My 1 year old son was dismissed from nursery because of biting - is it fair?

[Carmen0139]

My son is 1 year old and he goes to nursery 5 days a week, he is a happy boy and did not have biting problem before. In the last 2 months, we noticed that he started to bite other people's face after he gives a kiss sometimes. And it caused 2 incidents at nursery(drawing blood). Btw, he has 8 teeth. We were notified by the nursery manager and are working with them together, i.e, give a firm NO whenever he bites, remove him from the person he has bitten and give him extra teething toys etc. The nursery also told us that they have put 1 to 1 monitoring for my son and keep a diary of the biting as well. However, after one month, they think they don't see any improvement from my son, and they do not want to continue supporting him. Last week, there is another incident at nursery( I am a bit shocked that why close monitor seems done nothing at all?). They decided to dismiss my son.

I can see they want to consider other child's safety, but I am very upset the fact that he is only 1, and he needs a bit of time to understand, but the nursery seems don't want to dealt with this. I felt this is really unfair.

Totally nuts in my opinion. Babies/toddler do bite and although distressing for all, it's not abnormal behaviour. They sounded like they were doing ok (monitoring, 1-1) up until the point they excluded him .

Your better off out of there, any nursery that cannot deal with this are not up to much if you ask me. If your DS was 4 years old and you were refusing to work with the nursery i can see that maybe as a last resort...but at one!

Please don't worry your child is perfectly normal and they are in the wrong! (I am a nursery manager by the way!)

Perhaps the LAs first team should have been bought in to discuss strategies going forward for both parents and nursery. Nurseries are supposed to be inclusive, nobody should be excluded for something so common as biting.

Thanks dribbleface & princesbold, I feel better after your posts. I am not going to send DS back to this nursery ever!

I know it's really seems really harsh, but sadly I think it is fair. My ds and 2 dds went to a nursery which also very occasionally excluded children for repeated biting. They have obviously tried to work with your ds and closely monitor him, but unfortunately it is just not realistic for one child to have continuous 1 to 1 over a long period. If I knew there was a biter in my child's class and that they drew blood (that is bad imo), and had done it on a few occasions then I would be annoyed, it is a safety issue, particularly if there is a chance he could bite another child's face.

I know children do it, and I'm sure he will grow out of it and he is too small to realise how naughty it is. You shouldn't take it as a criticism of either your ds or yourself, or that he is a disobedient child, it is just one of those things that children do. But I do not think that the nursery is being unreasonable, it's just that the only way that they can adequately safeguard the other children is by asking your ds to leave.

Naughty !?!

A good nursery is able to manage biting, without the need for exclusion and without any other children having to suffer.

Ridiculous, it sounds like you are doing just the right things. He will grow out of it - and it is not naughty. Good luck in finding another nursery who can deal with things in a better way!

Unreasonale of the nursery imo.

Biting is very common. If they are a good nursery they shpuld be able to deal with this and work alongside you.

Maybe you are better off out of it, you and your little one. Find a better nursery.

Be grateful, they don't seem to be able to look after small children or have any idea about behaviour and development.

I would also question their level of supervision if he has been able to deliver such a traumatic bite at such a young age.

Skip away and look for somewhere he is better suited to.

A persistent biter needs one on one care. Sometimes biters can go from playing happily alongside another child to biting in a fraction of a second. It would need a member of staff to be LITERALLY standing next to them when they're near other children.
In a room of 9 babies if one is a biter and needs 1-1 then it would leave the other 2 staff with 8 children on a ratio of 1:4. The other children suffer from low ratios. No 1-1 and the other children would suffer from bites and other customers could leave. 3 staff in the room plus an extra member of staff could be economically un-viable for the nursery. Asking the biter to leave isn't great, but compared with the other options I understand why the nursery would do it.

A similar thing happened to my DS. He got 'dismissed' by his cm for biting and hitting.

At the time I was very upset. However, 6 months on he has been with his new cm for a while now and doing well. He does have relapses but the cm deals with it effectively and he is improving. Honestly, I know it is upsetting, but you will look back on this and realise it was the best thing to happen.

The cm obviously wasn't the right one for my ds and I can see now he is much happier where he is now.

Good luck.

Tiggy - a good nursery should not be run on skeleton staff, whatt happens if someone is ill (staff member) or a child is ill and needs extra reassurance. We have floating staff to help out in these circumstances.

To be honest it sounds like a lack of supervision on the part of the nursery, and I'd take a lot of convincing that they'd rigidly stuck to the 1 on 1 care.

Them asking you to remove your son is a hard one to swallow, I'm sure I'd be upset, but in the long run, it's probably going to be better for you and your son

I feel much better after seeing all your posts, thanks a lot. We have found another nursery for my DS, and we will see how it goes.