If your child bites their own hands, you know how upsetting it can be to watch. Whether it happens during frustration, excitement, anxiety or sensory overload, your first instinct is probably to make it stop. But what is the safest way to respond? Should you pull their hand away? Offer something to chew? Redirect their attention? And how do you prevent the biting from happening again? For many autistic children and children with developmental disabilities, hand biting can serve a purpose. It may provide sensory input, communicate frustration, relieve stress or signal that something is wrong. The goal isn't just to stop the biting. It's to understand why it's happening, protect your child from injury and help them find a safer alternative. 1. What Should You Do When Your Child Starts Biting? The most important thing is to stay calm, even when the behavior is frightening. Try not to react dramatically. Yelling, repeatedly saying "stop" or becoming visibly upset can sometimes make the situation worse, especially if your child is already overwhelmed. Instead, try these approaches: - Keep your voice calm. Use short, familiar phrases rather than lengthy explanations. - Look at what's happening around them. Is the room loud? Are they being asked to do something difficult? Did something unexpected happen? - Reduce the pressure. If your child appears overwhelmed, give them space, lower stimulation or offer a break. - Offer a safe alternative. If your child has an appropriate chew tool or another familiar replacement behavior, make it available. - Avoid pulling their hand away forcefully. If they're biting down, pulling can cause additional injury. If your child is at immediate risk of serious injury, follow a safety plan developed with their care team. Parent tip: Sometimes the most helpful response isn't another instruction. It's making the environment quieter, removing a demand or giving your child time to regulate. 2. Figure Out Why the Biting Is Happening

We've made it easier to find the life skills resources you need! Our Daily Tips section has grown, and while we love sharing practical teaching strategies, we recognize that scrolling through older posts to find a specific skill isn't always easy. That's why we've created One Skill at a Time, a new classroom inside The Life Skills Co. community. What's different exactly? Instead of searching through weeks or months of posts, you'll now have one organized location where you can browse lesson titles and quickly find the skills you're working on. Each week, we'll introduce a practical everyday living skill, breaking it down into manageable steps with teaching strategies, visual supports and downloadable printables when applicable. We'll cover everything from personal hygiene and grooming to household routines, self-care and growing independence. Our first lesson is available now: Teaching Ear Cleaning (Ages 3+). It includes step-by-step guidance and printable visual supports to help children learn this often-overlooked hygiene skill. The classroom is FREE for all community members, and we'll continue building the library with new skills each week. Our goal is simple: Make it easier for families to find practical tools when they need them, without having to search through old posts. Have a skill you'd like us to cover? Drop it in the comments! We're building this library around the everyday challenges families are working through. One skill at a time. Small steps toward greater independence. The Life Skills Co. | Practical Tools for Everyday Living

If your child needs help with toileting or hygiene at school, here’s something to ask at your next IEP meeting: How are you tracking their independence? Instead of simply documenting that your child “needs assistance,” ask the team to track the individual steps of the routine and how much prompting is needed. For example, toileting can be broken into clothing management, wiping, flushing, redressing and handwashing. Then use simple prompting levels: I — Independent V — Verbal prompt G — Gesture/visual prompt M — Modeling P — Physical assistance Why does this matter? A child moving from physical assistance → modeling → visual prompting → independence is making real progress. Without consistent logging, those changes can be easy to miss. Logging is even more useful when it connects directly to a measurable annual goal, objective or other documented IEP need. But don’t forget to get in writing how that information will be shared with you. How often will data be collected? Who is responsible for collecting it? How will progress be reported to you? Will different staff members use the same tracking system? The purpose isn’t to create more paperwork. It’s to answer one important question: Is my child becoming more independent? At your next IEP meeting, ask: “How are we currently measuring my child’s independence with hygiene and toileting routines, and can we establish a consistent way to track the level of prompting they need?” If you feel like you need a mid-year CSE meeting to change your IEP, reply to this post and I'll send you information on how to do that. I've also attached a printable as a sample to use at home or when meeting with your school.

Before we teach toothbrushing, there’s something we need to figure out first: Can your child physically do the movements we’re asking them to do? This is one of my favorite simple ways to check. Grab two plastic cups and a dry erase marker. Draw spots in the cups, hold them on either side of your child’s head (or glue them to an old headband), and have them practice reaching around to brush away all of the marks. I took an old toothbrush and glued the eraser of a dry erase marker to it. It looks a little silly — and that’s part of what makes it fun! But we’re actually looking for something important. - Can they reach the front? - Can they move their hand far enough back to reach the molars? - Can they change the angle of their wrist? - Can they reach both sides? - Can they coordinate the brushing motion while their hand is in those different positions? Sometimes we assume a child isn't brushing thoroughly because they don't understand the routine or aren't trying. But toothbrushing requires motor planning, coordination, range of motion and body awareness in addition to understanding the steps. This little activity gives you a chance to practice those movements outside of the mouth, without toothpaste, saliva, taste, texture or the sensory demands of actual brushing. If your child struggles to reach certain areas on the cups, that's useful information. Instead of repeatedly telling them to “brush the back teeth,” we now know there may be a physical skill that needs to be practiced first. Try it at home and let me know how they do! Could they erase every “tooth,” or did you find a spot that was harder for them to reach? If you're looking for any of the visual supports, you can find them here: https://cleanpluscomfort.com/collections/toothbrush-time

My son was recently diagnosed with all that and more… but what I am more concerned about the doctors seem to want to ignore. Back in February my 6year old (son) hurt my 3 year old daughter bad unintentionally they were playing and he got rougher than usual. Does anyone else deal with extreme aggression with their child? Any advice? All he wants to do is fight or similar he even bangs his toys as if they are…