to be annoyed with sons nursery, and there lack of care...

[benbon]

i just wanted to post this and get some advice,
my son is 2 and a half and has been attending nursery since september in the last 5 weeks he has come home with an accident report form 4 times. on the first occasion he was bitten twice by another child which left two prominent full sets off teeth marks. the next week he had a letter saying he had been hit by another peer, the week after that was a good week no letters

the following week he had been hit again and this week he has been bitten again. now what makes me even more annoyed is that my son cannot talk properly yet so there is no chance of him telling me who has sone this and all the staff refuse to tell me. but when questioned they informed me that the child is in behavourial management. i was told this on more then one occasion so i know it is the same child that keeps doing it, my friends son is in the same nursery and has told me which child keeps doing this so i know he is nearly 4 and will be going to school soon.

now i just want to know am i being unreasniable for wanting this child to be removed from the nursery (which i know they cant do)
it just seems to me that my son is the victim and we are just left to put up with it.

just reiterating the point about the nursery not being allowed to tel you
dd2(nearly 3) was bitten at nursery and had marks when I picked her up
they couldn't tell me but she did but she has been talking properly for months now so must really difficult if your ds isn't able to tell you what happened

hope you get it sorted out, it must be worrying and stressful for you

Shaniece unfortunately this is what some 2 year olds do!

Not good, certainly upsetting, but it could just as easily be your child doing it.

As an ex-Nursery Manager I witnessed it many times. As hard as one tries with a 1:4 ratio it's a physical impossibility to leap across a room and prevent it sometimes

Shiny - I agree, it is impossible with the 1:4 ratio, I appreciate what you and others are saying but, I can't help wondering why some kids are more aggressive than others? I am just genuinely curious??

A 2 year-old who bites another child is not necessarily an aggressive child Shaniece. children at that age can bite for a number of different reasons. They don't necessarily just walk over and attack another child like a Hannibal Lector. They might bite because a toy has been snatched from them or just out of frustration. My ds1 was a biter, but he definatly was not an aggressive child. He would never hit anyone or provoke anyone, but he had really poor language skills and would bite if "cornered" so to speak.

Go to the manager and tell them you are unhappy about your child being hurt, ask what they are doing about it and ask what the child's parents response is. Tell the manager you would like the other family to be told you are not happy about it.

Some kids are sometimes more aggressive than other kids Shaneice.

But then some adults are too and they have less excuse for being changable and more ways of expressing themselves.

At four or under I wouldn't label any child as aggressive they change and develop and go through so many phases that it really is better to focus on the behaviour as atemporary thing rather than a trait of the child.

With many children is's a frustration thing. I'll give you an example:

Child A has delayed speech development. He was in the garden one day riding a bike when child B stood in his way. He did not have the language skills to ask the child to move and could not move another way so he rode his bike into the child.

Child B ran to a grown up crying because child A ran his bike into him. Fortunately a member of staff had seen what had happened and we were able to dicument the incident properly.

Another incident concerned a child who had a toy Child A wanted. He bit him on the arm which was holding the toy which made the child drop it.

WE knew about Child A's language issue, and put various measures in place to help him communicate through pictures, and referred him for speech and language therapy. As his communication skills improved, so did his behaviour.

My dd will never hit another child they have hit her first (in which case she really lets rip, ive seen it ).

But she did, at age 2 beat the hell out of me. I remember it vividly. She had a supermarket tantrum so bad I had to carry her out and she kicked and punched me so hard my arm was a mess, I was literally black and blue.

So I do know how they can be, but still think a child well known in nursery for hurting others should have an extra eye on him/her!

Btw, I really think some posts on this thread is a very good explanation for why parents are not told WHO bit their child.

Agree fairymum. Biting can mean all sorts not necessarily aggression.

My cuddly non-violent dd went through a biting pinching phase around 3, as well as always being the victim of a particular aggressive boy. I find the 2-3 room the worst for these behaviours.

She could not really tell me why she did those things. It seemed almost compulsive as well as impulsive. Also, we could laugh about the boy who hit here. So I think she bounced back ok. The phase came and went, she got it out of her system. Have not had a single incident since she started school.

benbon, agree with other posters in that you should satisfy yourself with the nursery's procedures for dealing with aggressive children. But otherwise, it really is impossible to prevent every incident, just as you at home with your dcs will not be able to prevent siblings from hurting each other all the time.

Of course. But if your child comes home, every time with a bite mark would you not want it to stop?

I did. I didn't blame the child, or the child's parents. I wanted it to stop, end of. I dont pay for my child to be hurt!

That is so true ScruffyTeddy.

Of course you want it to stop. So you are completely reasonable to ask nursery what their procedures and ratios are.

If you are unhappy with their answers you could of course make suggestions, that you think it is more appropriate that children of different ages are kept more separate. Whether they act on your suggestions is up to them, whether you continue to use them if they don't is up to you.

I don't think anyone is really saying you should not question nursery, more that it is inappropriate to focus on child as aggressive or parents as the people to appraoch?

If notwithstanding the nursery's procedures, it is every day, a new bite mark and you are clearly unhappy about things, well just vote with your feet, as I am sure you will/have.

benbon as far as I can see, has not labelled the child as aggressive. She has toyed with the idea of approaching the mother as the nursery dont seem to be doing anything?

What can the mother do if she's not there?

4 year old, behavioural support involved?? Child of 4 biting? Seems to me it's very possible that the child is at the beginning of a long road to diagnosis of something or other (knowing people who found themselves in the exact same situation). What's having a word with the mother going to do? I had long conversations with a friend who went through this when her son was this age (he was finally years later diagnosed with AS). You could have had a word with her, but she couldn't have done anything and all it would have achieved would have been to make her more upset about it than she already was. You could well have the same effect on the mother involved here.

Ref the example I gave below ( Child A)-

His mother was distraught and crying in my office many times as her child was a little sweetheart at home. Nothing she did or said made any difference- and when one day she came face to face with a child who her child had bitten she cried her eyes out.

no i definately have not labelled the child a bully. as i said before i know children can do things for no reason atall i just want to know why the children that are getting hurt have no rights and the ones that are doing the injuring are protected?

ds1 (severely autistic- aged 8 still no speech) aged 4 went through a 2 week period when he pinched other children at nursery (thank god the only time he's every gone for children on purpose - now he only goes for adults he likes). It was awful, every day I'd go to collect him and there would be all these children with scratches and marks down their faces.

He had a full time 1:1 (which is very rare at nursery age), but he was too fast for her to get in and stop him. Luckily the behaviour plan put in place worked within 2 weeks (very lucky- most behaviours of his are not that easy to deal with- especially ones that get a big reaction like screaming children).

At the time I was terrified I was going to get approached by an 'injured' parent. This was not that long after ds1's diagnosis- I didn't have the energy to deal with other parents. I sobbed on the nursery owner's shoulder and she told me that if any parent said anything to me I was to send them straight to her and she would sort it out. She was a star.

The op does not want her child to be hurt (especially) on a regular basis, she should not be flamed for that. No mother wants to see her child being hurt.

She has not slated the other child!

i never thought about it like that.. maybe talking to the mother we could arrange for the children to meet up outside of nursery and see if the kids get on better

'protected' what on earth do you mean? What would you do if you knew who it was? (I'm thinking that's probably the reason they are 'protected'.)

When any of my children have been hurt by another child (and they all have - including ds1) I've never been remotely interested in who did it.

No, Shaneice wondered why some kids were more aggressive than others and that prompted a bunch of posts discussing that. This is as always a multi-layeered thread not just concerned with benbon's specific case.

In regards to OP you have my sympathies it is awful having your child be bitten and awful finding out your child has bitten another.

I really don't think approaching the other parent is useful or appropriate. Go through the nursery and if they don't satisfy you you may have to consider changing.

i do not expect to send my son to school and have hime coming home with marks and bruises.

yurt1 your comments are not helpful and maybe you should keep them to yourself. would you be more interested if it was your child hurting others. im guessing probably not which is why mothers like me that do care have these problems..