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Austin Babies
Daycare biting question
DD has been bitten 3 times in the past few months at school. Two different kids, but the last two times have been the same kid. I talked to the teacher and the assistant director, and they informed me that their owner/regional director 'doesn't believe in giving up on kids', so regardless of the fact that he's bitten multiple children multiple times (they moved him up a class early because he was biting out of boredom they believed), there really are no repercussions.
I get that they're at a stage where they may bite. I get that it (should) suck for the parents of a biter to know their kid is biting. Despite that, however, what is typical policy in these situations? I really don't think it's fair that my kid and all of her classmates should live in fear of the biter because the director 'doesn't give up'. She's kind of giving up on my kid, IMO.
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Re: Daycare biting question
Oh, but Rosie, they are doing something. Distracting him with the Froot Loop necklace. I'm sure that's going to work, no doubt.
We dealt with this at our center too... there was a point where it was a crazy number of incidents and lots of different kids (the whole monkey see, monkey do thing). Our center really tried to fix it - I know they held special trainings for the staff as well as an informational meeting for all the parents in the classroom (trying to help parents learn how to handle things at home). They never talked about kicking anyone out, and I don't think they should have. Biting can be a normal toddler thing and it would suck to have your kid kicked out b/c of it. DD was usually the one being bitten (so I know the frustration you're having), but she has also bitten other kids a couple times.
I would encourage a more active approach than doing nothing for sure!
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This is a controversial topic.
My son went through a biting phase. Just so you hear from the "other side". It's important to know that it is 100% developmentally normal. I talked to a lot of 'experts' and the consensus is that biting is most often about impulse control. It's not a willful action one kid takes to purposely hurt the other kid. For that reason, it isn't going to remedied by punishment anymore than punishing a kid and shaming him is going to get him to stop peeing in his pants if he's late to develop the self control necessary to potty train.
You should take up any concerns with the school. Biting gets really personal even when people want to be adult about it. Trust that the school doesn't want your daughter to get hurt. But it is also important to not demonize the biter. In my opinion, you wouldn't want your daughter to be kicked out if she had 3 tempter tantrums in one week, or pulled another kid's hair out of frustration. The action is different, but the impetus is the same.
This is the policy from one of the schools we applied to:
BitingChildren sometimes bite other children. Although not all children bite, biting is considered a normal stage in a child?s development. Here are some common reasons why children may bite: Teething: Toddlers are often cutting teeth and it hurts. Chewing on something relieves the itch and stops the pain momentarily .
Sensory Exploration: Toddlers are very good at using all of their senses to learn about the world. The ?oral mode?, an important style of learning for infants, continues into toddler hood. They bite everything, not just their playmates. Cause and Effect: Children are eager explorers. They are constantly studying cause and effect. Biting produces a predictable response. Often, the response is dramatic: there is a lot of noise and attention from adults Self-Assertion: This is probably the most common reason children bite. It?s a way to express frustration when they don?t yet have the language skills to do so.
The Preschool staff takes action to reduce the number of biting incidents, including providing access to teething toys, providing numerous sensory exploration activities, providing opportunity to explore cause and effect and offering toddlers options/alternatives to reduce frustrations.
Consistent with preschool policy, parents are not told the name of the child who bit their child. Parents of the biter are informed and work together with the teachers in hopes of preventing further incidents of biting. We recognize how upset parents may be when they learn their child has been bitten; however, we also recognize that biting is a normal component of child development.Despite our many concerted efforts to prevent biting incidents they are bound to occur. No child is ever excluded from our program because of biting.
In my opinion this is a reasonable approach to provide a positive outlet for the impulse to bite. When my son was biting, we worked very closely with his teacher and did everything we could to help prevent it and help him work through it.I found my son's biting really upsetting and was genuinely looking for support and help in dealing with it. I was willing to try anything and I would have been upset if I found the other parents snickering at our attempts to help my son. I think you should do some research about biting.
I'm not demonizing the kid. What I know is that my friend dealt with this with her daughter, and her daughter got bitten on the face very severely and she still has a scar. Not acceptable. They finally had the parents get the child evaluated and it turns out she had a sensory perception problem that she needed intervention to fix. So I'm not just going to accept it and say it's 'normal' and hope a necklace does the trick.
I'm sorry that you dealt with it from the other side, but I really don't feel like they're being proactive. Based on my conversation with the director, she didn't indicate that they had even had conversations with the parent prior to my complaining. Not cool.
Perhaps your friend was dealing with a more extreme case. The more you read about it, the necklace is a very common way of trying to intervene before the bite happens. For my son, we had a special toy the teacher would give him anytime he seemed frustrated and he was welcome to bite that...not other kids. That worked for us. I would not poo-poo it.
What would you like to see the daycare do?
I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on the necklace thing. I can read about it all I want, but I don't have to agree it's a great approach.
I would like the school to take a more proactive stance with the parents, and it doesn't appear that they are. And I'm sorry, at some point, I'm going to remove my child from the school if I don't feel she's safe there. I rarely hear of these problems from my friends, so that's why I'm not just going to accept it and hope he gets over it.
It means maybe the parents need to consider if the environment he's in is good for him and if there is another reason why he's acting out, which could involve different care options. I'm fully prepared to evaluate it for my child to ensure she's happy and healthy.
I totally agree with you on this. I do hope it all works out for you and that you don't encounter any more biting.
Thank you and I didn't mean to imply that your DS is a demon or any other child for that matter. Just as fiercely as you defend him, I defend her. We're their mommies, so it's what we do.
my 2 yo bit a little girl not too long ago at his 'school'....i say school loosely bc he goes to the teacher's house and there are just 3 kids. of course the day he bit her they were the only 2 kids there, so it was quite obvious who bit who. i felt so terrible, luckily the mom was understanding, but I'm sure she would not be cool w/it if it happened repeatedly. and luckily it hasn't it.
I felt his teacher took a strong, proactive approach. and i think her approach was doable bc there are only 3 of them. she separated my son immediately (to a safe place), and told him he could not be with his friends if he couldn't be safe w/them. for days afterward, she stayed really close to my son and basically didn't let him get close to her. she slowly let him get closer after she felt he got the message. (this seems hard to explain over the internet, but i was happy w/how she was handling it).
i have an older son at home who has been very physical w/my #2. i have worked hard to 'fix' the physical stuff, but it's sooo hard. she told me to just be extra-vigilant at home, and I was for the few weeks after this incident and it definitely seems to have helped (if either one of them crossed the line w/ea other, i.e. invading personal body space in a harmful way, i became the physical barrier b/t them or separated them somehow).
my #2 and the little girl are doing well together now. I don't know if this helps you at all?????
No, it does. I also have other issues with the school that I'm sure aren't helping. I was very cool about the first bite she got it, because I get that it happens. But now we're up to 3, two from the same kid that they've admitted has been doing this for quite some time in his old classroom and his new, so I'm not so cool anymore.
I'll talk to them about the shadowing concept and see what they say. I'm all for it if it will help, but I have no idea with that many kids how they can do it effectively, but you never know!