To think there’s techniques nursery could do to prevent hitting

I'd be wondering what is causing it. Usually kids at 3 hit when they are annoyed at another child. If your child took their toy for example a 3 year old would likely hit because they do not have the social skills to solve conflict without aggression. Staff need to ensure they know the cause of the situation as if it is conflict then they need to work on social skills with both sides. It usually is related to issues socially like snatching etc.

I agree tell her to avoid him. It’s sad a child will not have anyone to play with, especially a child that probably struggles with impulse control. but it’s more important that a young girl learns to put herself first and not tolerate bullying.
Hopefully the nursery will be looking into extra support, but they will likely be at school before they actually get any support.
If she is too small to hurt him tell her to go for the hair. Hopefully he will avoid her after losing a handful.

In my experience, he's probably got significant issues and the nursery may well have spoken to parents about it and parents think there's nothing wrong. (Sometimes because for example they don't see it at home because there's no other children at home or because they have 1-1 attention at home, sometimes they just have their heads in the sand or don't want their child labelled.) Without parental support, they can't apply for example for extra funding to give him extra support, eg a 1-1 support worker for at least some of the time, and they don't have the staff to man-mark him all the time. They may be considering telling parents they can't keep him without applying for extra support, but if they are a good nursery they will also be thinking that what he needs is a good nursery to help him so are also reluctant to get rid of him. It's really difficult, because they want to safeguard the other children, but they also want to help him. The best advice for your child is to tell them to keep away from him, but that's also really sad for the child that no one will want to play with him.

No thank you. Gentle hands.

And the child that is hitting sits on a mat for a minute and talks to the teacher a out reasons why/feelings/rules/why we don't hit.

My son had a pushing phase at 3 and this worked with him. Nursery and parents working together with the same approach.

Now he reminds everyone to use gentle hands.

My DD is pretty confident and every time I've seen a bigger child hit her she just instinctively hits them back - now no kids hit her.

I don't know if that's helpful, but it would stop it.

Ideally you need to speak to the nursery about it and tell them to stop it happening. I wouldn't send my DD to somewhere she got hit by another child

Distraction and asking dd not to do it didnt work for us as I'd tried that beforehand. I can see why people tell their kids to hit back if nursery methods are ineffective.

They just say something like please use gentle hands and possibly ask the child to play somewhere else.
When I have looked after a child that constantly hurts the other kids I would often put them at a table with activities on their own.
I would talk to the staff about what is being done, but the best thing would be to tell her to hit back, or to pull his hair really hard.

Yes she was not long 2. Never needed to do it after that as it worked so quickly and well.

Wow didnt know that. I found it worked really quickly. What methods do they use?

Ask the manager how they are going to safeguard your child and make sure she isn’t hurt again. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt at nursery. If it keeps happening I agree with pp, tell her to hit back. There’s some children in my dds class at school that hit other children and I’ve told my dd that if they try it with her to make sure she hits back.

Is your child being particularly targeted on a regular basis? We had this happen and the nursery split the kids into basically 2 or 3 groups depending on numbers and tried to keep them physically apart for a while (e.g. swapping outdoor and indoor groups and encouraging them into different areas). The incidents reduced a fair bit after that and after a while they reintroduced them to spending time in the same group again.

🙄

As a fed-up early years worker, I advise that you teach her to hit back.

Precious first born? It happens

Totally not allowed to isolate a child as a punishment.

So op what is your technique?

Why should your 3 year old have to bear the brunt of being constantly hit by another child? Is she not very distressed or stressed about having to go in every day?

If the child is a repeat offender, then it really is necessary to keep a closer eye on him. They should also produce some sort of guidance for his parents so they will work on the hitting at home.

But hitting back is actually good advice. Consequences and all that..

Got to be honest my dad told me to hit back when I was 3 nearly 4 after a boy really hurt me. Next time he went to hit me my little fists were flying. He ran away and never went near me again.

Surely your child was between 12 months and 2 though since just about any three year old could climb out of a travel cot or play pen pretty easily, in which case you'd be as well using the naughty step or thinking spot or whatever.

100% this. The nursery staff are run ragged. They do an extremely tough job with little thanks and peanuts pay. If you want her in childcare you have to accept this can happen. Both mine were getting bitten at nursery constantly. Told them to bite them back...... surprise surprise it suddenly stopped. My boys know hitting, biting etc is wrong but they also know they can stick up for themselves if they have to and they won't get in trouble from us for it. It's not ok to let someone get away with constantly hurting you.

You're a nicer person than me. I wouldn't 'feel for' a kid who kept hitting my kid. 😅

Can you make an appointment to speak to them and ask them to outline what exactly they are doing to try to prevent this? Is there a complaint procedure, given it is happening so often?

If anyone should go, it should be him tbh.

As a parent I know that incidents between my 2 could happen right in front of my eyes and that’s just with 2 children.

Imagine working in a nursery (I do) and you are in charge of 8 small 3 and 4 year olds all with different needs and behaviours.

an incident can happen within a second. As a parent it’s horrid when your child is hurt but as an early years worker it’s so hard when children we are looking after are involved in incidents of children hitting, we do our best to protect all children and we try many strategies to avoid children being hurt by others however it’s difficult.

@ChestnutGrove this would work well in a home environment. And I would support a parent doing so.

There’s absolutely no way this would ever happen in a nursery.
I would think even having a playpen in the building would have them rated inadequate, let alone using it as a punishment.