My 3 year old DS has been bitten 4 times by same boy at nursery.

[Emsmom]

My son has been at his nursery for two to three mornings a week for 18 months. No incidents to report until the one I will explain. He really enjoys it there, has some nice friends and very caring staff. He found it hard to sepearate from me but in time has really thrived.

A few months ago anothr boy started in the nursery who is about 2 and a half. In this time my son has been bitten by him four times. Once on the face, once on the hand and twice on the back. The back bites have been bad. The most recent bite this week was bad enough that a full upper and power teeth mark set in and the skin was peeling. I had to take my son to a and e. The first three times I let the nursery reassure me that they were trying to deal with it, working with mum etc. But now I have had enough. Since the first bite my son has been scared of this boy, cries out his name in his sleep saying "no no and then the boys name". He asked me every day before nursery if the boy will be there and if it is one of the two days they share he begs me not to take him.

I fell terrible subjecting my son to this. It isn't right anymore. I know my son is no angel and I am not pretending he has never hit anyone or snatched a toy. But this seems over the line. After the last bite I saw the mum during the pick up on the path outside. I introduced myself and my son, explained the situation, and calmly showed her the bite. The nursery had been telling me that they were making the mum aware, but I wasn't sure she realised how bad things were. I waited until there were no other mums around as I wasn't trying to embarrass her, but I really need some action to be taken. She apologised at the time but has subsequently complained about me to the nursery that other parents may have seen our discussion. So now she is very angry with me for alienating her son.

Staff tell me he has bitten other children, and that the bites are mostly unprovoked.

I have now arranged to move one of my sons nursery days so that they will now only have one conflicting day. My only other option is to remove my son from that day, reducing his time there to two days. As he is starting reception in September, I didn't want his time to go down and had been considering increasing it except for this issue.

Sorry for the long post, but my real question is, what would you expect from the nursery at this point? Should I be complaining to ofsted? Ay advice from anyone?

I would be absolutely furious as you must be. Your poor son, how awful for him to be scared at nursery :(

In your situation I would be complaining to ofsted an the head (if it is a nursery attached to a school)

You should be dealing with the nursery. The mum is not at nursery - what do you want her to do exactly?
I think you are assuming that the mother either doesn't know or doesn't care - neither of which are probably true.

When your son is at nursery it is THEIR responsibility to keep your child safe.

You were off mark approaching the mum and all you have tone is make it harder to resolve.
Speak to the nursery. Tell them they need to keep your son safe and that they are responsible if he gets bitten again. Ask what steps they are taking to ensure he is safe

The staff also should not be discussing the other childs behaviour with you. Telling you he bites other children unprovoked is shockingly unprofessional

I spoke with the nursery first. They tell me they are " doing their best" with this child. They have also said they can't give the other mum any of the details of my son and how severe the bites are which I why I wanted her to see. I will say I was not confrontational at all, didn't raise my voice etc. If my son was almost three and doing this I would want to see I guess. I don't think the mum doesn't care, I just wasnt sure if she knew how severe the bites really are.

I have told the nursery that it is there job to keep my son safe. However at one point the were 5 children there with three staff and the other boy just turned and bit him. it is a private nursery and I feel like my son is losing out here. I have spoken to the head. She has asked for more time to find a solution. In the meantime I cannot send my son on the same days as this boy. And so he is more of a victim here.

I asked the nursery if my son was being bullied here, meaning is he being targeted by this boy. That is when they said no my son wan not the only " target".

I agree with it is the nursery's responsibility to keep your son safe and you should be dealing directly with them. This isn't a playgroup so the other mother isn't there and responsible for her child - she is leaving him in the care of the nursery too.

I know that you wanted to show the mother the extent of your son's injuries but she probably felt cornered and embarrassed and was aware that other parents might see. I do understand how tempting it must have been though to show her and that you, for the least, did it in a reasoned way. A very tricky situation.

I would request a meeting with the head/manager asking what they are doing to make your son safe. They sound unprofessional if they are discussing the other boy's behaviour relating to other children. I'd personally be considering other preschool options if they continue to mishandle this situation.

Not much you can do, my son started biting us, then an older child at playgroup (it only happened twice so not a huge problem), which seem very much like attention seeking. When he bite us we divert him to express his emotions in another way (big bear hug worked wonders) but cracked down when he bit anyone else (making him to give a toy to the other child).

But you do need cooperation, we worked with the nursery to provide a consistent approach and nipped it in the bud early on. But I totally agree that your child has a right not to be made afraid.

How ghastly for you and poor DS. I would expect more from the school - have you tried emailing them pix of the injuries and copies of the medical records attached to a request asking them for a meeting to discuss how this won't be happening again.

I wouldn't feel remotely bad about talking to the biter's mum, and don't let it be used against you. Explain to the school that you have made great efforts to take as much action as humanly possible to ensure your son is safe from assault and you need their input too.

Good luck - how unfair and upsetting for you.

I am not trying to argue with you.
I am just saying that by telling the mother, whatever your intention, all you have done is make her feel terrible about something over which she has no control. The proof of the pudding being that she did apparently feel awful.

But more importantly you have distracted yourself when your full attention should be fired at the nursery who sound ineffectual. And whatever the reason they should be saying 'i am sorry but I cannot disclose confidential information about another child'
I would want an immediate meeting with the head. Although to be honest I would be looking at other nurseries.

I would have bitten the mother.

And I would expect the nursery to exclude the child until he stopped biting people if they are unable to prevent it.

I have thought of other nurseries. However where I live there are very long waiting lists and also many nurseries want full day commitments when my son does not need to be there until 6 pm. I essentially need nursery for him for a few more months and so by the time a space came up somewhere else he will be in reception.

So I guess my options are reduce his time to the two days the other boy is not there, or leave him in the third day and hope he isn't bitten again. I just don't think I can take that chance. If a child is biting this often what can I suggest the nursery do about it? I am sure they have much more experience than I do in dealing with this issue, but whatever they have tried hasn't worked. At one point they had my son show the other boy how to touch nicely, pat on the arm etc. But realistically the situation remains the same.
Fwiw, I m not blaming the other mother. I know she isn't there. But if I were in her shoes I would want to know what was really happening. Because if her son isn't doing this in other environments, than what is triggering him to react this way at nursery?

I am the mother of a biter (former biter - resolved now, thank god, after 8 months of being a vampire - yup, he bit to the point of drawing blood). It was a nightmare as he regularly bit his baby brother who was 18 months younger. This behaviour went on from the age of 16 months to 24 months.

One day in our local playground I saw another mum chasing her child and grabbing him as he was trying to chomp into a boy playing in there. As she walked back passed me I commented 'you have a biter too'. We've been friends since. I tell you this part of the story, as we have both since discovered our boys had severe glue ear, were having a lot of trouble communicating, and were in a lot of pain. My DS also has some additional communication difficulties and has had intense speech and language therapy for some time. Once his ears were addressed, and he learnt to communicate better the biting stopped.

Biting is rarely done to be nasty to another child. It is quite likely there is something going on with this child which is either making him frustrated, he's in pain, or maybe angry and can't communicate it.

It doesn't matter how many people are there watching, the biting will be very hard to stop unless the underlying reason that's causing it is solved. Even with numerous adults in the room we couldn't always get to DS1 before he bit his newborn little brother.

I think if another mum had stopped to talk to me about my son's behaviour I would have felt rather awkward and been very apologetic. I'm just not sure what I could have done beyond what we were doing already (which has involved endless visits to healthcare professionals, a fortune being spent on therapies etc...). If you are the parent of a child who has behavioural difficulties it's really hard as you know your child is the difficult one in the group and you're doing everything you can to help them not to be, yet it can take a long time for anything to actually work (in our case learning sign language, and slowly teaching him to talk helped - took 8 months of testing and waiting to get the grommets to improve his hearing).

I realise this doesn't help solve the fact your son is being bitten, made scared and not liking nursery, but I hope it helps you understand.

yes. my answer was flippant. I am sympathetic really.

But if my child had been bitten at nursery, I would have forgiven it once, maybe even twice, but absolutely no more. And if my child was there first, happy, and it suited me, I would expect the other child to be stopped, even if this meant them being removed.

cjn27b - I think that makes a lot of sense, I think there are underlying causes which need addressing, trouble is that you can't address the problems of the other child. I know how mortifying it can be to be the parent of a biter, lucky for us we had a very good relationship with the victims mum and with the nursery.

Hullygully I don't think it's that simple. There are lots of children with behavioural problems in mainstream nursery and later schools. Autism now affects 1/100 children and that's just one condition that is associated with behavioural problems. Does sound like the nursery needs to look at how they handle these situations, as I am sure this is neither the first nor last time they'll arise, but just removing a child for biting isn't the answer - if every nursery did this what are the parents meant to do?

Thank you for your message Cjn. I know the situation may be much more complicated than it seems. I don't blame the boy or anyone really. I just don't know what to do for my son as he seems to be getting the brunt of the boy's frustration. I don't know if the busy nursery environment is right for him, but he isn't my son and I know it isn't up to me. However something needs to be done as I don't think it is fair that my son has to be so fearful of this boy all the time. when we are going to other play areas, the park etc the first thing he does is ask me if this boy will be there. So it's on his mind all the time.

cjn - I know, and I don't know what the parents are meant to do, but no one can expect other children to be bitten while the issues are worked through.

when i worked in a nursery we werent allowed to tell the parent of the bitten child who had done it(although the child usually did later) because of child protection-the idea that the bitters parent could possibly go home and physical harm the child as a consequence of the behaviour in nursery.
we had one bitter/hitter/thrower that was asked to leave after he'd repeatedly attacked staff and children over a period of months.we had tried to help and arrange for his behaviour to be assessed but the parents didnt want their child to have any 'outside help' so they were asked to leave.

it is very sad that your sons going through this but i really dont think the nurserys being very professional. Arrange a meeting with them and ask to see their anti bullying policies and procedures and ask what they are doing.

Cjn, can I ask you realistically, if your son was doing this at nursery, what action would you have taken? I know you were doing everything possible to help your son.what would you hope the nursery would do to support your son?

My friend's son was bitten repeatedly (not at nursery) by another friend's son with behavioural problems. Eventually, friend one had no option but to stop seeing them as her son was shaking with fear at the thought of meeting up.

If the bitten child is removed, the biter will bite others, what does the nursery do when all the children are removed?!

At first the nursery did not tell me the boys name. My son is the one who told me each time.

I can tell you what I would do about biting in my nursery:

First stage - we would keep an extra close eye on the biter. We would record all biting incidents for a week or two, tracking what happened before, during and after the bite to see if a pattern emerges

Second stage - we'd use that information to tackle the cause of the behaviour/reduce the risks (eg child bites when overwhelmed by large groups or always targets one child - we can reduce stressors or keep children apart).

Third stage - if we aren't able to manage the behaviour ourselves we would look into having the biter assessed by other professionals with a view to maybe getting funding for a 1:1 support worker for that child

Ultimately, exclusion would only be considered as a very last resort if we couldn't provide for that child's needs within our setting.

that sounds the ticket, rita

I would expect a child who has repeatedly harmed others to be excluded.

This is crazy. You should not have to change your arrangements or pull your child from the nursery, but their response is inadequate and might leave you no other choice.

My DSD was excluded from nursery (this was before I was in her life so I do not know all the details) for behavioural issues, and she hadn't ever caused an actual injury to any one! This is at least FOUR times, alledgedly more - what does it take for them to keep the other kids safe and secure?

Raging on your behalf.

A lot of children bite around that age and if I was the mum I'd be furious with you. The issue is with nursery and the parent. Nothing to do with you I'm afraid as I'm pretty sure nursery can't tell you who has bitten your DS. For all you know it could've been the boy you mention the first time but a completely different child the next.
The nursery and the boys mum need to sort out a strategy and I'm sorry that your DS is so upset about it but the way you went about this was not on. Coming from the mother of a biter and a bitee.