Another child bit my baby in playgroup... Advice please!

[littletree]

I've finally gotten around to bringing my nearly one year old to a playgroup. It was all going swimmingly until the end when they brought out bikes and scooters for the little ones to push around/ride. My little guy was sitting on a horsey and a little boy who was 3 came along smiling and pinched my sons cheek rather hard. I took his hand away and said that wasn't nice and stroked my babys cheek and said 'gently'. The other boy then copied me and stroked my son. No harm done. About 15 minutes later he charged over to my son and I thought was nuzzling my son playfully. But then I noticed to my horror that his jaws were clamped on his shoulder in a bite. I was horrified and yanked my boy away. There was a general uproar and much sympathy from the other mums and the boy's mum finally came over and reprimanded him. I understand that this little boy is something of a bully and it was absolutely awful watching my baby get hurt like that. There is no violence in my home and I don't want him learning these things from other children. Help! Is this just a fact of life that I will have to accept? What should I do when this happens? Any advice and shared experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Strangerthanfiction, am I right in thinking that you only have the one child? Because I found that it was impossible to take two children out and supervise them both 1000%. THis is a physical imposibility. And mothers of two or more need to get out. What you are effectivly asking for is that the mother of a biting/pushing etc child is kept in isolation as that is the only way that you can ensure that they never bite or hit.

But Jimjams, you're not the sort of parent I'm referring to. You ARE there even if you don't get in in time to prevent an attack. The sort of parent I'm referring to is nowhere to be seen and doesn't give a fig what their child has done. There are also parents whose kids get bullied and they aren't there to give a fig what's happening to their child. This is what gets my goat.

And I know we've discussed this before but I don't agree with you that it's better to have the child who is attacked than the attacker. My dd is really upset by what's happened to her. I've also just posted a thread on this board about my dd becoming rather obsessed with things getting hurt and broken and is very wary of other kids. The effects of being hurt out of the blue by another child may really go deep, as deep as you think your child gets hurt by being told off.

Hmm, following this with interest. I have 1 child who is 27 months. He's loving, funny and boistoriuos (sp?) and can be known to lamp a child who dares to try and take his push along lawn mower, or shove kids out of the way to get on the slide first. This is not because I am a bad parent, nor because he is a bully. He is simply acting his age. I will not supervise him 100% at playgroup either, as it's in 3 different rooms and an outside play area in which ds happily runs in and out. I would have to follow him constantly to watch him 100%. This would mean no chatting to other Mums as I'd constantly be running out of the door.

IMO children of this age will bite, slap, push etc. My ds has been both the victim and the perpatrator. It happens, don't fret about it. I'll save my worries for when it's 6/7/8 year olds behaving like this, not toddlers.

I agree with Soupdragon's approach - it's fine to tell off other people's children if they don't do it themselves, and Soupdragon's recommendation of how to do it sounds great to me.

I think the suggestions of Suzy Wong and Chandra are very hardline and much more than is necessary to say to a young child . You only want the other child to learn after all, not to feel verbally terrorised and have nightmares about witches! It is true that your child will almost definitely bite others a few times later on down the line, and I am sure you wouldn't like anyone to tell him off in the manner suggested.

I think its the isolation that goes with it that's really hard hmb. My friend's little boy has been a biter/pusher etc since he was 2 years old (starting school on Sept). There is almost certainly something going on there (imo he definitely has sensory problems- VERY hypersensitive - was very aware of children even standing behind him- toe walks etc) and she has tried and tried. She's tried to get support from the pros, has read a lot, has tried to get proper assessments (and we all know how difficult those are to get) but in the end there were times when she just couldn't go out with him- and couldn't face it. Especially once her baby was born- as you say it is so much harder to supervise 2.

And ds1 is lightening fast and very strong. As I have just been explaining to social services (who rang me back - yeah- to say they had nothing for me and I'll have to continue with the assessment- and I;ll have to chase up their other section- oh what a soddiung surprise- boo and bastards- why can't they chase themselves up- anyway I digress) last time I took ds1 out to the shop he pulled me over (dropped in to the SS that I was pregnant for good effect ) and the time before he ran out of the shop and was at the edge of the road- I only caught up with him becuase he was turning round to laugh. He's may only be 5 but he's strong and fast If he decides to pinch there isn't much I can do about it-unless he has spent some time sizing someone up first (has a giveaway look). If it was only as easy as effective supervision.......

strangerthanfiction ds2- age 2- was bitten by his best friend last week when they were playing in the garden. Quite hard- didn't see it happen- but we did see the teeth marks. I can honestly say it didn't worry me one bit- whereas dealing with ds1 when he started pinching worried me greatly. Because it was everywhere, it was all the time, and I had no idea if it would stop.

STF (If I may abreviate) you say 'But not being around to supervise what damage a known biting child might do to a much younger and smaller child, in my opinion, does equal bad parenting.'

And I can honestly say that, especialy if you are talking about the parent of two children, this level of supervision is not feasable. Unless you think that I should have kept my son in isolation for a year and a half? It was as much as I could do to stay out in company without having to effectivly put him in 'restraints' when we were in company. And my life was hard enough as it was with him. (and ds is NT and now fine regarding biting)

BTW when ds2 was bitten last week he sat on my lap for 10 minutes once he'd stopped crying, and said he didn't want to play with his friend anymore. He had some tlc, and I managed to persuade him that playing with his friend was far more interesting than sitting on mummy's lap so off he went and they played happily together.

He's played with him at nursery since as well. And spoken to him on the phone. All forgotton.

I think the friend bit him to see what reaction it got (he had that look on his face)- and also because his 7 year old sister (ASD) is biting him a lot at the moment. I'd far rather have 10 minutes peace talking to my friend (a very rare occurence when you both have autistic children) than worry about whether or not her son was going to bite mine again (or mine bite hers come to that)- so we don't supervise them very closely. IN fact we both love the fact that we don't have to supervise them every minute of the day as we do have to supervise our autistic children that closely- for their own safety. We watch from a distance and marvel at the fact that NT children can be left to get on with it..... Even 2 and 3 year olds.

Not sure if that is off topic- but we seem to have moved onto the practicalities of supervision.

I have been on both ends of this with ds, he was bitten when younger and he's been the attacker more recently (not biting, but pushing over and smacking). I can honestly say it was (for me) much easier to be the mum of the victim. It does hurt to see your child get hurt, but it hurts a lot more to have other mums treat your child as the devil.

I was very vigilant when he was going through this phase, and I would never have minded another adult telling him off (sensibly!) or doing a bit of preventative 'don't you dare'. But I did get quite upset when one mum said loudly to their child 'stay away from that horrible horrible little boy' so that both ds and I could hear her (I was in the middle of telling off for pushing at the time, so I wasn't 'nowhere to be seen' by any means). It's just mean to say that about little kids, talk to the mother if you have a problem.

I think the other thing to remember is that an only-just-3 year old will find it difficult to see that a walking 1 year old who might not be much smaller than them as a baby who is younger than them. A couple of times ds got pushed by a toddling 1-1.5 year old and pushed back, and then genuinely didn't understand why he was in the wrong and in trouble.

Oddly enough Jimjams the last time ds bit anyone in nursery it was a little boy who has now been dx with ASD! When I appologised to his mother she laughed and said' But I was so relieved that it wasn't X who did it this time!' I was so relieved I could have hugged her!

I have to say I agree with Jimjams (again ) that I found it easier to deal with my kids being bitten, hit then when it was my DS doing the hitting. He went through a stage around 2ish where he would bite VERY occasionally.

On the other hand, all 3 of mine have been bitten, trodden on, pushed, shoved and hit during our years of Toddler Groups/playgroups.

If you have more than one child, it is nigh on impossible to provide 100% attention - it my case I had 3 under 4s and if I had been kept in "isolation" due to DS1s biting, then I would have gone bl*dy insane.

I probably won't be popular for this comment but from my experiences and mothers I knew of, it was the ones who only had the one child who condemned the "biter/hitter" - the others accepted the fact that these things happened.

I can remember myself when I had DD1 - my friend had 2 toddlers who I thought were VERY boisterous, aggressive etc and my little darling was never going to be like that! Obviously my little darling did become a toddler who wouldn't share, pushed kids out of the way etc etc

this is such an interesting thread
I agree that identifying the chld as the bad behaviour is wrong.
Behaviour can be bad but a 3 year old itself isn't bad, IYSWIM.

Slinky, are you me??????? Snap!

ROFL slinky. I remember watching older children with horror when ds1 was a baby- especially as he was the gentlest baby I'd ever seen (still is very gentle- apart from the pinching- which is done for weird autistic reasons- hmm what an interesting response and I can see your teeth and tonsils- rather than agression- still hurts though!). I was particularly wary of children with older brothers as they seemed especially rough. Poor old ds2 has been trodden on since he was in the womb. Maybe you becme more tolerant of other children when you watch your little darlings beating each other up regularly (I know I did). And also I think you do then realise that you can't always be in 2 places at once and so 100% supervision can't happen- and even if it does often cannot prevent an attack anyway.

God knows what ds3/dd will be like. This one has been stamped on my 2 kiddies since the moment of conception. Although ds2 did give it a kiss this morning.

LOL hmb! I sometimes read these threads and think that I'm related and separated at birth from some posters - our thinking is identical

Jimjams - just to reassure you re: No 3. DS1 was 22 months when she was born - he "loved" to rock her most enthusiastically in her bouncy chair, almost flinging her across the room on many occasions Another favourite was "swinging" her when she was in the door bouncer (this became an activity she did if he had a nap )

I'm surprised she survived with the other 2 around - also mustn't forget the time after I had been trying to encourage DS1 to "share" - he then decided to give 4 week old DD2 a Jelly Tot, making her choke!

Still she's now 4.5, and is the bossiest, strongest and feistiest of the 3

DS1 will be OK- the presence of a baby will take him totally by surprise and I suspect he'll be too shocked to do anything except ignore him/her. DS2 is the worry he does love to "help" and already tries to feed the cat all sorts of crap "cho-a bi bi por dat" so god knows what the baby will be fed. It should be gluten free for at least 2 years as well so not sure whether I'll manage that with ds2 around!

Glad to hear your dd2 survived

Don't worry Possyhairdresser, I wouldn't dare to do it, if you have seen my other behaviour threads you will notice that my threshold is quite high (Have had children punching my baby's face, thrashing my house -badly, I mean, we have sometimes considered removing the curtains of all the house to avoid somebody getting killed by using them as a swing-, and have had two kids punching, kicking and once almost asfixiating my little dogs).

It may be a phase, it maybe the parents were not paying attention or it may be that one of the children had some sort of problem. But whatever the reason, I never take it on the child (it's part of my culture never to correct another person's child but if the bad behaviour is persistant and is affecting us in any way, we just reduce contact with the parents to child free getoghers, etc. but just if the behaviour is really extreeme.

Ooops, forgot the smileys

Can I just set the record straight here on my take on things as I feel as though I keep getting misinterpreted. I don't think for a moment that hitting and biting is a parents fault, neither have I suggested that it's possible for a mum with 2 kids to supervise 100% But is it too much to ask that if a child hurts my child the mum shouldn't be anywhere in sight? Maybe it is and I should just let my dd get bashed around and not care in case I offend anyone. Or maybe it's me who should become isolated and not take her out anywhere anymore. Maybe she'll grow out of it but at the moment the hurt that's been caused to her has created some lasting problems as I've mentioned. 10 mins on my knee hasn't done any good. But I'm beginning to feel extremely isolated on this thread so am probably going to bow out gracefully. .

Ok, I am going to go away and shut up after this one but I'm finding myself so angry about some of the recent posts on this thread. Because, ok, some people don't want to / can't supervise their kids but as a result I have to supervise mine to make sure she doesn't get hurt. And while I'm trying hard to be understanding towards the mums whose kids do hurt other kids I don't get a sense there is any sympathy in return. Jimjams, I know you're up against it with your situation, I've followed a few of your threads and appreciated your responses to other people. I listen to what you say and adjust my opinions and you're clearly very sensitive to your own childs needs. But you don't show sympathy for what I'm saying about my dd. This has been a real problem and a worry for us and my only possible action has to be to not take dd to playgroups any more. So to be the victim of violence really isn't an easy position to be in.

I'm off my soapbox. I hope I haven't offended anyone.

I agree it is very upsetting when another child hurts your baby,but I always used to find it so embarrasing when my ds used to lash out at other children in toddler groups. And particularly when the other child's mother was angry or rude to us. Unfortunately not all of us are lucky enough to have perfectly behaved children,a lot of "bad" behaviour is just age related and they do grow out of it. I am definitely not the kind of mother who would condone violent behaviour,what I mean is, it is not always the mother's fault. You don't know ,it may be your child next year!

I would certainly say something to a child, such as "no thats not nice" if they bit my child.

None of my girls have ever bitten anyone outside of our house, they only did it to each other when they were young. We told them "no" very firmly in the first instance (which worked for dd1) and with dd2 I lightly bit her back as "no" didnt work with her. I disagree that this teaches them the wrong thing, it shows them how painful a bite is, and she never did it again after that. We did a similar thing with dd3 when she tried to bite her older sisters and she hasnt done it since either.

Sorry meant to add, as far as I am concerned, if you know your child is a biter or a hitter then you should be supervising them at all times.

that really is about the size of it as far as I am concerned too, 3 Girlsmum

Sorry to rub anyone the wrong way

And as Jimjams and I, and others , have said, unless you keep your child in segregation it is not possible to guarentee that they will not hit/push/bite. THere have been times when I have been right next to ds, and in a split second he has bitten (most often my dd). So even if you do monitor at all times (which I did) this would still not be enough.

I have always taken biting very seriously, making a great fuss of the victim and appologising to the parent. But I get the strongest feeling that wouldn't be enough for some posters on this thread, and they would prefer it that children like mine were excluded.

I repeat, if you don't have a biter yourself thank your good fortune. Dd was raised the same way as ds and she never bit anyone. You get what you are given.