To think there’s techniques nursery could do to prevent hitting

[Drearycommuter]

Hi, my DD 3 keeps getting hit by a boy in her nursery. been ongoing maybe 2 or 3 months. With his hand and also with toys. She told me and nursery also keep me informed about it.

but nursery don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. I actually get the sense they want him to leave although they haven’t said that.

Aibu to expect them to have some tricks to better manage this apart from stopping him when he does it and then shrugging their shoulders?

I don’t want her to be hit, and I also don’t want to remove her because that seems unfair on her. And I also feel for him and would hate him to get kicked out because he’s only 3 too. Not sure what to do.

Distraction and asking dd not to do it didnt work for us as I'd tried that beforehand. I can see why people tell their kids to hit back if nursery methods are ineffective.

My DD is pretty confident and every time I've seen a bigger child hit her she just instinctively hits them back - now no kids hit her.

I don't know if that's helpful, but it would stop it.

Ideally you need to speak to the nursery about it and tell them to stop it happening. I wouldn't send my DD to somewhere she got hit by another child

She’s diddy so I can’t imagine her hitting him back would be effective but I’ll give it a whirl. As well as speaking to the nursery. And take it from there. But I can’t tolerate it for too long.

I think it’s more frequent / an issue than normal. I know kids hit but the nursery speak to me and his mum about it which is unusual.

No thank you. Gentle hands.

And the child that is hitting sits on a mat for a minute and talks to the teacher a out reasons why/feelings/rules/why we don't hit.

My son had a pushing phase at 3 and this worked with him. Nursery and parents working together with the same approach.

Now he reminds everyone to use gentle hands.

In my experience, he's probably got significant issues and the nursery may well have spoken to parents about it and parents think there's nothing wrong. (Sometimes because for example they don't see it at home because there's no other children at home or because they have 1-1 attention at home, sometimes they just have their heads in the sand or don't want their child labelled.) Without parental support, they can't apply for example for extra funding to give him extra support, eg a 1-1 support worker for at least some of the time, and they don't have the staff to man-mark him all the time. They may be considering telling parents they can't keep him without applying for extra support, but if they are a good nursery they will also be thinking that what he needs is a good nursery to help him so are also reluctant to get rid of him. It's really difficult, because they want to safeguard the other children, but they also want to help him. The best advice for your child is to tell them to keep away from him, but that's also really sad for the child that no one will want to play with him.

I agree tell her to avoid him. It’s sad a child will not have anyone to play with, especially a child that probably struggles with impulse control. but it’s more important that a young girl learns to put herself first and not tolerate bullying.
Hopefully the nursery will be looking into extra support, but they will likely be at school before they actually get any support.
If she is too small to hurt him tell her to go for the hair. Hopefully he will avoid her after losing a handful.

I'd be wondering what is causing it. Usually kids at 3 hit when they are annoyed at another child. If your child took their toy for example a 3 year old would likely hit because they do not have the social skills to solve conflict without aggression. Staff need to ensure they know the cause of the situation as if it is conflict then they need to work on social skills with both sides. It usually is related to issues socially like snatching etc.