Biting Social Story For Toddlers

Three named alternatives — a chew toy, a quiet space, or deep breaths — follow a first-person story that names anger and frustration before drawing a firm line against biting.

An educational teaching resource from SEN Resource Source entitled Biting Social Story downloadable at Teach Simple.

Grades: Not Grade Specific
File type: PDF
Preparation: Print ready

Updated Sep 23, 2021

Subject: Social Skills, Special Resources
Topic: Social Story, Behaviour
Preparation: Print ready

From the author

About this resource

Social stories use a patient and reassuring tone to teach children about social situations in a way that can be easily understood. Social stories are particularly useful for children on the autistic spectrum for whom social cues can be challenging and who often suffer anxiety if they do not know what to expect from a situation however social stories can also be useful for any child who is struggling to understand a situation or concept or needs help to understand a social skill or social cue, expectations, perspectives, common responses or is troubled about an upcoming event.

This social story is to support children who have been biting others. It explains that biting others hurts them and is unacceptable.

These books should be used over and over to reinforce the point so I would suggest either putting the pages into a display book or laminating and binding them.

Clipart images courtesy of Kari Bolt.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Students will identify feelings, such as anger and frustration, that can trigger the urge to bite.
Students will state that biting is never acceptable, even when feeling angry or frustrated.
Students will name at least one of three alternatives to biting: a chew toy, a quiet space, or deep breaths.

Teaching tips

Read the story before a likely triggering moment, such as a conflict over toys, so the three alternatives are already familiar.
Keep a chew toy accessible if using this story's specific suggestion, since it is named directly as one alternative.
Repeat the refrain "so I should never bite" together after each consequence page to reinforce the message.

Skills covered

Emotional identification — naming anger and frustration as feelings that can trigger biting.
Consequence recognition — connecting biting to three specific outcomes: physical hurt, sadness, and lost friendship.
Alternative-behaviour selection — choosing among three named alternatives (chew toy, quiet space, deep breaths) instead of biting.

Good to know