Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Flip

Original poster

DS1 (Reception) had to go and see the headteacher yesterday :-(

18 replies

ceebeegeebies · 11/01/2011 12:41

He is only 4 (not even 4 and a half yet!!).

He bit one of his best friends and I know that it is completely unacceptable and needed punishing but his teacher told me she had never seen a child so distraught when he was being told off by the headteacher....and I just wanted to give him a big cuddle as he is still so young and my baby

He has never bitten anyone before so it is completely out of the blue (even the teacher admitted this)

He wouldn't talk about it last night - just kept saying 'don't know' or 'can't remember' so I don't know how much of what went on yesterday sunk in!

Any advice on how to handle it - I am dreading picking him up at the moment as this is the second time in 3 days the teacher has had to speak to us about his behaviour (the first time was an accumalation of silly minor behaviour which he is going through a phase of at the moment).

What do we need to do at home to correct his behaviour??

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

OffToNarnia · 11/01/2011 13:06

I sympathise. I think the can.t remember stuff is a protective defence as your ds probably doesn.t want to talk about it. My year 1 ds is very dramatically distraught when told off at school. I just hope he will grow out of it. As for correcting the behaviour.. difficult.. when my ds over excited all reasoning seems to go out of the window and he temporarily loses the abililty to think. However I try to talk to him when he is calm about learning from mistakes and the benefits of 'being good' etc..

SummerRain · 11/01/2011 13:25

I'm surprised the teacher sent him to the headteacher at 4 for biting someone

Common enough in that age group and i'd be concerned about a teacher with such low confidance she has to send every child who misbehaves to the principal.

He's 4... they do stupid things all the time and don't think things through, he's been punished far too much already, just leave himalone, don't emntion it again and give him a few extra cuddles to make up for the school's overreaction.

Original poster

ceebeegeebies · 11/01/2011 13:34

Thanks for the reassurance - my 'mothering' instinct was to just give him cuddles but didn't want to give him the message that it was ok to bite someone (according to the teacher, his friend goaded him into it - not justifying DS1's behaviour btw).

I think you have both hit the nail on the head about him just being unable to control himself - his favourite phrase when asked why he has done something stupid is 'my brain told me to'...because I actually do think that this is the case and he hasn't learnt to override the impulses.

No idea if school did overreact...I assumed it was standard practice for some issues to escalate them.

OP posts:

SantaObsession · 11/01/2011 14:23

Have a word with the teacher (without your DS there) and you'll get an idea of what has happened. Your DS obviously doesn't want to talk about it yet, when he does remember his version of events may not be completely accurate (even if he thinks it is).

Ask the teacher what you can do at home to help. It sounds like the visit to the HT has had a huge effect on your DS.

BarbarianMum · 11/01/2011 16:16

It is standard practice at our school for children to be sent to the Head if they deliberately hurt another child (biting, fighting, hitting etc). At the same time it is not a huge deal - quite a few reception kids end up there each week - just a way of emphasising that hurting other is just not on.

I'm sure being told off by the head will have a made a much bigger impression on him than if his teacher had done so - all for the good, he's less likely to do it again. And I don't think their is any harm in you cuddling him either - he made a mistake, has been told off and now its over.

hatsybatsy · 11/01/2011 16:54

sending straight to the headteacher for a first offence was rather harsh IMHO.

dd is also 4 and in reception. she went through a bad phase last term of being v nasty to one of her little friends (pushing, shoving, hitting)

her form teacher dealt with it very effectively. told her off sternly first time. second time told her off pretty fiercely (dd v good at rolling eyes like a teenaged but teacher did persist. dd cried her eyes out).

agree not nice that someone else has upset your child, but it was really effective.

all we did at home was to make her tell us what had happened (took some doing as she was as evasive as your ds) and then asking her how she would feel if she was the one being bullied and reiterate not acceptable.

she then had her soft toys confiscated and earned one back each day that there was no bad behaviour.

no more incidents since then so hopefully it has worked.....

allnightlong · 11/01/2011 17:16

Yes he does need puniching but sending a 4 year old to the head teacher is a bit draconian!
Why on earth couldn't the class teacher deal with it herself?

pinkgirlythoughts · 11/01/2011 18:34

Barbarianmum, I'm with you on this one. Standard practice at our school is to send children to the head for deliberately hurting another child, even if they are only four! A talking to seems to carry more weight coming from the Head rather than the normal class teacher, so is more likely to affect the child's future behaviour. Plus if the other child's parents come into school, it demonstrates that the situation was dealt with effectively.

mrz · 11/01/2011 18:53

as a teacher I once had a not quite four year old (on his visit before starting school) bite one of the children. The child who was bitten had to have an anti tetanus and a hepatitis vaccination and while I'm not suggesting that this is anywhere as serious a child's age doesn't prevent them from causing deliberate injury to others which needs to be addressed.

cat64 · 11/01/2011 18:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

ramonaquimby · 11/01/2011 19:00

biting isn't 'common enough' in 4 year olds at all!!!!

Lamorna · 11/01/2011 19:05

I don't think that biting is common and by 4 yrs he should know that it isn't. I think that because he was so upset he is unlikely to do it again, he got the message.
I would just be very matter of fact and say don't do it again if you don't want to go to the Head again, it is his choice.

mrz · 11/01/2011 19:59

In many years of teaching reception I've had very few "biters" so I agree it isn't common.

Effjay · 12/01/2011 20:57

My DS1 bit a child last term. When I talked to the teacher about it, I found out that he had been taunted and provoked by another child (who was threatening to destroy some play doh animals he'd spent the past 20mins making) and decided to fight back with a bite. This is the first time I've ever known him to bite anyone. He was put in 'time out' for 5 mins. The teacher gave us a very balanced view of this and told us that he is not a naughty boy, but it should be made clear that this is unacceptable, which she did. I thought she handled it very well. He's not done it since.

As you can see, context is very important - so you must talk to the teacher to get the full story, if you haven't already.

Original poster

ceebeegeebies · 13/01/2011 08:26

Effjay thanks for that. I have found out the full story which was that DS1 and his friend were each trying to get through a door, there was some jostling (as 4 year olds would do) and DS1 said 'if you don't move I'll bite you' (which he does say occasionallybut doesn't actually mean iyswim) and then his friend said 'go on then, bite me' and promptly offered him his arm which DS1 then bit! He has been really close to this boy since he was about 1 as they have been at nursery together and I think DS1 was upset about upsetting his friend iyswim aswell. Hopefully he will have learnt his lesson!

So bit of both at fault, although clearly what DS1 did was unacceptable. He appears not to have been in any more trouble since but this afternoon is the first afternoon I will have been at the school gates since (he has been in after-school club the last couple of days) and I will be dreading the teacher heading over to us yet again!!

OP posts:

Bucharest · 13/01/2011 08:33

Hopefully he won't do it again now he's been sent to the head.
Whilst I sympathise that it must have been a shock for your son, I'm guessing the mother of the child who was bitten isn't exactly rejoicing either.
I think some children seem to be habitual biters (0bviously not your son, as you say this has never happened before) my cousin's little girl who is just over 2 is chomping at other people continually and my cousin is at his wits end.
Hopefully with your son it will end here.

BreconBeBuggered · 13/01/2011 10:20

I've been there too, OP, and it's mortifying. DS2 had a fortnight of madness during his first term in Reception and seemed to be in trouble every other day. One morning he bit another boy in his class. The child's mother had to take him to the GP for a tetanus injection and it was the talk of the playground by picking-up time. I'm sure you can guess the general tone and verdict: he 'should have grown out of that by now', 'I blame the parents', etc. They didn't know it was my child at the time. He hadn't been a biter as a toddler at all, so there wasn't a question of teaching him not to do it.

I apologised to the poor child's mother afterwards, to try and diffuse any bad feeling, and DS didn't re-offend. I also made sure school staff knew what sanctions would be applied at home in the event of further misbehaviour. He's been fine ever since. But for a while there I thought I had a child delinquent on my hands.

geraldinetheluckygoat · 13/01/2011 13:12

DS1 was bitten in his first term in Reception, by one of his friends. The reception class was much less nurturing and very different to the nursery class that they had mostly all come from (not saying this is the case in every school, but it was in this one). He left a nasty bruise but didn't break the skin. This little boy wasn't a biter and usually lovely, but he just got carried away in a game they were playing - he was being a baddie.

To be honest, I wasn't that horrified, kids do drastic things sometimes when they feel out of their depth. While it is unusual for a child of four to bite, it obviously isn't unheard of as several people here have experienced it. Don't worry, it will be a one off and probably down to the transition stress of starting school

Flip