DD (3) biting at nursery. I'm mortified.

[BunnyLebowski]

DD is 3yrs 4 months. Only child. Neither DP nor I have any family where we live and none of our friends have kids. He works full time. I work part-time (evenings and weekends). We're very much the 3 amigos but we have a happy home with no real problems.

She's been at home with me since birth. We go to playgroups etc but a lot of the time it is just us. I make sure we go on lots of outings and she has a wide variety of activities to keep her occupied.

She's a happy and very loving child. She shows affection and empathy easily. She is quite feisty but DP and I would never allow that to manifest as rudeness or mean behaviour. She's very bright with communication skills/counting/reading etc all way ahead of her age.

She started nursery in January (2.5 days a week) and seemed to be getting on fine.

Yesterday I was called in as she'd bitten an older boy on the face after he wouldn't give her a toy she wanted. I was utterly horrified .

DP came home early from work. We spoke to her at length about what she had done and why it was wrong and how to behave at nursery. She seemed to take it all in. We removed all her privileges for the rest of the day (toys, tv etc) and she went to bed early with no story.

This morning she went in with a card she'd made for the little boy to say sorry. She was adamant that she'd be a good girl. DP met the little boy's Dad, apologised and had a good chat with him. He was very understanding and rational.

Today I got another call to say she'd bitten the same boy again . According to DD he was 'on her side when they were playing dragons and wouldn't move'. According to the teacher she'd been good as gold all morning .

I had to go in and collect her from the Headmaster's office and take her home. The school have asked me to go in and stay at her sessions next week to observe which is of course fine with me. Anything to try and nip this in the bud.

She is now sat on her bed sobbing. I've removed all her toys and again gone over why her behaviour is unacceptable. This evening will be as yesterday, no privileges.

Where do we go from here? Does anyone have any experience? Are we handling this correctly?

Sorry for rambling. My head is all over the place. I feel terrible for the little boy and his parents and just want to get this sorted so it doesn't happen again.

Don't beat yourself about it Bunny - you cannot do any more than you have done and I am sure she will stop soon. My children have been on both sides of this type of behaviour over the years - most nurseries they have been at have had one or two children who were biting at any one time. It seems quite a common thing to me to be honest - at one point DD2 (18 months) would bite DD1 if she could get within snapping distance!

I am sure any rational parent of a young child who is bitten will understand (although of course no-one wants their child to get hurt!) and think "there but for the grace of god go I" - especially if you have shown concern and apologised on your child's behalf. Three year olds are very young - I think the "headmaster's" (she is in a school not a nursery?) reaction was a bit over the top tbh - any nursery worth its salt will have seen a lot of this type of behaviour and should be able to deal with it without sending the child home.

My youngest went through a phase of doing it at nursery and then again at school when he was 5. Like you I was mortified but it thankfully lasted a very short time on both occasions and he has never been and is not now an aggressive or badly behaved little boy.

Hi Bunny.
Although you are speaking with her about it at home, consequences so long after might not really connect with the issue for her IYSWIM. When I worked in a nursery, all efforts were focussed on prevention and dealing with this behaviour in the here and now. I think it's good that you are going in to observe her so that you and they can work out a strategy together by figuring out what she gets out of it in a cause/effect sense. I hope they are willing to put in place strategies to deal with it.

I also hope the nursery have not made you feel that it is your fault. It's hugely common and you are clearly doing all you can to address it when you are with her.