Biting at daycare - your thoughts...

Ohhh I have lots of thoughts on this.

Nyah was the victim of a serial biter. He bit her on the arm and on the cheek.

I became the irrational mother unfortunately and demanded that he be suspended from daycare until they could sort the problem out. I took photos and emailed them to the owners and demanded action.

Their solution? They moved MY daughter out of the baby/toddler section and moved her to the pre school, 6mths early. I wanted to move her permanently out of the centre but there was no spaces available anywhere in our area.

I never received an apology from the parents or the centre for the distress caused.

Don't take this sitting down, demand action. They need to have a conference with the offenders parents and work together for a solution.

GeorgiaB wrote: I am not one of these parents who is going to get all up in arms about it and threaten to remove my child and all that, but I am sure there is something we can do to help them deal with this - I want my baby to come home bite free!!!!

Haha I'm a 'up in arms' Mum Once I could forgive but when its happening constantly I think you really need to take some action. Maybe book a time to meet with the 'boss' and sit down with her so you know what actions are in place to combat it and they know that you are seriously concerned.

When my Charlotte was being picked on in her class I had a meeting with the head teacher and after that it dropped dramatically. I think sometimes if you're the 'up in arms' Mum then they keep and extra eye on your kid so they don't have to put up with Mum coming in moaning every other day!

My DD was bitten a while back at creche (on her first day!) and the carers talked to me about it and filled in the incident report etc. They clearly explained that the kid who bit her had been doing it to other kids and their procedure was to follow him very closely and prevent it from happening, and when it did happen to first deal with the hurt kid (cuddles etc.) and then try to deal with him. It stopped soon after. It sounds very unfortunate that there are three biters at Charlotte's day care, that must make it hard for them to shadow the culprits. I think you are probably right, that because this is happening often and there are three of them, more staff need to be dedicated to solving the problem - they have an obligation to minimise these things and protect all the children in their care.

When DD was bitten, I had some interesting feedback on this board I think...a few people whose kids were the biters gave some useful insights. The parents of these kids are probably really embarrassed and trying their best too, so I agree with you that getting up in arms probably won't help in the long run (and you never know, you might be on the other side of this one day for a little while). I think you've got the right approach, asking for more supervision and expressing your dissatisfaction at the level of care so far. You need to protect your daughter first and foremost! Good luck with the phone call tonight.

My Mercedes is a biter and I am yet to figure out an effective way of dealing with it, so I hope your daycare can come up with something Georgia, and if they do, please share! Sienna is sick of being the chew toy!

I'll read this later but I have to say as the parent of a biter that it is REALLY hard to deal with and it is super unfortunate that there are 3 biters at once.

I also get really upset about the 'up in arms' parents as most of the time there is NOTHING (well, nothing more) that the parent of the child can do! (and it just creates extra guilt and distress when there is already a lot of that) While it isn't acceptable that the child is biting, usually it is caused by something else such as the lack of ability to communicate etc - which is what I was working on with Hannah but generally it just takes time.

Anyway, will be back to comment later! (or tomorrow)

Just had to add in the meantime

I do think it is the centre's responsibility to take you through what they are doing to prevent the biting etc and to make an extra effort to deal with it - shadowing risky children to find out the cause of the biting and then to deal with that.

Right. Enough! I've got to do some work! hehe

Edited by nikkiwhyte

I think Mercedes bites to be cheeky, or to get attention coz she will randomly walk up to Sienna and just bite her out of the blue. When I tell her off she doesn't seem to understand that she is doing something wrong coz she just giggles. Mind you, biting is not her only aggressive behaviour, she also hits, pushes and scratches and I suspect some of it is a twin thing, because they are together constantly these behaviours that usually show up in 2 year olds are coming up earlier.

Jake was a biter too, but daycare were fabulous about it. i have no idea what they did, but it ceased pretty much after it started.

taine on the other hand was biting Jake in his sleep - taine must have got bored and Jake obviously wasn't responding, so it got nasty bites for his trouble.

mum2paris wrote: alot of serial biters do it very quickly and learn the best ways to get full effect, nasty little creatures.

Aw Janine! I think that's a bit rough. The 'serial biters' (who do it for fun and effect) are very very very few and far between and I put that in the same realm as hitting and scratching (which almost EVERY kid does!) - it's not really helpful for most biters to be called 'nasty little creatures' as I said before, it's a communication issue.

Again, this doesn't excuse it, but the times I have see Hannah bite at creche (though she hasn't bitten anyone for about a year - pretty much as soon as she started to talk) have been when another kid has come along to take a toy off her, or is preventing her from getting through a door etc. Ya get me? So most biting isn't 'out of the blue' - so while it might take a bit more effort on the teachers part, being there to diffuse conflict situations and provide alternative means of communication is really important.

Just checking