DD being scratched at nursery, what to do??

[Flojo1979]

Hi, my dd has been attendin nursery for a while and I've always been happy with the care she has received. Recently she has come home with a scratch on her face, bleeding line across it etc. Nusery staff have told me she is not being targeted and have simply said there are a few 'scratchers' at the moment and they r trying to observe them and intervene before the event, I appreciate it must be difficult but she does 2 days per wk and has been badly scratched 4 times, once a wk for the past 4 weeks. The 4th being yesterday. I'm not sure whether i should be considering removing her from nursery, demanding the nursery do more, but what? or just accepting that thats the way it is and hopefully it'll stop soon.
Any advice much appreciated!

How old is she?

2.5yrs in a room with 2-3 yr olds.

Children scratch, that is a fact of life, unless you are really worried over her safety i would not move her. It is really hard to catch children just before they scratch/lash out at other children as it often happens in the blink of an eye.

If you do move her you may end up at nursery that has biters, will you move her again then?

I work with 2-3 year olds there are 12 in my room with 3 members of staff, lots of things slip by that we don't happen to notice, i imagine that they were able to stop alot of the scratches, and only missed one resulting in the sctratches you see.

Can the staff nicely ask that the parents trim a few nails?

That said, scratches always look worse than they really are.

na, i wouldnt demand anything or remove her tbh.

Its horrid BUT its all part of the social scene for little ones.
Keep an eye on it, if it happens again have a word with her key worker.

Fact of life really. At this age they are not bullies or maliscious i dont think.

I work with 2 -3 year olds and have one girl in particular who scratches and sometimes bites. We are monitoring her closely and have concerns that she may have SEN.
It is just one of those things that happen in a group care situation. It is impossible to watch every child every minute of the day.

My dd incurred 2 horrible scratches on her face in her first month of nursery - it's very distressing to turn up to take your child home and see their face scarred.

The nursery told me that they'd asked the child's parents to cut his/her nails and were trying to identifying triggers to his/her scratching behaviour eg being tired. After the second incident they said that they had decided to have someone close to him/her supporting him/her with his behaviour and learning more gentle touching.

That seemed to do the trick, as there were no more incidents. Tbh, I take all the points about scratching being a normal toddler behaviour and that staff can't notice everything going on, though do think that a bad scratch every other day that she is there is quite extreme.

I would ask to meet with the key worker and room leader, say this and ask for more details about what exactly they are doing to reduce the frequency of this behaviour in the room. It won't be popular, but I would suggest that additional staff may be necessary for a short period (while there are a few 'scratchers') in order to meet the health and safety needs of the children.