bit another so hard she nearly bled.
Today at daycare, he bit a child, and slapped others. The preschool supervisor called me to tell me this and that he is normally an aggressive child. He’s also not allowed to hug because his hands start to go for a chokehold basically.
It feels incredibly embarrassing to be the parent of the angry, biting kid and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
My husband and I are generally very gentle with him, but every now and then we lose our patience, I’ve had a few times where I’ve lost my shit and yelled or grabbed his hand/arm to pull him away, but I’m always quick to say I’m sorry and “Mummy shouldn’t have done that, that wasn’t nice”. We try and correct behaviour with “teeth are not for biting teeth hurt”. Things just don’t seem to work and he does seem like an angry kid. I’m worried it’s something we’ve done as parents and I don’t know how to fix it.
Any advice from other toddler parents?
Edit: we also read the teeth are not for biting/ hands are not for hitting books with him.