AIBU to expect nursery to do more about biting child?

[Willow201302]

One child at 3 y/o DC’s nursery is constantly hurting the other children, including DC who has come home with several bite marks, marks from being hit and pushed etc.

We have raised concerns both in person and via email, and the staff have explained that they are aware of the child’s behaviour and are trying to manage it. But yet again today DC has a red mark on their cheek from being hit

AIBU to expect the nursery to do something to manage this? I understand they often go through biting/hitting phases, but over the last 2 weeks there have been 4 occasions where DC has been hurt by this child now. I am considering pulling them out of the nursery.

Nothing wore than a biter. Can't the kid be muzzled 😂
I would make more complaints and teach your kid to go straight to teacher if it happens again. And talk to parents of the ankle biter!

I wouldn't have sent mine in if the staff couldn't keep him safe.

My son did get hit in the face 3 times by this one little lad and the staff didn't do much so I went to the parent my son never got hit again. She said she wasn't even aware of the incidents. This was a decade ago though.

When they’re little there’s practically nothing you can do apart from wait until they have better understanding.

The kid is 3, though? My DS occasionally bit when he was very young and I agree that there's nothing you can do about it as a baby, but at 3 I think most kids can start to develop an idea of what's ok and what is not.

DS is 2 and accidentally stood on my foot at the weekend and when I said "ouch", he started stroking my foot. 😂

I can imagine that it's tough for the parent and for the nursery to manage, but I'd be so upset if I was the op seeing my kid getting beat up somewhere that he was supposed to be safe.

The nursery have a duty to safeguard all children. Including your child.

People saying the biting child should have 1 to 1 supervision, yes in an ideal world they should. However, in many nurseries it just does not work like that because of adult/child ratios and tight margins.

The ratio is 1:8 in a three year old (pre school) room. Most nurseries do not provide 1.1 support for a child from their own staff pool because most will not over staff a room and have the luxury of spare qualified staff floating around a nursery.

Example pre school has 16 children in today. You need two members of staff working on 1.8 ratio. One must hold at least a level 3 or above. There would not be a spare staff member for 1:1. Nor can you have one of the two staff in the room doing 1.1 because that then leaves the other staff member with 15. Children to engage and supervise and knocks the ratio out. If nursery have a qualified teacher then the ratio can be as high as 1:13 in pre school.

The nursery can apply for LA funding, for 1. 1 support, but this takes a long, long time, with lots of supporting evidence. Usually an a LA will not fund 1.1 until there is an official diagnosis for a child either.

I am not sure what you want the nursery to do in the situation. They cannot and nor should they exclude a 3 year old. The staff can only encourage the biter not to bite through nurture and modelling.

It is frustrating both for your child and the biter.

@FoxyTheFox

If the nursery apply the same policy to all children then it is bit discriminatory. If their behaviour policy states that violent children or bites will be excluded after X number if incidents, and that policy is used on every single child then the child with SEN is not being discriminated against. If the nursery only exclude the SEN children who bite, then that would be discrimination.

Allowing a child to hit and bite would not be a "reasonable adjustment" before anyone starts on with that.

Of course allowing a child to bite and hit is not a reasonable adjustment but if the child is biting and hitting due to not having their needs supported or due to inadequate supervision then that is not the child's fault. A child cannot be excluded because the setting is unable to meet their needs.

You can’t police young children sadly, it happens very very quickly as pp posted that they can be angelic and the next moment rabidly biting.

The choice is on you to send him elsewhere, where this could potentially happen again.

Saying that I would write them an email for my records saying that you’re keeping a note of each incident and need more to be done.

Chestnutstuffing because behavioral is one of the ways kids communicate. Maybe the kid finds the nursery setting overwhelming, or has strong emotional responses they can't regulate yet. Maybe it's the only way this child has to communicate frustration. It's impossible to say what the need is without been in the situation, but the will be something. If nothing else the kid needs support to learn how to interact positively with peers, and some investigation into why they are becoming so distressed that they can't control their actions (to the level other 3yo can). Failure to provide this could lead to a lonely, isolated childhood for the poor kid.

@FoxyTheFox

Mainstream nurseries cannot, and do not need to, provide one to one support. That is not what they are there for.

Some children will never attend a mainstream school, because their needs cannot be met there. They will go to a SEN school. This isnt discriminatory.

I worked in Firpark for a while (a SEN school in Scotland) and if some of those kids at been mainstreamed, then it would have been hell for the school. If someone like you came along and told them they were discriminating, it wouldn't have helped anyone.

It is not discriminatory to admit that a setting just isnt able to provide the necessary care. If that child is violent towards other children, and behavioural modification isnt getting them anywhere then they are not safe to have in that setting, SEN or no SEN. Not discriminatory.

[quote WhereverIGoddamnLike]@FoxyTheFox

If the nursery apply the same policy to all children then it is bit discriminatory. If their behaviour policy states that violent children or bites will be excluded after X number if incidents, and that policy is used on every single child then the child with SEN is not being discriminated against. If the nursery only exclude the SEN children who bite, then that would be discrimination.[/quote]
If the behaviour is a direct result of the SEN, then yes excluding still amounts to discrimination.

I’m a bit surprised at the posts saying ‘what do you want the nursery to do?’ Manage the behaviour of the children in their care to ensure a reasonably safe environment, perhaps?

I think most reasonable people recognise that biting and hitting happen in nurseries and staff can’t always act in time to stop it. But in this situation the OP’s son has been injured 4 times in two weeks and it sounds as though other children are being hurt too. I think OP expects them to manage this child’s behaviour effectively in accordance with their behaviour management policies and to keep her son safe. If her child’s been hurt four times in two weeks, she’s entitled to question whether their behaviour management procedures are effective.

Children can only be excluded for disciplinary reasons, they can't be excluded because a setting cannot meet their needs as that is discriminatory. If a school cannot meet a child's needs they still have a statutory duty to educate the child until a more suitable setting can be found, they can't just flat out "nope" on that duty. If disciplinary issues are due to additional needs then it is also discriminatory for the school to exclude a child unless they have first taken reasonable steps to identify what those needs are and have put the appropriate support in place , and again the exclusion would have to be in line with behaviour and send policies and not solely because the school cannot meet their needs.

All moot here though as it's not clear if this child has additional needs but perhaps an interesting discussion for another thread.

I'd have moved my dc if the nursery were unable to stop them being repeatedly hurt.

If the child is hurting others so regularly they need to be taking additional steps to protect the other children. Whether providing 1 to 1 to that child etc. If the child really can't be managed in a way that prevents him hurting others so regularly, that suggests either theres a problem with the nurseries approach, or a need for ECHP & extra resource to manage the biter.

SEN doesn't make it ok for a child to hurt other children. Ever.

They are failing to safeguard your child, so I would put this is writing and say if it continues you will contact Ofsted

It's not necessarily the other DC's fault god knows what's going on with him but if this is known behaviour the DC should be watched closely so he can't hurt the other kids. An occasional bump or bite is expected but not all the time.

@FoxyTheFox

Children can only be excluded for disciplinary reasons, they can't be excluded because a setting cannot meet their needs as that is discriminatory. If a school cannot meet a child's needs they still have a statutory duty to educate the child until a more suitable setting can be found, they can't just flat out "nope" on that duty. If disciplinary issues are due to additional needs then it is also discriminatory for the school to exclude a child unless they have first taken reasonable steps to identify what those needs are and have put the appropriate support in place , and again the exclusion would have to be in line with behaviour and send policies and not solely because the school cannot meet their needs.

All moot here though as it's not clear if this child has additional needs but perhaps an interesting discussion for another thread.

We’re talking about a nursery, not a school.

If a nursery or childminder can’t meet a child’s needs, what do you expect them to do? Just operate an unsafe setting

If they can't keep other children safe then the child who bites needs to be excluded until they learn not to hurt other children.

It's a strange culture where the ones getting bitten are advised to leave and find alternate childcare but the biter apparently shouldnt be excluded. If the centre isnt meeting their needs then surely they should find somewhere that does? Visions of all the bitten children leaving and their parents having to find alternate places so they can work while the child with additional needs is the only one left...

@ForestNymph

YANBU to be upset but what do you want them to do? My son used to bite a lot. He has autism and ADHD. He wasn't diagnosed at 3 but we knew he had "something". What do you expect the nursery to do? Exclude him?

I'm sorry but one child's additional needs do not trump the other children's safety.

Is not known if the child has additional needs. Its been suggested that they might and this may be related to the biting. Its also been said that biting is usually a sign of unmet needs such as hunger, boredom, frustration, communicstion difficulties, etc - needs that all children have.

The OP has no right to demand another child is excluded or to push for another child to be excluded. Even childminders and childcare nurseries will have rules around exclusions and are bound by discrimination laws (if there are additional needs). What the OP can do is to ask the nursery what measures they have in place to protect her child and what additional measures will be implemented given that the current ones do not appear to be working. Biting and hitting will never be fully eliminated, they cannot reduce the risk to zero, but they should be able to say what they are doing to minimise it.

As an aside, no one on the thread has said a child with additional needs trumps anyone else's right to anything but its nice to see people leap to that straight away. More and more it appears that equality and inclusion are just paid lip service and that they very quickly vanish when abled people think it is beginning to inconvenience them.

Have you asked what the nursery are proactively doing to support the child who bites and how often they review the procedure and escalate? They may not tell you who the child is but they should tell you exactly what they are doing to prevent it happening. Perhaps look to move your child if it keeps happening.

@AllesAusLiebe

When they’re little there’s practically nothing you can do apart from wait until they have better understanding.

The kid is 3, though? My DS occasionally bit when he was very young and I agree that there's nothing you can do about it as a baby, but at 3 I think most kids can start to develop an idea of what's ok and what is not.

DS is 2 and accidentally stood on my foot at the weekend and when I said "ouch", he started stroking my foot. 😂

I can imagine that it's tough for the parent and for the nursery to manage, but I'd be so upset if I was the op seeing my kid getting beat up somewhere that he was supposed to be safe.

No, OP’s kid is three. The biter might be only just 2. We don’t know.

Look, as a parent of two that bit, sometimes I couldn’t stop them biting each other or me. It just happens. If you haven’t had a biter it’s all too easy to just say ‘keep them away’ and ‘they’re not safeguarding’. It’s just not as simple as that with a toddler.

By all means remove your child if you want @Willow201302. But you can’t guarantee no biters until he’s in a room of exclusively 3+ year olds, and even then it can be hit and miss.