When my wife went to pick our 19 month old daughter up from nursery this evening she bumped into a parent of one of the other kids (little girl, same age as ours) in the car park. They both walked in to pick up the kids when one of the carers said to my wife and the other mum that she would need them both to sign the incident book.

Apparently a boy (couple of months older, but a bit bigger – my wee girl is very small for her age) bite both my daughter and the other women's daughter.

The carer said it was completely unprovoked. Both the girls were playing away when this little boy came up and bite my little girl on the forehead and the other little girl on the forearm.

Luckily he didn't break my daughter's skin, but it has left a good mark. The other wee girl wasn't so lucky and the boy drew blood.

Apparently this is the second time this boy has bitten another child.

Clearly my wife and the other mother were shocked when they were told.

The carer said she gave the parent of the offending boy a 'stern talking to' about what happened and assured my wife they would 'keep an eye on things', but it seems that that is as much as they are offering to do.

Once my wife told me I was clearly angry, particularly as this boy has previous.

I'm not naive enough to think that these things won't happen in a nursery environment, but I'm more concerned that it has happened before with this particular boy and want to do what I can to make sure it doesn't happen again if it can be helped.

I'm certainly not satisfied to leave things as they stand. As far as I can see the nursery has a duty of care. Also, how many times can I rightly expect this, or any other, kid to be allowed to do something like this before enough is enough and the nursery has to take action.

All serious advice would be welcomed as my wife and I are pretty pissed about the situation.

Thanks.

Calm down. Make an appointment to see the manager of the nursery and ask her calmly.

I ain't got kids and so on mind you so its easy for me to say that.

My view – 3 strikes and he is out.

Its kids. Kids do this sort of thing.

Stuff like this happens with kids. Not saying I wouldn't be pee'd off too though.

Agree with TJ's suggestion.

Christ. What would you have done? Should the boy have been kicked out the first time he did it?

They are kids. Kids do this.

Sounds like its been pretty much dealt with so far.

of course you are pissed off – your natural instinct is to protect your daughter.

however you need to decide what your expectations of them are?

there is a huge difference between being angry becasuse your daughter is hurt and being angry because the nursery have not done what they should have.

I am kind of agreement with the others in that it looks like you're overreacting just a teensy bit. Take TJ's approach. Sleep on it, you'll be a lot calmer tomorrow.

Its perfectly natural to be protective and annoyed by this but, as others have said, its kids and they do this sort of thing.

I do recall the odd incident with my first child that got me annoyed but by the time the second came along it was just an accepted part of nursery life…taken seriously but always with the perspective that they are just young kids and at this age don't always understand right from wrong and the consequences of their actions.

bite the boys parents.

Bombers ???

BTW I have no kids so am overly qualified to comment on this ……..

Taking these points on board, so thanks.

Should have said I'm going in to see the manager to discuss this.

Guess I want to know that if this keeps on happening it won't just be dealt with by giving the offending kid's parent a 'talking to'.

At the end of the day, my responsibility is to look out for/after my daughter as she is clearly too young and small at the moment to look after herself.

Not easy being a parent – is it.

particularly as this boy has previous.

By the way, don't search for 'Scum the movie' with the safe filter off. 😯

My son used to bite other kids a lot – combination of frustration & affection. Thankfully he had a lot of understanding people around him that didn't over react when it happened otherwise I don't know where we'd be now.

Kids bite each other at nursery. Both ours have been bitten and have bitten others. It's a bit shocking when it first happens but it is fairly normal, a lot of kids go through a biting phase. It's not always the fault of the one doing the biting either (not saying this was what happened in your case), one occaision when we were told our daughter had bitten another child we were a bit p*ssed with her so we asked her why she had bitten the bigger boy, to which she replied he put his finger in her mouth.

As for the nursery, to be honest a stern talking to the other parents is pointless posturing, if they are good parents they will want to tackle it anyway, and if not they won't care. I do agree with your sentiment about the nursery, they can't be everywhere all the time, on the other hand it is their duty (not the parents) to ensure all the kids are safe whilst in their care, even if that means excluding another child.

To be honest if this is the first time it's happened and you are otherwise happy with the nursery let it go. If it happens again or you've got other doubts you really have two options, go talk to them formally about it (bit like the parents though, if they are good they'll already be taking steps to address the situation, if not they won't care) or look for another nursery. However good the nursery kids will thump each other and occaisionally leave brusies etc.

At some point it will be your kid smacking one of the others so if you like the nursery don't get too self righteous now or it's going to go badly when it does happen. if your kid does wallop one of the others at some point then I'd be worried that they are too passive.

John, thanks for that post.

you know what you need to do

Good advice, stumpy.

Glad I posted this on here. Always to good to get another perspective.

How do you know this boy 'has previous'? It shouldn't have come from nursery staff and any other source is speculation and hearsay.

What are you angry about? Your child being bitten (it happens a lot when groups of young children are together) or how they have dealt with the issue. Seems to me that they have adequately addressed the situation.

I really think you should go mad, Its very painful and distressing for the victim,, you could end up with a child not wanting to go to nursery and causing you all sorts of problems.. Kids are kids, but wanton violence, and this is what it is, should be discouraged at a very early age..

Jackson, my wife and the other mother was told my the staff that the boy has bitten other kids before.

Starting to see that biting seems to be more common than I thought, although, Jackson, clearly we disagree that this situation has already been adequately addressed.

My 8yr old has a scar on his cheek from when he was bitten at Nursery, aged 3.
It happened. I was livid. I calmed down. He then hurt someone else and I was hauled in. I was mortified.

His behaviour is not exactly perfect now.
Sleep on it…as stumpyjon says…next week it could be your kid doing the biting.

tell your little girl to kick him square in the nuts… 😈

neverfastenuff – I wasn't going to bring this up, but my wife was speaking to her mum on the phone earlier tonight, telling her what happened and apparently my brother-in-law's little boy is still a bit traumatised from a biting incident at his nursery about 9 months ago, so that is also playing on my mind.

I've got 3 children, they have all been bitten a couple of times and have given the odd bite. Its an age thing they mainly do it out of frustration. I remember being really upset first time it happened to our son, but unfortunatly these things will happen with children.

Trust me you'll feel much worse when one of yours does the bitting. Just ask what there policy is and dont forget they see it all time so will have a pretty good idea on what to do.

Its always easy to say take it easy when its not your child thats been hurt, but unfortunatly thats what you need to do. End of the day what do you want them to do to this boy (or his parents for that matter)?

Then the staff have breached confidentiality.

clearly we disagree that this situation has already been adequately addressed.

What more do you want?(not being facetious,serious question, as said before what outcome are you expecting)? Write to ofsted about how you feel that it hasn't been dealt with adequately they will investigate. However they will probably find that the nursery took the necessary action.

johnikgriff – good advice too. Feel a good bit calmer now.

Make sure the nursery know you're unhappy about it and calmly ask how it happened in a supervised environment, without appearing angry.

Lots of kids at that age do that sort of thing, they just take varying lengths of time to realise they shouldn't. Nurseries don't (and shouldn't) be on top of every kid every minute they're there because socialising is an important part of what they're doing there and they have to learn to relate to one another independent of adults. Unfortunately, incidents like that are part and parcel.

My elder lad is 4 and was attacked earlier this year by a slightly younger kid who left scratch marks on his face, which have not completely disappeared. At the time, I was furious for the same reasons as you but soon realised you can't control everything, and advising tyred jr to boot him in the nads wasn't going to help.

Now tyred jr and this lad are big mates (a shared love of cycling to nursery it would seem) and spend ages playing together. Go figure. Don't think it plays on his mind, but not sure what anyone could do now to prevent that if it was.

Things worse that this lie ahead, I reckon!

Kids cause us endless upset. I still get really angry when my 11yr old comes back from the park, upset, because someone has been nasty to her.
My 8yr old was pushed around by some teenagers at the skateboard half-pipe in the same park last week and came home in tears. I wanted to rip them limb from limb. (I did go out and "speak" to them but received a load of verbal!)

BUT I work as an infant teacher and often have to report to parents about their child being hurt by another. It is a difficult thing to do, having to stay professional but at the same time being sympathetic to the injured party. (I have to say that occasionally my professionalism does slip if the injury is caused by a particulary obnoxious child!!)
Incidents can happen in an instance…and the younger the child, the quicker it is.

I'm longing for the day when my kids nolonger cause me worry and heart ache…I think I'm in for a long wait!! 8)

Have the other child put down, thats what would happen to a dog,
or repeort the matter in writeing to social services,care standards,and the education authority,you could also try the police,they will all write lots of reports,have meeting,some youll be excluded from,they will even write reports on your family,then when you ask under the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Act for copies youll be refused.Because theyre confidential.

Then the files will be left on a shelf somewhere and the next family will become flavour of the month.

Its kids playing.If you feel so agrieved go and bite the mother and father.youll feel better.

Kids cause us endless upset. I still get really angry when my 11yr old comes back from the park, upset, because someone has been nasty to her.
My 8yr old was pushed around by some teenagers at the skateboard half-pipe in the same park last week and came home in tears. I wanted to rip them limb from limb. (I did go out and "speak" to them but received a load of verbal!)

Wow – how the hell do you cope with that? The OPs little one is 19 months so will get over it I guess. I cant remeber anything from when I was that young and I guess that stuff like that happened back then as well. But if they are a bit older and come home crying and picked on I dont think I would deal with that well…

And to think the bit I was worried about with having kids was the first year (no sleep, crying, etc) but for some silly reason I thought it would bet easier after that…

dmiller…see my last sentence! 8)

Just to add another voice which may or may not help, our son is a really nice little boy most of the time (he's a troublesome 2 who wants his own way, so this doesn't always apply at the moment) – friendly to everybody, and all the other kids seem to like him. Either the nursery staff are all very good actors or they love him. However he bites when he gets tired or frustrated and doesn't get his own way. Mostly Mrs aracer (I tend to avoid getting bitten by pulling away when I know he's about to bite me – which may not be the best thing), but he has bitten other kids a couple of times. Thankfully he seems to have grown out of biting other kids – it was largely when he wanted something they had I think, and he's now learned to share.

Anyway, it does happen. Not making excuses for my son, but believe me we're doing all we can to stop him biting – we discipline him whenever he does, and I'm sure the nursery staff are even stricter. I'm sure that doesn't help all that much, but provided the nursery staff are good and dealing with it, and they do understand the issues it might cause your daughter they can't really do much more.

Fair point! 😉

Trying to see it from your point of view but finding it hard.

Put yourself in the shoes of the kids parent (Hoping them to be reasonable and caring parents). Their son is going through the biting phase – It happens with a BIG majority of kids. They have tried to deal with the first incident and as it only happened recently it has happened again. What are they to do?

1) Batter their kid to instill discipline
2) Hope that people are understanding and they are working hard to get their unsure little un to see why it is bad to bite people.
3) Take him out of nursery and over react that their kid is destined for a life behind bars.

What do i do if my little 2yr old bites my 6yr old? Do i put her up for adoption?

All kids have bitten of have been bitten at some point. They are inquisitive and a natural reaction is to put things in their mouths. They also find that if something is wrong, its natural for them to do it again as they are testing boundaries.

Both my kids have come home with visable marks from altercations from other kids. I see it as an oppertunity to discuss the other childs behaviour and let them make their own mind up about it. As long as its only a bruise etc you will probably find that if no fuss is made it wont effect them and the other kid will not have to be whipped with the nearest cane.

Imagine what happens when your kids get older. God forbid

We've had the same problem

Be reasonable – biting is something all kids seem to go through. The issue is how the nursery staff and the kid's parents deal with it.

Ask what is being done about it and await response.

Take action accordingly.(If not satisfied with adequate response tell nursery you will go to social services)

Personally – storm in a tea cup; unpleasant as it perhaps seems

lol @dmiller – yeah, it gets easier (mamadirt, slightly greying mother of 17, 19 and 21 year old boys 😉 )

As a nursery worker myself, as JohnL says above, incidences such as this are certainly not uncommon and are generally the result of frustration (a child's means of communication) or indeed affection, and I can assure you that they are taken seriously and both parties dealt with appropriately and sympathetically. Exclusion, as I'm sure you will understand, is definitely not the answer and I feel saddened to hear that confidence has been breached in your incident. As far as any long-term 'trauma' is concerned – I'd certainly advocate that both parents and nursery staff 'play down' the incident to the children concerned as much as possible (please don't read this as 'trivialize' as I know it's upsetting as a parent, but it is part of learning to socialize and does happen regardless of the level of supervision).

little boy is still a bit traumatised from a biting incident at his nursery about 9 months ago

Nice, sounds like some solid case building for a spot of

As a father of 3, I would advise bang another one as soon as you can, you don't tend to find things quite the drama with the subsequent kids!! Talk to the manager calmly, and see how you feel following this. 🙂

Trying to see it from your point of view but finding it hard.

As the parent of one who has bitten, but AFAIK hasn't been bitten himself (hard to tell he ends up with so many self inflicted bruises I do sometimes worry about the child protection people getting after us), I don't actually have any problem at all seeing it from the OPs point of view. It must be a really horrible thing to have that happen to your daughter, and I can totally understand getting angry – unfortunately it seems to be just one of those things small children do. All you can ask of the nursery is that they manage the problem properly.

hat.