My parakeets are being mean,

Question
We bought our parakeets in Aug. of 2006, they were just ready for adoption so very young. We got a boy from one cage and a girl from the other cage. They did just fine together, but the boy was mean from the beginning. He would bite us if we put our hands in the cage. The girl on the other hand was so sweet, she would get on our finger, sit on our shoulders, and fly around and would come right to us. We thought the boy would warm up to us. Well he didn't and after about 4 months the girl started being mean, biting, running from us. They hate water, don't like toys in their cages if you put toys or water in there the will spill it or knock it down to the bottom of the cage. I don't know if it is just because the are mating or what. We got them a nesting box and they would go it and started bitting it until they were ripping part of it off. Can anyone help me on what we did or how to fix it. We don't want to get rid of them but we have kids and i am afraid of the birds hurting them.  

Answer
First of all unless you have a helpless baby the parakeets (i'm assuming budgies) aren't going to phsically damage then yes they can hurt when they bight but it's not going to take a chunk out of you or anythingand if your kids back off then the bird will stop.
  Did you buy a male and a femal with the intent of breeding? By putting a nest box in the cage you are encouraging them to mate and this will make them more cage territorial causing the problems you are seeing. If you want babies keep in mind breeder birds aren't going to be as tame as a single pet.
  The only way I can think of to get back your sweet little female is to seperate the birds in different cages preferably in different rooms or get rid of the male. Birds will generally bond to other birds over people so that is why you sweet female started picking up the males behaviour. Hope this helps --- Kelli