Daughter is violent at nursery

[Fran1412]

Good evening all,

I'm posting here because I'm getting anxious and concerned about my child behaviour at the nursery. My daughter is turning 3 in 1 month and she started a new nursery in August. The nursery doesn't segregate kids so they are all together from babies to pre-schoolers and I thought it was a great idea so my daughter will learn how to be gentle and learn from those older than her. Everything seems to be fine until the past month where she keeps being involved in incidents ( biting kids and workers, pulling hair, pushing, scratching faces and even punching in the face her key worker). The nursery is unable to find what is triggering and it seems to be an erratic behaviour. Apparently out of the blue, without being provoked she will be attacking others. I know it sounds contradictory but she is very loving and likes to cuddle but she end up being aggressive afterwards so kids are scared to play with her. At home she is very sweet, never raise hands on me. She can be very impatient and will get frustrated when I say No to her. She will keep asking me the same question in loop I.e" mama cereal" despite me responding to her, she won't stop until I distract her with something or give her what she requested. She is my only child and I make sure not to spoil her and teach her good manners but she seems to be a totally different person at nursery and I don't know how to help. I feel like they are struggling with her behaviour and I'm worried she will be kicked out of nursery

If the hv recommends speech and language therapy for your daughter @Fran1412 it might be worth asking about languages spoken at home. The reason I suggest this is because (as you probably know) the general advice is to use the mother tongue at home , so French in your case and English at school/nursery. The advice may differ if there is delay in a child's speech though.

I don't think that poor speech is a big deal at this age in a child learning two languages. I've seen quite a lot of it.

Hi @Fran1412 thanks for replying! Being delayed with her language is less of a concern if learning two languages. I'd speak to Nursery and see how you can work together to have the same approach.
Sometimes distracting means the issue isn't addressed and they aren't learning to manage their feelings of disappointment or frustration.

What is the ratio of staff to babies/ children in the nursery?

I suggest there's no way staff can adequately supervise, let alone cater to the needs of a wide age range, and they're missing triggers or incidents that are causing your DD to hit/ pull hair, etc.

I'd honestly look for another nursery where there's a room for 3 year olds or a CM with a small number of children in her care.

Look got a quieter nursery

My only experience of something similar was when ds was in year 1 at primary...I was called in because he was in trouble for biting a girl in his class. Despite this being very out of character the teachers hadn't taken the trouble to even ask him what had happened...he was just branded "naughty" from then on.
When I spoke to him at home it transpired that the girl had got in his face and screamed and he had lashed out purely as a reaction to being overwhelmed. Fast forward 10 years and he was diagnosed with ADHD. I too have ADHD and ASD so can identify with his reaction. I get so frustrated seeing so many people jump to the ND conclusion at every bit of "bad" behaviour, but I agree with pp that this could indeed be an ND issue and it would be sensible to raise this with the nursery in this case.

By not letting her process negative emotions because you either end up giving her whatever she wants or distracting her, you haven’t taught her how to behave when displeased. She doesn’t know how to deal with frustration or having to accept someone else’s will.
Maybe the trigger is not evident because it happens in her mind. She sees a kid on a chair somewhere in a room and thinks “ that’s my chair” and will strike the kid who wasn’t even looking at her.
You need to stop accomodating her and distracting her. Tantrums are a key learning phase. You don’t throw yourself on the bakery floor when they are out of croissants because you know how to deal with disappointment. She doesn’t. Yet.
When she is unhappy about something, acknowledge the emotion instead of erasing it. Yes, that was a nice snack, but there isn’t more. tomorrow we will have it again.