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?

Sounds good Rita. You'd think this boy would be at the third stage by now. would you feel able to tell the mum of the bitten child where in the process you were up to (vaguely of course)?

Oh and DS used to bite one girl quite a lot because he said he loved her. For him it was a sign of affection and apparently is for a lot of small children. Unpleasant but well intended.

DD1 (4) was slapped and bitten by a boy in her class last term. I am very sympathetic with the child's parents and the school, I know he has behaviour issues and that school and home are working together to help him.

However, after the 3rd occasion I told DD that it was okay to push the boy away if he was going to hurt her and we role played her shouting 'Get Off Me!' while firmly pushing him off her. A couple of days later, DDs teacher informed me that she had pushed the boy away after he had pinched her arm and shouted at him to leave her alone. Teacher seemed to expect me to discipline DD, but I explained that I felt it was important for her to defend herself from ANYONE who tried to hurt her. Teacher did a cat's bum face, but DD has not been hurt by this boy again.

Could this work with DS? Make it clear that you are very happy for him to defend himself and practice how he could do this? As adults we would defend ourselves, and children should be able to as well.

Mud and glitter I know for a fact that it was the one boy that did all of the biting. That isn't in dispute at this point. As you mention you have been on both sides of the fence, what would you do if your child was in my sons position? Would you leave him in the nursery and hope for the best? Would you pull him out completely? What would your expectations of a privately run nitery be?

Nitery? Sorry nursery.

My son has been told to shout out for a teacher, say no loudly etc. But the last bite happened when his back was turned and he didn't see it coming. I don't think these are friendship bites either.

id write down what rita said and ask nursey what they do.if not happy ask why they dont do what rita said

No, I don't think we'd disclose anything about the biter, we'd only tell the mum of the bitten child what we are doing to keep her child safe - eg. shadowing the biter to prevent any incidents.

OP - I think you were perfectly reasonable to talk to the mother, I can think of no valid reason why you shouldn't. Yes, she may have felt uncomfortable but that is because her son is doing something he shouldn't, there may be reasons behind the biting but that isn't your problem!

I think you will have to go in strongly about this with the nursery and be very insistent that you want the boy kept away from yours or you'll have to remove him. Once or twice is perhaps understable but four is unexcusable.

The thing is because it is at first sight an issue around the children we get all distracted. Because it is actually an issue about assessment and supervision and all that stuff.

It doesn't matter why the child is biting, not a jot. It could be sn or just a developmental stage or misplaced affection. The staff need to recognize it is going on and stop it.
If your child wets himself if you don't remind him to go to the toilet then, when he wets himself it is your fault.

Ds was never a biter. But the parents of dc who struggle or bite or wet themselves want the staff to act as they would. They want the staff badgered and nagged, they want other parents to complain until the nursery put in place the level of supervision and the strategies that the child needs. Or the fact that they can't meet his needs should be acknowledged so he can get the support he needs.

Does any of that make sense?

I'd leave him in the nursery. Although DS's isn't privately run however I'd expect the same standards from any nursery.

Rita, if you did apply for one to one assistance, how long does that process take? And what would you do in the meantime to safeguard other children?

How interesting Lady. I can't think of one valid reason why you would.

I would Paggy, because I would want things to be dealt with and taken really seriously. I would speak to her with great love, understanding and kindness and hope that she would insist that the right steps were taken (and secretly hope she'd keep the child out so mine was safe and I didn't have to do anything else).

Why would I want to talk to the mother of a child who had repeatedly bitten mine and my son saw regularly and was having nightmares about him? Ummm well, I'd want to check that she actually knew what was happening (tbh I'd be expecting her to come and speak to me about it so if she didn't I'd wonder if she knew). Then I'd want to discuss a plan - between the two of us, as mothers sharing a problem, not as oponents.

I have often spoken to other parents where there have been problems. 99% of the time it has been a really good thing. The one time - well, we needn't go there..

Ooh Hully, were there fisticuffs?

OP you say the Head has asked you for more time to resolve the problem. Have they told you exactly how they are addressing this? I would want to know what their plan of action was, it doesn't appear (from what you've said so far) that they are being particularly effective here. I can understand your frustration, and I think I would have probably spoken to the mother aswell.

The trouble is that the reality, whatever the intention, is hurt feelings, frustration, defensiveness and worse, it distracts the parents from placing the safety responsibility on the nursery which is where it should be.

I had a thing where one friends son kept grabbing the glasses off the face of another friends dd. The boy had mild sn (all these years very happily and calmly settled in mainstream), the girl was understandably terrified.
The girls mum tried to speak to the boys mum. On top of all her other concerns about his poor sleep and lack of language she just became defensive and overwhelmed and it tipped her into a really bad place.
My friend then just felt shit. It made no difference to the problem which the nursery eventually dealt with by putting them in different group and giving him extra support when they were together.

I guess that has tainted my view. But I think it just feels awful for a biters mum when they have no control at nursery.telling the parent of an older child who can generalise messages at home into the school situation does make sense to me.
But not at nursery. Not when they have already been informed and all you are doing is emphasising how awful it is.

No, not fisticuffs! But because she was a "friend" and they were our daughters, I spoke to her and when it became clear she wouldn't acknowledge there was a problem, I suggested we mention it to the teacher and let her deal with it...and she said no!

So that was me royally stuffed.

As the parent of a biter, I would be mortified to be approached because there isn't a whole lot you can do to immediately solve the issue. As the parent, you are not present when this is happening and with young children it can be hard to discuss things in retrospect, especially at two and a half, my DD is three and a half and still bites and does understand it is wrong, however she has poor temper control and we are trying to deal with that.

I would say that the failing is in the nursery, my daughter's teacher knows that she has these issues and tries to break up any confrontation as it happens. She has early warning signs that we are both learning to spot, and we are working on teaching her it is wrong and how to express her emotions in a more constructive way.

There is no immediate fix to a biting child other than more supervision. Your DS should be safeguarded in nursery by them being aware of what is going on, so that they can intervene before biting occurs.

EmsMom I don't know if a private nursery would be willing/able to do it to be honest. They are also probably quite limited in that they likely have the minimum number of staff they can get away with, so don't have staff to spare to shadow the biter.

I think it is reasonable to ask them what they are doing to keep your child safe, and "these things happen" is not an acceptable explanation. But actually, if they don't have the resources to ensure safety then you might have to move your child.

I feel for you, I had this exact same situation with my dd1. Biter came from a family where there was domestic violence and I did feel sorry for her. But my child's safety came first. We complained loudly to the director of the nursery, but after the fourth bite ended up threatening to report them to ofsted and to go to the local media and trash their reputation. (Disclaimer, I was very angry and so was dh - he actually rang the nursery director himself). They set up a system that both my child and the biter had one to one supervision and were kept apart. That worked but was obviously very difficult for the nursery as it meant two staff were permanently looking after just one child each. Eventually they asked the other child to leave as it just wasn't working. I would complain more and suggest they try the one on one supervision as it worked for us. It's not a long term solution though, although the biter will probably grow out of it (no comfort to you now I know).
The nursery also worked with my dd to enable her to say 'no' quite forcefully. At first I was upset they were putting the onus on her, but it did actually empower her and I know she felt better for being able to shout no at this kid.
It was a difficult time and I felt terribly sorry for the mother, who when I spoke to her was lovely and very apologetic.
Good luck and I hope you get it sorted.

4 times! I would approach the mother too, to check that the nursery had informed her of what was going on - the nursery has had time to deal with this and it's still ongoing. Then I'd ask the nursery what they were going to do to stop it. If someone needs to swap days/groups why should it be your child? If the nursery can't supervise the biter then they should be getting the parents in to discuss plans to deal with the biting and if all else fails, asking the parents to withdraw their child. Your child isn't the only one who's been bitten.

At Rita has suggested above, the does have the minimum staffing for two and three year olds. I know they do not have the staff to shadow the biter or my son. I don't want to complain to ofsted and wil only do so if there is no resolution. Up until now my son has loved nursery and still does when this boy is not there. I will discuss again with the head next week and find out what is happening going forward. If my son were the biter I actually think I would remove him from this nursery and look for somewhere with more supervision. Constantly getting in trouble and getting a lot of negative attention can't be helping the boy with whatever his issue are.

OP, in your position I would reduce my son's time to 2 days (assuming this is possible re your work?) and avoid the biter. You could make them longer days rather than just mornings if you are worried about preparing him for reception?

I know that isn't a fair solution, but that is what I would do.