Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

88 replies

benbon · 29/02/2008 19:53

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.

OP posts:
yurt1 · 29/02/2008 22:32

Communal area. Is there a chance they can go in at different times? If your child is being singled out I think you could ask for this. If it's general you could ask whether the littlies could go there at a different time.

S1ur · 29/02/2008 22:32

Then also ask specifically what procedures they have in place for monitoring difffernt aged children together.

And how do they make sure the different needs and behaviours of mixed aged kids are being met.

yurt1 · 29/02/2008 22:33

Things like 1:1 don't really work for this sort of behaviour btw- it can, but often the children are too fast and it's unprovoked so hard to predict. But if they're only accessing the same area at certain times I'd just ask if they can go into that area at different times.

Original poster
benbon · 29/02/2008 22:34

yeah i did ask weather he was being singled out and they assure me that this is not the case, it just seems that way because he only goes once a week and he is coming home with marks each week.

OP posts:
Original poster
benbon · 29/02/2008 22:35

his nursery really is brilliant, it can just be hard to watch them constantly.

OP posts:
ScruffyTeddy · 29/02/2008 22:35

benbon, I understand your frustration. Some great suggestions here, hope you work it out

Original poster
benbon · 29/02/2008 22:36

i just find it hard because he is still not talking so he cant tell me if he is hurt

OP posts:
Joolyjoolyjoo · 29/02/2008 22:39

I've had a couple of incidents like this, where one of my kids has been bashed/ bitten at nursery, and tbh I've always been more grateful that my child was the victim rather than the aggressor! I think the other mum probably feels worse than you, so I wouldn't approach her. It is important that you feel the nursery is doing all they can, however, so I would certainly meet with them so you can discuss their strategies without getting details of the child. Obviously however sympathetic you feel to this other child, the fact remains that you don't want your ds terrorised! I'm sure the nursery will be keen to avoid upsetting parents of ANY child, and maybe this wee boy is biting others too, so hopefully they will be trying to get a handle on it, but you are, I think, within your rights to know just exactly how they are managing it.

S1ur · 29/02/2008 22:40

FWIW I hope and think that he probably isn't hurting much after the intial pain - poor thing.

Biting is more like a bruising after the fact but it is horrid.

How about introducing a bit of signing for pain, I've found that useful pre-verbal. Two fingers pointing together at place something hurts is the sign I think.

Next time he bumps at home you could try it and keep it up so that next time you want o ask him if he is hurt he can communicate it to you?

yurt1 · 29/02/2008 22:41

Not being singled out is harder for the nursery to deal with unfortunately.

I think they're usually fairly robust. DS3 (just 3) got pushed off the slide at nursery the other week and screamed for half an hour, totally lost the plot. They didn't think he was that hurt but they were trying to cuddle him to soothe him and he was getting madder and madder and more upset. When he got home I asked him why and he said "I wanted to go back on the slide'. He wasn't remotely bothered about being pushed off but thought they weren't letting him back on the slide!

soopermum1 · 29/02/2008 23:31

haven't read all the posts, but my DS has been bitten in nursery quite a lot and i used to get (understandably) upset until one day he was bitten in front of my very eyes when i was picking him up from nursery. honestly, it was so fast, there was nothing i or the staff could do to stop it. in fact i only realised what had happened after he started crying, and i had been watching him at the time. it made me see how hard it is for nursery staff to prevent it.

but YANBU getting upset with the nursery, the problem is it happens and as i saw myself it's difficult to avert a biting incident before the event.

Emprexia · 01/03/2008 07:01

Maybe its just me, but if the OP's DS seems to be getting injured by this child every week, surely the nursery staff should be making an effort to keep the two apart?

WE had a consistent biter at the nursery i worked at, and no, when you've a 1:4 ratio, you can't watch them all the time.. however he disliked one particular child and we made sure they stayed away from each other.

And to the peeps asking why a 2.5 & 4yr old are together... our nursery split them at the age of 2-2.5, so the OP's little boy would be in with the older group.

quint · 02/03/2008 19:36

I would still consider taking my DD out of the nursery if it continued to happen and I wasn;t given a satisfactory explanation

New posts on this thread. Refresh page