LatteMama is the mother of biter

I’ve heard stories of biters, children that pinch and scratch. I’ve only heard the story from the “victims” side. A mum who is upset by the negligence of a nursery, a father who grabs the arm of his child’s perpetrator at the playground and a grandmother who tells horror stories of siblings quarreling with cousins. I never thought I’d be a mother to one of those terrorists. Instead I somehow thought by raising an only child, I’d be able to keep him unaware of the meaning of violence, or realize his ability to hurt another child. I was wrong. The first time I ever saw him subjected to violence was when we were visiting family in Sweden. His cousins were constantly physically abusing him. At this point he was the victim, and I was the understanding mother who knew that “survival of the fittest” was what his yet to speak cousins had learnt from having siblings.

It was a different story the second time we visited. Instead he was scratching, he was attacking and he was putting terrified children in corners. I was clueless as to why this had started. He hasn’t witnessed violence when he’s with me, he wasn’t in nursery so he couldn’t have been subjected to it there and he doesn’t watch television: so why does he feel the need to clinch his teeth, approach a child with his arm in front of him and strike. I stopped thinking it had anything to do with violence when I was the one who started waking up with bruises and scratch marks on my arms. I interpreted it as his way of showing emotions, showing that he wanted to cuddle, but just didn’t seem to know how. Unfortunately he made the same gesture when he wanted to play with children. We were in a 1 o’clock club once as I heard screaming from a boy, I ran over hoping and praying to myself, not that it wasn’t my son screaming but that he wasn’t the one who had caused the pain. My praires were unanswered, I was left mortified and the other boy was left with a scar showing underneath his tears. Thankfully the childminder of the boy was understanding, she made sure that I understood that children do these things, they don’t mean it, but sometimes they do it.

This isn’t a post with a conclusion, it’s one asking for help, advice and reassurance. It’s a post hoping that mothers out there understand they haven’t done anything wrong, and that they are not the only ones. I’m also hoping that mums of children coming home with scratches are understanding. That’s an advice I can’t follow myself, because I’m the mother of a biter.