So I posted yesterdat that my 15 month old got bitten on the face at daycare. First of all the good news is that she was fine afterward, the bite didn't break the skin and only left a small bump which is rapidly disappearing.
But when i went in thus morning and asked more details i didn't love the response i got. One if the teachers was very concerned but they didn't want to tell me which child bit her. Is that normal? I want to know because what if the same person bites again? I was also concerned because another boy there got bitten on his arm a week or two ago, so i asked if it was the same person that bit the other boy and they said yes... I also asked if they hag indeed his parents and they said yes. One if the teachers said it's not a big thing that's just what some kids do. Then she says my daughter does it too. So for clarification i asked has my daughter bitten someone before and says well no but they all snap at each other sometimes. I don't understand why she is trying to say they all do it when so far only one boy has bitten three people
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@Mrsbells: I think it IS normal that they can not tell you who the actual offender was. I don't like that they try to say your child does it too but when you asked for clarification then it's well no, she didn't bite anyone...
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I'd go to the director at this point to see what they are doing about the situation. If there is a known biter in the class he needs to be shadowed until they can correct the behaviour.
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@Mrsbells: biting. Ahhh. Our daycare has a policy to not tell the parents which kid bit. Of course they can't stop the kids from telling once they can talk. But I understand the policy because what good would it do to know which kid did the biting? They're right, most kids go through the biting phase... you can't do anything about it as the biter's parent since you're not there when it's happening. And you can't do anything about it as the bitee's parent because it's not up to you what to do about the biter. It's totally up to the daycare to handle the situation. If the same kid has bitten three other kids, I would expect the daycare to do something about it at that point. When there are problem biters at our daycare they usually switch rooms (to the older class) and it has solved the problem in the two cases I've heard of (anecdotally from their parents). If you are concerned and need to talk to someone about what is being done about the biting, I would go to the director. When biting was happening around Wagon Jr. the director actually approached us and asked if we wanted to talk about it (since she knew we were first time parents) and sat with us and answered all of our questions.
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When DD was in daycare she was bitten and bit other kids. With each event, we would receive a written report/form that explained what was going on when it happened including how many children/adults were in the class at the time, where the bit was located and first aid administered. The child who did the biting also got a report. Our daycare was also not permitted to release the name of the other child. When I would ask about whether biting was normal I would get the same sort of answer regarding it is a developmental milestone most kids do it at some point, etc. If biting became frequent in the classroom, the teachers and administration would look at the situations in which it was occurring and make changes. Twice, biting frequency increased in DD's classroom upon closer look it was related to transitioning from one activity to another so they added a teacher during this time and that helped alleviate the problem. At one time it was DD doing the biting and turned out she was bored and ready to move up to the next class.
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Most day cares have a policy to not tell who the biter is. Biting is apparently normal toddler behavior but they should have processes in place to deal with the biter.
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@Mrsbells: our daycare has the same policy - they wouldn't tell me which kid scratched my daughter in the face. i understood it like @mrs. wagon: explained. our daycare did talk to the other parent about the issue.
i also tried to see it from the other perspective... if i had been the parent whose kid was doing the hitting/biting i would probably appreciate the anonymity and feel terrible that my kid did that to someone else!
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@Mrs. High Heels: @Mrsbells: yes... once, when we were on the other end of the perspective (Wagon Jr. being the perpetrator), the girl he injured told her parents who it was. They (first time parents and new to the daycare) hunted me down by my email address from a class list, contacted me, demanded to speak with us by phone, and asked us what we were doing to remedy the situation. It was a horrible experience. What do you say in that case? We were already talking to Wagon Jr. for like an hour every night about not hurting friends or any people and using our words instead. It was so awful. I did not know what to say to those parents. Wagon Sr. and the dad of the girl ended up talking and having good communication. I couldn't even speak to them. They demanded a follow-up conversation as well, to monitor our progress, I suppose. When we told the daycare what happened they were mortified and couldn't stop apologizing that the parents were doing this to us. Ugh. It's awful no matter what side you're on :T
Being on that side of it made me a lot less angry when Wagon Jr. comes home with injuries from his friends!!
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@mrs. wagon: Wow.
@Mrsbells: They are not allowed to tell you which child bit your child. But I'm not sure what good it would do to know the child that bit your LO, unless you plan on approaching the parents. You should talk to the daycare about plans to remedy the situation, ex: shadowing, etc.
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@mrs. wagon: what the... can't believe that happened to you...!! that's awful.
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I worked at a daycare for several years (a 2 yr old class) and the biting is usually a phase that a lot of toddlers go through. We weren't allowed to tell the parent which kid it was either. We definitely did talk to the parent of the biting kid to let them know..if we knew who did the biting.
Most of the time, it's also hard to pinpoint exactly who bit who unless you see it happening. The children usually play in groups and are all over the place that it's kind of hard to know who did the biting.
This little girl got bit in our class and she told her mom it was a boy. We only had 3 boys in the class and two happened to be absent that day. We were sure it was this boy and talked to his mom about his behavior. She was shocked because he has an siblings at home and he's never showed any signs of biting. Anyways, long story short, the bitten girl had mistaken another girl with shorter hair as a boy and we as teachers had accused the boy for no reason.
As parents, its understandable to be upset about scratching and biting but I know that most kids don't do it on purpose and that it's just a phase (especially 2 yr olds)
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@Mrsbells: I'm so glad your daughter is alright! Like others have said, not naming the biter is standard policy. Every place I have worked with children (daycare, preschool, public school, charter school, etc) has had privacy policies preventing us from sharing that information with parents.
Maybe the teacher misspoke about every toddler "biting". Perhaps she meant that all toddlers "mouth" each other, like puppies do with people: open mouth on bodies, but no force applied? I've seen many a small child do that and I wouldn't write up a report, since no injuries occur (I also wouldn't call it biting though...)
You should definitely ask the teachers/daycare what their plan is for the multiple incident biter. Your concern is warranted & they should have a plan in place - 3 incidents is a pattern! -
Well, what are you planning to do with the information, if you know who the biter is? Confront the parents? That just seems like a recipe for disaster. Imagine how you would feel if your daughter bit someone and you got confronted in the parking lot?
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Yes, yes, yes. To echo the other posters, we have been on both ends of this (bitten and biter). We had the most success when speaking to the director and sometimes really pushing the issue. Transitions were also the issue in our situation. They added another staff member and seperated the biters from the rest of the group at times.
We also found that our daughter seemed to bite out of boredom and even though she's now the youngest in her class we pushed to have her moved up to keep her stimulated and engaged.
Lastly, we learned that our daughter was a repeat target because she has a tiny personal space bubble. She's comfortable being very close to her classmates and they don't know how to tell her to back off so she was getting bitten repeatedly. Unfortunately she's just too friendly.
She hasn't been bit in about 3 weeks now (but we have over 20 documented incidents in about 7 months time), but still today she can tell us where her last bite was and who did it. Her communication is much better and she will now be able to tell us more about what happened.
@Mrs. Wagon - what a horrible experience.
We were never told who was involved in the biting but I did ask if they could tell me if it was consistently the same child and if our child was the only target. That's how we learned additional information about what they were seeing in the classroom.
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@mrs. wagon: This is definitely one of the reasons I understand why they can't tell you what kid did it.
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Thanks so much all of you! Your comments have made me feel much better. I didn't realize it was standard policy not to tell who bit her , but that sounds fair. I will pray that the biting kid stops biting asap. I also hope my daughter doesn't bite anyone either.
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@Mrsbells: I posted a thread with specific questions about the incident that I asked for in writing. I only got to this level when it had become a chronic issue.
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/biting-at-daycare
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/biting-in-daycare-how-much-is-too-much
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@mrs. wagon: Oh my gosh, that sounds awful!! I don't blame you for not wanting to face them. I'm not sure what I would do in that situation.
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I don't know if this makes you feel better or not, but at least your daycare noticed it. DD came home one time with two bite marks on her, on the back of her arms, one was a bruise and the other had a scab. Her daycare didn't even KNOW IT HAD HAPPENED! I went in the next morning expecting to hear what happened, and they DIDN'T EVEN KNOW! I was livid. She would have been switched out immediately but I was expecting my son within a month so we just waited until he was born and then I ended up becoming a SAHM. So, at least your daycare noticed! (I mean, come on, a scab, she must have been SCREAMING and no one thought to investigate why?!?! I was livid)
I'm glad your LO is doing well, and we never found out who bit our daughter either. (though a teacher did tell me she had a suspicion about who, but I think they were trying to make me feel better)
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@MamaBehr: Sometimes bites happen fast. LO came home with a bite mark on his hand today (the bite broke the skin). I asked how it happened and they looked at me shocked and when I showed them the bite mark clear as day, they said "oh, well he didn't see upset by the bite."
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@T.H.O.U.: Thanks for those links!
@MamaBehr: Wow yeah that would definitely be worse
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@MamaBehr: This probably didn't happen in your case, but this happened to my DS recently as well, where he had bite marks twice in one week and there was no one who could explain what happened. One was even scabbed. They said he didn't make a fuss or anything and the Director was apologetic and said they would get to the bottom of it. After watching him for two days, they said they caught him biting himself on multiple occasions. And they showed me a fresh bite mark that they saw him giving himself! It was a bad bite and bruised! I'll never know if those previous bites were done by another biter or himself, but I guess my point is that little kids are really unpredictable.
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@T-Mom: Haha thats funny! I hope he stopped biting himself now
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@Mrsbells: we were so embarrassed!! I'm thinking he learned from another biter in the class and decided to see what it felt like.
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@T-Mom: Children are so unpredictable and have such funny and silly logic
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I read this article yesterday and it made me think of this thread! http://www.today.com/moms/beware-kid-parent-daycare-spat-goes-public-online-6C10687339
Some people are CRAY CRAY!
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@HabesBabe: OMG, I saw that article too!! Crazy.. Calling a 2 year old that bites a "dog." Ridiculous
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