Acceptable to say no stories tonight as a consequence?

[incidenttoday]

We had quite a serious incident at a party today where my six year old son bit two other children so severely it broke the skin and bruised. We left immediately (soft play party) and he has lost his TV time tonight.

I am still pretty angry and in all honesty don’t want him near me, as awful as that sounds and I’m considering just putting him to bed with his Yoto (undecided as to whether to remove that too.) Any thoughts would be appreciated as I understand I’m reacting very emotionally.

Did he/can he say why?

I think telling him to write an apology to the children he bit would be a better option.
So doing that instead of tv time is fitting.
I would not forgo the story though if it’s something you do every night

No I don’t think it’s reasonable. This is your emotional response rather than a logical response.

Is this an isolated incident? At that age, biting two children that hard would be very surprising to me, he isn’t a toddler. I would be focusing less on being punitive and working out what the heck is going on because that’s extreme behaviour and the kind of behaviour I think where taking stuff away isn’t really going to make any difference.

No, you can't send a 6 year old to bed when you are both angry. A story will calm him down and story time is good for his emotional regulation as well as literacy.

You need to sort out the biting though as six is far too old to be doing this. But that's something to think about tomorrow.

No, not appropriate. That consequence is too remote from the biting.

You need to forgive him and end the day in his usual comforting way.

Why he bit the children? No, frustratingly. I did try to get to the bottom of it but the response made no sense and included a fairly blatant lie so I left it.

@TrunkElliot we don’t know them, it was a soft play party but also open to the public (if that makes sense) and he wouldn’t be able to manage a proper letter of apology yet.

@moppety i am shocked. I would say both yes and no. It isn’t what I’d call frequent although altercations are fairly common but biting is rare. Not unheard of though. I think the last biting incident was February half term if memory serves me correctly. It is very difficult to know what to do: I am planning on making a GP appointment to discuss him but have to admit I’m not enormously hopeful.

Bedtime should be a safe calm way to end the day, so yes it would be totally unreasonable. And ‘don’t want him near me’ is pretty crap coming from his own mum, he’s a kid, they make mistakes. Be mad and parent him absolutely, but no need to drag it out like that.

He's already been punished. I also wouldn't use story time as a punishment, use it as time to reconnect.

Writing an apology letter when he'd normally have TV time is a good idea too.

I think removing stories at bedtime is a bit harsh. You’ve already left the party and taken away TV. Do they really need to be punished 3 times?

If you don’t want to read to them, is there another adult who can do this?

You do sound very upset by the incident. Do you know what lead up to them biting? How do they cope with parties normally?

Thank you @FKAT , it is a good point we need to end the day on a ‘high’

@ExplodingSmittens i an upset, I can’t pretend I’m not. I was shocked at the incident: one of the girls he bit had the most horrendous deep bruise where he’d gone for her and as much as I can tell it seemed unprovoked (of course it wouldn’t have been acceptable if provoked!)

I would keep stories and bedtime routine but i would remove all tv for another couple of days.

You removed him from the party and withdrew TV time as a consequence for biting.

Perhaps storyline would also be an opportunity to chat about the day. What was happening before the bites. Can he explain why he did it? Explain to him that if he bites it hurts other, they won't want to play with him and he will have to leave the party, playsate, park etc if he does it.

YABU to distance yourself from him and not read a story hours sfter the evrnt.

Personally I wouldn’t cause a fuss at bedtime because if he’s anything like my DS it would cause a huge tantrum and that’s really not what you want at bedtime.
I think the bedtime story is more in the unconditional love category than a treat to be removed.

Thanks @NorthFacingGardener that’s my instinct now I’ve calmed down a bit. Thank you for putting that so nicely, and thanks for all the responses, I’m glad the consensus is to read to / with him.

I wonder if soft play parties are just too stimulating and chaotic for him and he is getting overwhelmed / over excited?

(agree with the others, still do a story).

Why he bit the children? No, frustratingly. I did try to get to the bottom of it but the response made no sense and included a fairly blatant lie so I left it.

You need to revisit this tomorrow. He is lying because he is afraid of your disapproval and punishments. It's normal to lie at his age. It's not normal to bite, so you do need to tell him tomorrow that you are no longer cross and there will be no more punishments but you need to talk about why he bit and why it must never happen again.

He probably genuinely doesn't know why or doesn't know the words to explain his emotions. He might have been angry, frustrated, over excited, playing, etc. If can identify what prompted the bite then discuss a better choice, if he can't then just talk about biting hurting people as much as hitting and kicking and we do not do that.

At six he shouldn't be biting and this needs looking at.
But he also shouldn't be going to bed feeling unloved.
There's a lot to be said for a summary bollocking and then moving on.

I believe that no negativity or punishment should be used at bedtime. Bedtime should be a safe and secure time for a child no matter what else has happened during the day.

He was provoked by something even if you couldn’t see it. Overwhelmed, over stimulated - there is something and if tomorrow he is unwell that’s an easy cause. You were right to leave - an immediate punishment. Now you end the day calmly and you revisit behaviour stuff another day. I mean this nicely but you are over reacting and being emotional while judging your son for doing the same! I get it but it does help put it in perspective. This isn’t the start of thuggery - said as someone whose boy bit the nose (ffs) of the cutest little girl ever.

My dd used to draw pictures after the event when she got angry or anxious or over emotional. Those often went a long way in explaining why things happened, when she didn’t have the language to explain it.

If you are planning to go to the GP with him it sounds like this is part of wider behaviour. Which, if is the case, I wouldn’t continue punishing him.

Hope you get to the bottom of it OP, sounds very stressful. Is he 6 going into year 2 or a very young year 3? Any big life changes or siblings or anything like that?

Read him a story yourself rather than using the Yoto. You need to strengthen your connection with him to help deal with this behaviour.

@WallaceinAnderland i don’t think that he knows himself. I am fairly sure I’m not going to get to the bottom of it and in all honesty he does need to know that biting is a NO.

He’ll definitely be getting lots of reading time tonight, no fear.

It’s what ChatGPT suggested it’s really hard to say whether it’s normal or not.

So in his defence I will say on many occasions he’s fine, friendly and gregarious and seems to get on well with other similarly aged children. He had a great group of friends in nursery and is still happy to see them if we see them out and about at parks or soft play (not that I’m planning soft play for a while 😱) and he’s got friends at school although he has been drawn to a small group of boys with some behavioural problems and that does really worry me. There’s another group of boys in the class who are well behaved and he’s kind of on the periphery of that group too but gravitates back to the boys who misbehave every time.

Soft play is a problem: he last bit in February I think but regularly gets into arguments and altercations.