Nursery incident

[screamer1]

There's a child at my Ds (4) nursery who keeps hitting him. There's been 2 previous incidents that we know about. Today the teacher pulled us aside and told us that Ds was found in the corner of the toilets, this child had hit him and my son was very upset and had wet himself. I suspect there may be some additional needs at play.

I'm obviously very upset about this. We went into a room to talk about the incident, at my suggestion, with my son and his teacher, the head was also there. I asked Ds to tell me what happened and how he had felt. We are very open and talk a lot about feelings etc, son is bright and is very good at understanding his emotions. Nursery have assured us that they are trying to work with this child and his parents, and they are assigning a key worker to have one to one time with him. We would have talked about the incident with him at home anyway, but when I asked the head if there's anything else we should be doing she said that she didn't think taking about it in front of him was a great idea.

Now I'm questioning my whole approach. Have a done the wrong thing? Have I made matters worse? I'm so upset. I totally understand going on about stuff could cause an issue, but that wasn't my plan. I just wanted Ds to know that whilst it is upsetting for him, the grown ups around him understand and are supporting him.

Quick bump

No you haven’t done anything wrong . Your child was upset and rightly so and needs to feel that it’s ok to talk about it . It sounds like school and nursery are doing what they can to support the other child so hopefully this won’t happen again. I guess the head just didn’t want you to make a big thing out of it , but your child needs to know that the adults around him don’t condone hitting and will listen to him when he’s upset ( I’m a nursery teacher by the way )

There's a difference between talking about it and moving on and going over and over so it becomes a 'thing'

Some kids will see this as getting lots of attention so start telling parents every minor incident - so it's becomes difficult IYSWIM

When my DS was in nursery at that age we had a similar problem with a little boy who kept pushing and hitting him. We spoke to the teachers who were lovely and wanted to reassure us but it just kept happening. Eventually I just told him that if that boy goes to touch him again he's to scream in his face to warn him not to. I even made him practice on me. I felt that this would start to teach DS to stand up for himself and also alert the attention of the staff. I can imagine people on MN would most likely say this is a terrible approach but it worked.

Sorry, I haven't got any advice as i have no experience of this but didn't want to read and run.

It sounds awful for your poor boy and I hope the matter is resolved. If it has happened on numerous occasions and staff are aware that it could potentially happen again, it should be a priority to protect your child, surely?

If the little boy cannot be stopped from harming others even through the adults are aware of the situation, perhaps he would be better placed in a different nursery with more supervision or support. I'm sure his parents feel awful too, but for your boy to be found in the toilets having been hit and wet himself is heartbreaking

It depends what they mean:

"Oh dear, how did that make you feel? Yes. We all feel sad when someone hits us it isn't nice. You can shout "don't hit me" or tell one of the teachers and they will help you."
Is fine.

What they don't want is: "Oh that horrible boy. He's so nasty. Did he do anything else today? You said he hit someone else last month didn't you. he's a bad boy." or constantly asking "Did he do anything to you today?"

It might have felt like an interrogation to your ds. I'd say that was her concern.

Thanks everyone. It definitely wasn’t an interrogation I don’t think m, I really hope not. And we didn’t say anything bad about the other child. It was more just a “we understand this happened and might have made you see frightend.” We
Always tell him if something like that happens that he should use his loud voice and say “Stoo. I don’t like that” and we reiterated that when we talked with his teachers. I do understand that the concern would be making a big deal of it, and really hope I haven’t done that. We’ve talked about it now and that’s it addressed as far as I’m concerned. But it’s made me question myself.

Talking about it in front of him and to him are two different things; which do you think she meant? Of course you should talk to him about it and make sure he’s ok.
However talking about it between you and his dad or you and other people while he plays in the same room, is in the car etc isn’t the best idea

It’s possible she meant talking about it more generally. Because we did talk about the measures they were going to put into place to deal with it.

I suppose it's as much to know how to deal with things in the future, if I've messed this one up.

I think you’re making too much of it.

Why did your child need to be there? There might of been things the head would have wanted to say that she couldn’t have infront of your son.

Because it was home time and I just wanted to address it there and then. My intention wasn't to have the head there, she just happened to be in the room we went in to talk. Initially I'd just said to the teacher can we just have a chat with Ds about it to make sure he knows he can talk to the adults if he feels uncomfortable. Argh really questioning myself now.

I think- the circumstances made it bigger than in needed to be. But you have essentially helped your kid and sorted the problem.

Don’t sweat it.

You've addressed it, teacher and head on board, DS knows you have his back. A horrible experience but important to move on. As a PP said, perhaps the other child needs a different setting or more support. It's also possible that your DS and the other child may become friends 🤷‍♀️. I hope this is sorted ASAP for you all

Thank you. I feel reassured by you all, I definitely won't bang in about it to him. I just want to make sure he feels supported whilst also having the skills to stand up for himself