Nursery - Biting/SEN Referral

[NotYourOscarSpeech]

Had today what DH and I thought was a “normal” parent’s evening for DS who was 2 a couple of months ago. He’s been in his current nursery setting for around 6 months, and in another nursery before that which he started at around 7 months’ old (we moved house hence the change).

Nursery have informed us that they are concerned about his biting, to the extent that they want to refer to the local SEN behaviour specialist. They have pinpointed the “triggers”; mainly, DS being hungry and so angsty, but also him disliking other children being in his space and up too close to him. DS does occasionally bite/try to bite us at home, normally when tired or hungry.

Concerns are twofold. Firstly, I feel completely blindsided by this. They mentioned two or three times when he first started about biting, but it was always shrugged off eg saying well the other child put their hand in DS’s mouth. I also can’t remember the last time I signed a form but certainly it hasn’t been for a number of months. Secondly, and I’m happy to be proven wrong here; I just haven’t seen this behaviour as abnormal in any way? For a just turned two year old to bite in frustration doesn’t seem like an “SEN” to me, just normal behaviour when a child is lacking in words to express emotion.

DS is - and I know I’m biased - so clever in many ways, he can recite every word to the Gruffalo verbatim; lots of nursery rhymes, knows his numbers up to 20, alphabet and can find different words to go with each letter of the alphabet etc. He has only just started expressing feelings with words, such as asking for a drink or saying he’s tired but it is coming along.

I was a bit shell shocked so I signed the referral without really pushing back at all; it’s only after getting home and discussing with DH that I now feel a bit about it all. DH is absolutely furious and not really able to be rational, just sees criticism of DS as fundamentally out of line; they don’t understand how wonderful he is; not giving him the individual attention he deserves etc. I’m somewhat more circumspect than this! But would appreciate any advice/if anyone has had similar.

I do support the nursery and have had a very good relationship with them. I think they’re a good nursery and DS seems very happy and settled there. Again; I think this is why it has come as such a shock to us.

I don't think it's great communication from nursery that you were blindsided about this – biting is something you'd expect to be hearing about as an ongoing concern, so that part of it at least shouldn't have been a surprise. At the same time, concerns that a child may potentially have SEN is something they need to raise privately, not at the door where other parents may hear, but my feeling is that ideally they'd have expressed some concerns, discussed paying particular attention to certain aspects of his development earlier.

So that's less than ideal, but probably also not the main point (as unpleasant a surprise as it no doubt was!). I think what I would probably do if it were my wee one is let the shock subside, and then arrange a time to talk with them again to better understand what exactly their concerns are, and what both they and you can do to support him. Is it purely the biting itself (the frequency? the variety of reasons why? the duration of the phase?) or is it perhaps also about what gets him upset enough to bite? Is he unusually sensitive about other children being near him, for example? Experienced nursery staff do often have a good sense of what the range of 'typical development' looks like because they see so many children, so they can be well-placed to spot something being slightly off.

If you think it's a good nursery who have generally seemed to know your child as an individual, I would worry about it a lot but also let the SEN referral run its course. By all accounts, SEN help is difficult to get for a child who very much needs it –if your DS is simply having a rather intense version of a normal, if unfortunate, developmental stage, I would trust the process to see that. If there is something there, then obviously it's better to get support in place. And neither outcome changes who he is –he's still your fabulous, clever wee boy.

There is absolutely nothing negative that can come from this referral. Absolutely nothing to fear. If there is nothing to indicate SEN then the specialist will say that - but they may be able to give the nursery ideas on how to prevent it getting to the point where he is biting if it is just a biting stage (if the specialist is going into the nursery to observe).

We had someone from SEND observe our son - I was blindsided too - I don't think there's probably any way of avoiding that really - especially as he was nearly secondary school age at the time. But the lady was absolutely wonderful and had so much experience and was so helpful - my ds was later diagnosed with ASD and dyspraxia, he's very clever (predicted mostly 9's in his GCSE's) and I had always just put any behaviour down to his age.

Be glad the nursery are making the effort to find out what's going on and are trying to support your ds. My son's teacher couldn't really put her finger on what was 'different' with my ds it was just a hunch really and it may be the same with nursery - just a case of they see so many children and there's just something that stands out as a little different about your ds. They might be wrong, it might just be a stage, but there's no harm in letting this go ahead. I think ideally though ds should be observed at nursery and that the nursery are spoken to about their concerns by the specialist - is this what's going to happen?