Casual remark at nursery has me worried about DS

[Oceanwarmedbythesun]

DS turned two in December and he does struggle with social situations. He will sometimes push and bite. Nursery tell me when this happens as they should, and they commented that he isn’t very verbal. I thought he was about average and now I’m worried.

He has a lot of words - well over a hundred, but he isn’t asking questions or using sentences much, I do know some of his friends are saying quite complex things like over there mummy and so on.

I am just wondering if it’s anything to be concerned about?

@ChilliBandit ahh, I wasn’t sure if it was the same or not 😊 thanks!

@1AngelicFruitCake there is very little I can realistically do about it at this age though. It always happens at nursery, and at this age I can’t really have a firm word with him as he wouldn’t even remember. I have been trying to ‘solve’ it since it started.

I am in England but it’s all very slow here.

@Username24680 - I am surprised as I thought this whole standardisation down to this age was brought in by Gove, so I thought Scotland might have escaped it!!

@ChilliBandit Nope, definitely didn’t escape it! Although going by MN, I seem to be one of the few who has an absolute angel of a HV who is extremely realistic and reassuring about children’s development instead of following these things to the letter 😬

Sounds like he's doing OK.
If you are still with your old GP, I would consider moving. If he DOES need referrals (not saying he does) then you would normally need to be registered with local GP. It would just be another delay later on if you needed to change GP first.

My son was/is delayed with his speech and I so wish someone at nursery had made a comment to me about it. Before I realised he was delayed and then found out how to get help so much time had already passed.

You are able to self-refer to your local NHS speech and language therapy department. I would advise doing this as soon as you can even if you think you aren't sure if you need it. The waitlist where I am is 7 months to be seen, my friend lives in a part of Birmingham and for her it's 2 years. It's better to be on the waitlist and then take yourself off if you don't need it anymore.

Im not trying to be critical, just feel sorry for the poor children being bitten. I’d be asking how Nursery respond to his biting. It depends how aware he is but I’d do some play with teddies maybe pretend a Teddy bites you and you cry and say ‘ow!’ That hurt. We don’t bite!

It all comes with understanding, language and self control, two year olds aren’t famed for that

What are you talking about @Oceanwarmedbythesun ? my 2 yr old was being perfectly reasonable when he had a meltdown because he couldn’t have real giraffe earlier 😉 I couldn’t fault his “it’s big” argument either!

I’ll caveat all all this now as purely anecdotal,. But I work in Early Childhood Education. Not uk. And we are fighting that our room of 2 year olds this year are showing a lot more erratic behaviours, poor language skills generally more emotional than we have been used to. Language in particular is well below what we have experienced in previous years. Covid is probably to blame. We are working hard to support the children in all areas but it’s hard slog. I would stay alert but relax a little. Remember that a big chunk of their language development has bees been done behind masks.

They’re not but a 2 year old can understand on a basic level that something hurts. Ofcourse you can’t refer back to something and expect them to remember but I’d still be saying ‘(Whilst you’re still there) Did you bite the little girl? (Point to the girl) we don’t bite! Poor x (over the top facial expressions and tone of voice). Then when you turn up and get told he hasn’t bitten say in front of the nursery worker ‘Wow! Well done! You’ve had a great day! No biting’ or similar. Let your child see you talking to the nursery worker.

I think we can be too quick to have low expectations of a 2 year old when they can have basic understanding, especially if you keep working on it. I teach Nursery in a school and the amount of just turned 3 year olds who come to us that have clearly never been spoken to properly is high. They look bewildered when we talk to them properly.

@1AngelicFruitCake seriously [shocked] you work in a nursery?

the nursery workers never let me know which child it is for starters. DS does full days, if I collect him at 4 and start pointing and being all dramatic about something that happened at 10, do you honestly think that will help him regulate his emotions?

If nursery have raised concerns about is language and behaviour socially I would be pushing it. My DS is autistic and as soon as he started nursery at 2 it was obvious very quickly he wasn't where the other children were. Prior to this he was at a childminder who had no concerns. It sounds like your DS is standing out a little and not developing on the same trajectory as the others in his room. He may well catch up but no harm in starting the ball rolling. Ask to see the nursery SENCO and get them to refer him for some speech and language support. Or request to see a HV and do the 2 year check with them. Either of those will flag up the support he potentially needs. Wait times are huge, even for speech and language. So best case scenario is in 6 months he's caught up and you won't need the appointment. Between 2 and 3 is when it became very very clear my son was ND.

@Justbecause19 - I haven’t had any concerns raised to me in a formal or even informal sense. If I had, that would be different but as it is it was just a pretty casual comment at the end of the day as I picked DS up.

Biting episodes are infrequent now and have been since about 20 months. I always ask if the other child is OK, and I think on this occasion I said something like ‘was it over a toy?’ and his nursery worker said yes … DS isn’t very verbal yet, is he, it’s always when they aren’t very verbal. That made me wonder if he was behind, as I’d thought he was developing on a reasonably normal trajectory.

He has been under the weather this week and that’s led to some bad nights / early wakeups as well. Shaming him for something he probably won’t even remember really isn’t effective.

I think having reflected, the most important skill in many ways is communication. This takes many forms, but spoken language is a huge part of it. But it isn’t something you can force. DS hasn’t been surrounded by masks since birth, he’s been sang to, read books to, shown things, engaged with. But like other skills such as walking, jumping, colouring, there’s a natural sort of timeline for them meeting these and if they aren’t there, they aren’t there.

I think sometimes nursery's can feel a little bit worried about raising developmental concerns with parents. I was very open when my son started about my concerns with his lack of speech and asked them to be honest with me. My SENCO said it can be difficult to raise these concerns with some parents when they aren't sure if they are seeing the same things. So potentially the causal comment was a way of raising it with you? My son has never bitten so I wouldn't worry about that behaviour as being a 'red flag'. Also no issues with lights or sounds etc, at 2 1/4 all that was concerning was his delayed speech and communication.

Biting is pretty normal - not all kids do it but many do. It’s a sign if frustration. Nursery should be watching for the signs and then intervening before the bite happens.
Have you had his hearing tested - for glue ear? That’s the first step for any speech issues. It can come and go - can be related to colds and ear infections. Grommets are the solution. Best to get them done as soon as possible. I let NHS fob me off with my son. He didn’t have them until he was at school. In retrospect it should have been earlier.
You can request a referral to speech and language therapist- SALT. Or pay do go private. They can help you to find out more.
It highly likely all will be well but it’s definitely worth getting the ball rolling. It’s really good he is a happy lad. Don’t worry too much about the biting - it’s super common.

OP he sounds fine, speech comes at different times. It’s not absent and he sounds within the normal limits. My eldest had a speech delay and he only had 35 words when he turned 2. By 3 he caught up and was ahead of some of his peers. Yes it can be a red flag but like many things it can also just be a “thing” and nothing you’ve said suggests it’s more than that.

Once their speech improves their behaviour does too - they can communicate with words and not just bites etc.

He’s had his hearing tested as he did have some problems with a perforated ear drum. It is often when this had perforated that’s there is a biting episode so they are linked in a way but his hearing is fine.

I think it is possibly more sensible to wait given he isn’t actually behind other than not yet using three/four word sentences. But if he still isn’t in a few months we can look into that.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but you seem quite (rudely) dismissive of Angelic's advice but I think it's reasonable. Kids do listen and at 2y they do have recall of events earlier in the day. They're listening comprehension far outstrips their speaking at this age, so they might not reply meaningfully but they do take things in.

It doesn't have to be a telling-off. But you do ought to be having conversations with your DS about not hurting people. I would have assumed you were already doing this until this dismissive response.

*their (multiple typos sorry!)

You also don't need to point and talk loudly and "dramatically" as you describe it. I agree with @1AngelicFruitCake , you can talk to your child in an ordinary way, and this is the best way to teach ordinary speech, and some parents don't seem to know this!

Sorry I don’t think biting and not talking in small sentences by 2 isn’t normal and I’m surprised the nursery hasn’t ejected him if he’s biting every day. If my DCs were getting bitten at nursery every day, I’d complain.

Sorry, garbled post. I don’t think biting is normal. I don’t think not talking in small sentences at 2 is normal. I would complain to the nursery if your DS was biting my child every day. I find it quite shocking that you don’t think you can address this with him!

I certainly wasn’t trying to be rude, I was genuinely a bit taken aback that anyone would think it was good advice to point a child out (even if I knew who it was!) and to start a discussion about the harm that’s been done to them.

There absolutely comes a time when a firm conversation about behaviour is appropriate but aged two is unlikely to have any effect at all. And to do so in a public place, in full hearing of other parents and children, is not IMO appropriate at any age.

@ItsCalledAConversation well, nursery say it’s normal and lots of literature out there says it is normal. Not intended argumentatively but I don’t think you’ve read very closely, as a) it isn’t happening every day, I’d say once a month since September time perhaps, and b) he is talking in sentences, just not very complex ones.

Biting is definitely normal at this age, absolutely needs to be curbed and discouraged but it subnormal behaviour.