Does anyone have any advice? URGENT! [shock]

[Amber85]

A friend of mine is having some problems in a preschool setting with her DS, he has been bitten 5 times in 2 months by the same child, the nursery teacher keeps telling her not to believe everything her DS is telling her, the last incident happened 2 days ago and she pulled up the other childs father and said what is going on, after this the teacher again said you shouldn't believe everything your son says so she asked if it was the child who her DS said it was and the only response she got was we didn't see who did it, I have also had problems in the same setting with my DS which went to the point of stopping him attending the setting over a year ago, I was ready for pushing neglect charges and my friend feels the same way now, has anyone got any advice? is there a way we could go legally? Help needed urgently

[AttillaTheHan]

I'm not an expert but I would approach ofsted regarding the way they have dealt with the situation, and notify the manager/owner of the setting that you are doing this and why.

Good luck.

[dustystar]

You can speak to OFSTED is you are unhappy with the way the nursery are dealing with the situation.

[dustystar]

Look here

[TLSM]

When this happened to my DS I was very angry as you and your friend were! What happened in my case is that both my child and the child involved (again my DS told me who bite him everytime happened about 5 times) were shadowed it turned out that not only did the other little boy have a problem with my son but my son didnt try and stop the little boy - if that makes sense! so they trained my little boy to state loudly NO XXX STOP IT I WILL TELL THE TEACHER! it helped both my son and the other little boy!

[Amber85]

Thanks for the quick replies does anyone know the Scottish equivelant to ofsted?

[dustystar]

here

[Amber85]

Thanks TLSM that sounds like an idea to put to my friend, as I said I pulled my son out but she doesnt want to have to as he enjoys going there.

[Amber85]

Thanks dustystar

[cory]

I wouldn't necessarily assume there was something wrong with a preschool because my child was bitten a number of times; this is a very common occurence and can be extremely hard to prevent.
(same thing happened to ds under his very conscientious childminder- biters move quickly!).

But I don't like the sound of their reaction. They should have experience of this type of situation and a plan for dealing with it that does not involve casting doubt on a child like that. They should reassure you. They sound unprofessional.

On the other hand, confronting the biter's father is a bit sensitive; it's hardly likely to be his fault if the child bites when he's not even there. Small children often do bite; it's not necessarily a sign of bad parenting. I've had one child who was a biter and one who was the victim of a biter, so I know the ins and outs of this.

I found I wasn't always able to stop one child biting the other here at home, and I'm not going to charge myself with neglect, so I wouldn't do it to the preschool either. But I did devise ways of trying to prevent it, and ways of dealing with the offender after the act- so I would expect preschool to do that much.

(have to admit my little horrors would sometimes bite themselves and claim it was the other one- you can tell by the angle of the teeth marks!- but I'm sure most small children are not as mean and devious as this; besides, that's the sort of thing you'd do to get a sibling into trouble, not a stranger, so I am sure your friends lo wouldn't have done that)

[Amber85]

Thanks Cory

I too have had both sides with my DS's but the nursery's reaction to the biter was to let him have what he was biting to get anyway.

The neglect part was that they were blissfully unaware every time my or my friends DS were involved in an incident of who, why or sometimes even when they occured.