To think that this mother is wrong?

[CharliePurple]

A 3 year old in nursery was biting and hitting other children and ended up being excluded. The mother says that the nursery shouldn't have excluded him because they should have understood that he was a boisterous and active boy and not a naughty one.

Is she right and he's not naughty or are the nursery right to have excluded him?

Was the mother trying to use "being a boy" as an excuse, because that's not on.

I think both the nursery staff and the parents had a duty to try and manage the boy's behaviour. If it got to the point they had exhausted all attempts and he was still a threat to other children I think they were right to exclude him.

The mother is ridiculous and of course the nursery were correct. They can't have an unfettered child biting and hitting other children with no correction!

I would imagine this wasn't a "first resort", they would surely have spoken to her about his behaviour before and warned her that if things didn't change he might have to be excluded, more for the safety of the other children than anything else!

IF the nursery went straight to exclusion with no chat and no warnings, then they are unreasonable. This seems very unlikely though.
So assuming they chatted and warned, then they did the right thing and any parent who thinks that biting and hitting other children is "just boisterous" behaviour needs to give their head a shake and get it out of their arse to help their child learn how to behave around others!

I agree with Thumb

It's depends. Tbh biting is fairly common in children. If the nursery did this without trying to manage the situation then I don't think that's ok.

On the other hand of they tried and nothing worked or the mother just wanted her son to be able to do what he wanted, then that reasonable.

It depends on the extent and duration.

I would expect a nursery to work with DC who are going through a typical bad behavioural patch for the usual duration.

And I would expect any well-established nursery with competent staff to know what falls within normal.

Asking for a child to be removed is last resort, and it's very likely there have been interventions and meetings with the parents with the aim of improving behaviour so it falls within typical.

Exclusion from nursery is often a way of securing other, more specialised services and family support. So although it sounds awful to be expelling toddlers, it's one of those things that can turn out to be the best thing that ever happened.

My first thought is that a nursery that needs to exclude a 3 year old for biting and hitting, isn't a very good nursery. I've known plenty of biters and hitters and their nurseries have managed to manage them. I can understand that this women's attitude would create problems.

My 3 year old has been bitten three times in the past week at nursery. Although I'm I don't expect the offenders to be excluded. They are 3 too, impetuous and anarchic.

It's concerning that the nursery labelled him as naughty. But biting and hitting to the point of exclusion does not fall into the framework of normal boisterous and active boy. Running, jumping, climbing and not being able to sit for long in carpet time yes, biting and hitting, no.

There is not enough information here to know if the nursery or mum are right.

There are plenty of 3yo who hit and bite because they haven't yet developed the skills to communicate in a different way. It's not ok but it's up to the nursery to put in strategies to manage this.

So without knowing what the nursery tried, if they looked into any SN and how supportive and collaborative the mum who's complaining was its impossible to say.

Depends on what went on before the exclusion.

Some small children do go through phases of hitting or biting, I don't think that's uncommon.
I would expect a good nursery to be trying to be trying to manage the situation, and working with the parents to try and improve the behaviour. I can imagine that a nurserys attempts to manage the situation would be a lot more difficult if the child's parents were minimising the behaviour and excusing it as just being boisterous and active, rather than acknowledging the problem and doing what they could to support attempts to improve the behaviour.

I'd be surprised if exclusion had been the nurseries first reaction.

If at 3 years old the mother is defending and enabling such behaviour instead of teaching her child it's not OK, I dread to think what this child will be Allen to do at 13/14 and still get the "oh boys will be boys" defence.

Her child was excluded from nursery and instead of asking herself what she should change in her parenting she is blaming the nursery and playing the victim.

No child should be permanently excluded from nursery, it's ridiculous. I guess any private nursery has the right to say they can no longer accommodate a child, but it reflects badly on them. If the child were in my care I'd feel duty bound to get to the bottom of the extreme behaviour.

It's difficult to say whether the nursery was right or not as it depends if the child falls outside what would be normal behaviour or if his behaviour was poorly managed. All I can say is the nursery is a bad fit for this child. So they were right to ask him to leave because they couldn't look after him properly.

I don't understand why so many people think that saying a child is naughty is 'labelling' and that said 'labelling' is somehow unacceptable. What are the implications of this? Is there no longer any such thing as 'naughty'? I think biting is quite naughty. Doesn't mean I want the kid lynched

Labelling the child as naughty is not the same as labelling the behaviour as naughty. There is a difference between saying that behaviour is naughty and you are naughty. Behaviour can be changed or rejected. If the nursery said they are excluding him because HE is naughty then that is very bad conduct on their part and the parent would be within her rights to complain. If however they are excluding him because they have tried every other option to change his naughty behaviour and have failed then it's possible that the parent not accepting that the child's behaviour is abnormal (which it sounds likely if she's claiming he's just boisterous and active) in which case most of their efforts will have been fruitless.

Most toddlers bite and hit at various points in their nursery life. If it's daily and several times a day then that's not normal.

"It's concerning that the nursery labelled him as naughty."

OP doesn't say that, itsays the mother described her DS as "he was a boisterous and active boy and not a naughty one". Her words, reported by OP, cannot be taken as reflective of what the nursery actually said and did.

All we know if that a nursery has asked for a boy to be removed for behavioural reasons. Nowhere near enough to be going on to call whether that was a reasonable decision.

"Labelling the child as naughty is not the same as labelling the behaviour as naughty."

I understand that this is fashionable and staff have to talk about the behaviour rather than the child, but firstly I have always found this a rather semantic distinction. If a child is frequently manifesting naughty behaviour, the child is naughty. That doesn't mean they will always be naughty. But it's their behaviour so I feel describing it as it is is just calling a spade a spade, as it were.

Secondly, the observation I made applies to the term 'naughty behaviour' as much as to the term 'naughty child'. Many people seemingly object to the very idea that behaviour can be a) inappropriate and b) chosen by the child and that those two things add up to 'naughty'.

Biting and hitting can occur for lots of reasons so labelling as naughty behaviour isn't helpful. Adults need to get to the bottom of why the child is doing it. With my own child calling it naughty and punishing him wouldn't have helped at all.
The mother may think her child's behaviour is ok and that is why he is doing it or there may be more to it and his mother is burying her head in the sand.

Unless it was very unusual in frequency I think the nursery were at fault.

Honking: I don't think it is always 'naughty' behaviour. A minority of children can't help their behaviour. But some of them are just being naughty. It's a fact.

Depends of the severity and frequency of the biting and hitting. The nursery have a safe guarding duty to all the children in their care

Even if it is just being naughty then the parents and nursery should be working together to find out why and what works to improve the behaviour.

Without knowing what all parties have done to help the child it's very hard to say who, if anyone, is being unreasonable.

Of course strategies to improve the behaviour should be tried before exclusion, but that does in part depend on the parents co-operating and on the severity of the behaviour.

Trifleorbust it's not fashionable psychologists don't just spout these things because they sound cool there is a lot of research and evidence that you are more likely to change behaviour if the behaviour patterns are not internalised as personality traits but as active choices that can be rejected and modified. A child who hits or bites is not making a calculated decision but often acting out of frustration or a feeling of lack of control or understanding. Sometimes they have not been taught appropriate boundries and it's up to the nursery and parents to do that. The biggest corrector of behaviour is usually going to be the parents, the best success is when nursery and home are on the same page. If they're not it's usually likely to get worse. If parents don't accept that the behaviour needs to change or if they do not have the skills or have not been given any guidance on how to go about making those changes then it's unlikely anything will change and very little the nursery can do.

I made the assumption that the nursery may have given the reason for exlusion as he is naughty based on this comment by the OP Is she right and he's not naughty or are the nursery right to have excluded him?

Not saying they did, but it's a possibility.

It could be that the staff had tried to get the mother to address the DC's behaviour and she was uncooperative so they felt they had no choice.

The other DCs need to be protected.