4 year old choked herself

jlw2505

I just got this email from my 4 year olds teacher - she is a very happy kid, loves school, no issues that are outside the normal preschool things (whiney, fusses eater, etc)  No major life changes - started her PreK program right after Labor Day and LOVES it, has tons of friends.  All good things.  I plan to talk to her tonight and need to figure out what to say - any thoughts?

 

I wanted to give you a heads up on something that happened today. Ashley came out of the bathroom this morning and said "I choked myself while I was in the bathroom." I asked her to show me what she did and she tucked her chin into her neck and did this "until it hurt." She said she did it because she wanted to and seemed rather happy about it. I explained that I don't like to see someone hurt themselves and not to do it again. I haven't seen this happen before but thought you should know.

Thanks,

neverblushed

I wouldn't worry too much about this.  This type of thing is normal preschool experimentation with their bodies.  She wasn't "choking herself" in the suicidal sense. She was just seeing how her neck/throat worked!  She just happened to mention it to the teacher, and the teacher was then compelled to email you as a CYA thing.

Just shoot back a "thanks for keeping me informed, and let me know if it ever happens again" note, and keep your eyes open but don't lose sleep over it.

FWIW, I think the teacher handled this appropriately. 

Sawyerplus1

I agree with above poster; this wouldn't concern me at all. Sounds like experimentation that she just happened to mention and the teacher felt compelled to 'report'. It's not even 'choking' in my opinion, and she wasn't hurting herself or others. I wouldn't even bring it up to DD, to be honest. Drawing attention to "choking" or hurting herself might entice her to do it more. 

Littlejen22

I agree that she was probably just curious and was not trying to really hurt herself but I am curious about how she knows the word choking associated with strangling, then again you probably just told her one day to stop choking you when she was playing around.

AZ123

I don't think it is anything to get upset about. DS1 scratched himself until he bled. We talked about why he did it and I told him you really shouldn't hurt yourself becuase now you have an owie. That sort of thing and that was it. We didn't go into it further and it never happened again.

jlw2505

Thank you everyone.  I wasn't worried about it in the sense of her hurting herself as I agree with what you all said and so did the teacher.  My concern was more about the word chocking and how my DD knows it in the sense that she does.  I have never talked to her about chocking herself and it has never come up in any sense in our house.  DD had bad reflux as a child and used to gag on her food on ton when she was really little but we never have said chocking even then as it was always a gag reflux type of thing.  Anyway - I did speak to the main teacher at pick up, trying to see if any of the other kids have talked about this or done anything and none that she knows of.  The only thing I told DD about it was that we never hurt ourselves and that I loved her and stuff like that.  It was about a 1 min conversation and will not be brought up again (unless needed).  I didn't want to make a big deal about it but I did feel like I needed to back up what the teacher had already said to DD which is all I did.  We have been stressing talking to mom, dad and teachers if help is needed with my older DD who is having a rough adjustment to kindergarten so I brought it up more in line with that - you can always talk to a teacher or us if needed for any reason and we would not get mad.

macchiatto

Sawyerplus1:

I agree with above poster; this wouldn't concern me at all. Sounds like experimentation that she just happened to mention and the teacher felt compelled to 'report'. It's not even 'choking' in my opinion, and she wasn't hurting herself or others. I wouldn't even bring it up to DD, to be honest. Drawing attention to "choking" or hurting herself might entice her to do it more. 

I agree with this.