A kid bit my kid at daycare

In My Humble Opinion
21

I did email the day care and got a very nice email back about how they were working with the parents to try to fix the problem (apparently it’s a new kid who isn’t used to daycare, which makes me feel better because at least I can assign a reason to the kid), so I feel rather better now. But anyway, responses:

Yeah, I agree – and she does have some group time with other kids, and she has learned that the other kids will sometimes take her toys, or hit her, or knock her down. And a couple of times she’s been the one to take a kid’s toy away. But I’ve never seen her get bitten. I guess, reading the responses here, I’ve been lucky so far…

Ouch. I do feel for you, especially since (as Dangerosa said) by posting this thread I have basically condemned myself to having a biting child at some point :slight_smile: (I will be surprised if it is the Little One, but hey, she could get a sibling or two…) And I do agree that kids have to learn how to get along with other kids; that’s why we decided to put her in daycare in the first place.

Yes, that’s part of my problem – I don’t know when I need to start sticking up for her and when I should just allow her to do her own thing. But perhaps I will come back when she’s in middle school and we’ll talk…

Fortunately, the incident was earlier in the morning, and she has a memory of about one hour right now, so she’d forgotten all about it by the time I came to pick her up, and her grandmother did most of her yelling at me while she was asleep.

You win! Hee. I wonder if I have any wolfsbane around…

The problem is, they are visiting (otherwise I wouldn’t mention it at all) and it was on her face, so kind of obvious. Honestly, I think that was part of what got me so worked up – for some reason biting someone on the face just kneejerk seems worse to me than biting them on, say, the arm, even if rationally it’s not different.

Well, I strongly suspected one of the boys I’d played with some at the daycare who is almost three, for no good reason except that most of the aggressive incidents she’s been involved with in the past have been with three-year-old boys. I learned, as I said above, that the culprit is a new child and therefore not the one I had been suspecting (who’s been at the daycare for quite a while). This knowledge is a good thing for me, because it means a) that I won’t stereotype three-year-old boys as troublemakers so much in the future, and b) I don’t have to look suspiciously at this three-year-old every time I see him, which I am happy about because before this happened I liked him very much. Actually, now that I know it isn’t him, I don’t care nearly so much who it is (although the information I now have narrows it down to two kids).

22

Heh. My husband just walked by and I mentioned this, and he said, “Well, she is pretty interested in the moon… but that predated the bite.”

23

I suggest calling animal control. I’d guess if there’s another complaint against the same kid, it will be put down.

24

We won’t tell and without making a stink at daycare, the karma fairy may miss you. :smiley:

I have a neighbor with a son my daughters age and they were in daycare together (she is about to turn twelve, so this is an OLD story). They had a biter in their class. She freaked out, pulled her kid and became a stay at home mom. I said “kids bite” and moved on.

Now, neither of her children are biters - but they are both precious snowflakes of the overprotected variety. They don’t play with the neighbor kids much because any time they’ve been treated badly (and six year old kids treat each other badly all the time) Mom crosses that child off her list of appropriate playmates. She protects them from getting hurt and has a reputation with the teachers as one of those parents who’d take their kids test for them to avoid having them fail. VERY helicopter. And her kids, when we do see them, are the worst little brats who are used to getting their own way for EVERYTHING. If they aren’t made happy, you are bullying them.

I guess what I’m saying is that Little One is twenty months. She has a whole life in front of her where people are going to bite her. Not invite her to birthday parties. Tell her she’s “not their friend” because all their friends wore blue today. Push her into lockers. Steal her hat on the bus. Break her heart at sixteen. Pass her over for a promotion due to nepotism. I’m not saying you should tolerate bullies, but toddlers who bite are bullies - they haven’t yet developed that level of empathy. And you are going to need to pick the fightable battles and teach her to be able to have a thick enough skin to say “well…” and move on when the battle isn’t fightable.

(Fightable battles, repeatedly getting pushed into lockers, stealing hat on bus - they have video cameras now. Ask me how I know ;). On the other hand, when you get that phone call from a mother whose child didn’t get invited to your daughter’s birthday party…you’ll roll your eyes.)

25

Years ago, my daughter’s day care called me at work to let me know she had been bit. It was the strangest phone call, because I’m sure they were used to parents flying off the handle, and I couldn’t figure out why they had bothered to interrupt me at work to tell me this.

26

My daughter got bit on the cheek one time at daycare when she was around two. She called it her circle boo-boo. While it did take longer than I thought it would to fade (you could see the individual teeth marks), she never seemed upset about it. I think kids just bite whatever’s handy.

27

I dealt with this recently when a boy was scratching my son, and my aunt who has run a daycare for 25 years now had some good advice.

She noted that the daycare is probably used to having to deal with biters or hitters. They get kids who throw stuff, hit, bite, etc. and they should have a toolkit of tricks to deal with those kids.

Don’t be afraid to ask for a meeting with them and ask what their specific plan is to keep the biter from biting other children. They should be able to give you solid ideas and have a plan in place. They will probably work with the parents to try to discipline the child, but when a child is pre-verbal often they lash out in ways like this out of frustration and inability to communicate.

Working with a pre-verbal child you have to isolate and ignore bad behaviors. This means that the biter, not the biters victims, need to be separated from the crowd. This helps teach them that if they can’t express themselves in healthy ways, they can’t be a part of the group. The daycare should be doing something like this to help the child and to protect the others.

If I were you I’d have a chat via email or in person just to ensure that they have it under control. But it’s definitely not an uncommon thing for them to deal with.

28

My kid was bitten and my kid in turn did some biting. Often on the same day. That’s just what toddlers do. I would say every kid in his class either bit someone or in turn was bitten.

29

A kid once bit my sister.

30

Hee – thanks! :slight_smile:

You know… now that you mention it… my parents have always been overprotective, and I think that’s caused me some problems (not so much bratty problems – I hope! – but it did take me longer to figure out how to do things for myself). They weren’t as bad as the parents you talk about, and certainly I also never had problems of the “My teacher was bullying me and my parents did nothing about it” variety, which I’ve heard from other people and which I’m grateful I didn’t have, but!

Oh God, I hope not. If people are still biting her when she’s a teenager I’m not going to be happy :wink: No, sorry, I get the intent of your post; thanks.

Yeah, I think rationally you’re right. I think (kneejerk-wise) it just freaked me out, is all.

Thank you! We have been communicating over email (I did try to make clear that I knew that biting was something that kids often did, and that part of my concern was being a nervous first-time parent and all), and I may talk to them briefly on Monday (when the Little One goes back – she doesn’t go on Friday), and they have been very forthcoming about their specific plans and policies. I appreciate very much knowing this is not a weird thing to ask for!

31

My kid didn’t bite, she spit. I have no idea where she learned this, seeing as I don’t spit except after I brush my teeth.

Thankfully it was a short lived thing.

32

We received a call that our son had been pushed off a piece of playgound equipment and cut his head. When we showed up he looked like Kennedy after the shot(s). The entire back of his shirt was covered in blood. They had a washcloth on his head. We went and got him stitched up (a 3/4 inch gash…scalps bleed a lot). The daycare called us into a meeting later and asked if we were going to sue the daycare or the other family. I replied “sue you because a little kid pushed my little kid?”
They are kids. If the worst thing that happens is a cut on the head, I’ll be way ahead.
As I still tell my boys (21, 19, 16 and 13 now), stuff like that builds character. They have a lot of character now.
Deep breath Raspberry…it’s part of the grand tapestry of life.

33

Hah - when my kids were little, they’d get mad at us and tell us “I’m not inviting you to my birthday!”. I just now realized that that was probably one of the major threats in the school yard. And, of course, they had very little concept of when their birthday’s actually were, so the threat could be tossed out 360 days in advance.

34

life is life and kids bite. it’s what they do and usually they aren’t repeat offenses, but if the child is a serial biter, my great-grandmother had the cure for it.

apparently I was a terrible serial biter at that age and my mother was at her wits’ end. my grandmother finally told her to do what her mother had told her: ‘bite back!’

mom was sceptical, but the first time i decided to chomp on my cousin M - i’d do it without provocation and i bit HARD - mom chomped on me. i’m told that was the END of the problem. :smiley:

fastforward years later to my nephew C, who had also decided to start biting. he pulled that on me while i was doing a babysit gig - so i bit him. talk about shock and awe. he was so surprised he didn’t know what to do. i told him biting wasn’t acceptable behavior, it hurts people, and to never do it again and so ended that problem, according to his mother.

remember, you don’t have to bite hard. it’s not like you’re drawing blood or anything! the upshot is, the child learns instantly that it isn’t very pleasant to experience it first-hand. ‘actions have consequences,’ my grandmother once told me. how right she was.

35

Hey! My kid just had his first day at daycare yesterday, so believe me, I totally feel you. (He’s a boy, and just shy of 12 months, though, so I’m still pretty sure we’re not actually the same person.)

It sounds like you’re taking it seriously but also not worrying about it too much, which is the approach I’m trying to take. I know my kid’s going to get bitten (and will fall and hit his head, and will cry when someone takes his favorite toy), but he’ll forget about it in a few minutes, and he’ll be okay. I also know that he’ll be able to express his displeasure to the biter, even though he can’t talk. When he’s full and doesn’t want to eat any more, he purses his lips, turns his head, and pushes the food away. When we tell him “no” and he’s unhappy about it, he growls. :slight_smile: So I trust that he will be able to make his feelings clear, and so will your Little One, I’m sure.

As for the grandparents, I kind of like AClockworkMelon’s suggestion to just pretend to make a big deal until they go home. But I can see that setting you up for a lifetime of “pretend” parenting whenever they’re around, and since it seems like that’s pretty often, that would get really confusing for the Little One as she gets older. So my suggestion is this: it seems to me that when you handle something differently from how your parents would, they have two issues: obviously, they’re worried about the Little One’s well-being, but they also see it as a criticism of how they raised you. So when they say something like, “How can you send our precious granddaughter back to that shark tank?”, respond in a way that addresses both concerns: “I know you’re worried, and I am, too. I’ve talked to the daycare, and they are doing X to address this. But you also raised me to be strong, self-reliant, and resilient, and to not run crying from every little injury. I want to instill those same values in the Little One.” Even if they actually did coddle you a little too much, they’re hardly going to argue that. This way, you frame your position not as "I respect how you raised me, but… ", but rather “I respect how you raised me, and therefore…”

It may not help, but I can’t see how it could hurt.

36

Parent of two now adult kids here. It’s hard to be told " chill, all kids bite " when your kid comes home with a welt. Worse yet if the skin is broken and stitches are involved.

For my part, and I was an insanely over-reactive parent, if the skin wasn’t broken, I wasn’t sweating it. My son never bit. My daughter did bite, but as far as we know, only family members. Would not have surprised me to hear she did bite at day care/ pre-school. Would have embarassed me.

Breaking the skin becomes, to me, a very sticky legal issue. Zany scary things happen when people’s mouths are involved. :eek: That’s an extreme case, but if my child came home with broken skin, I’d need to have the ID of the kid who bit, and a talk with those parents. Blood tests would not be out of the question. Sad as it is, small children walk around with herpes, HIV, hepatitis and all manner of other fairly significant bloodborne pathogens.

A 2 year old who is bitten simply will not remember. A 2 year old who is bitten and gets hepatitis will simply never forget. Huge difference.

The biter daughter? Shes’ 19 1/2. I think she’s finally stopped biting. :smiley:

37

Yes. And this is why it’s so, so important to vaccinate. HepA and HepB are on the decline among children since they were added to the vaccine schedule, in 2000 and 1994, respectively.

38

Exactly - your child will be fine. She’s probably forgotten about it already.

Your (natural) reaction to be upset at the child who bit yours is exactly why the daycare center will not tell you who the biter was. Think of it this way: When (not if) your child finally hits, or bites, or kicks another kid, would you like that kid’s parents yelling at your child. As Winston Churchill once said; Oh - hell no.

Kids at 20 months have a very limited set of tools for expressing themselves. Hitting and biting are two of them, and they will be used. The daycare should teach them that those are inappropriate tools to use. Over the next couple months of months, you will notice when you take something from your daughter, she’ll not cry, but look at you sternly, and say, “Not nice!”

39

I was bit on the ass in daycare while climbing the slide. I was also pushed off a swing and got a gash between my lip and chin. (the scar is still there over 30 years later)

I wasn’t traumatized though. Things happen to kids, they get over it.

40

Musical sheep = any toy that has been totally ignored for at least six months, right up until some other toddler comes over and wants to play with it, when it instantly transforms into the OMG Favourite Toy!!! that cannot be touched by anyone else ever!!!

Or, alternatively, a Welshman/Kerryman/New Zealander/etc’s idea of a romantic concert.

ETA: And Raspberry Hunter, I think it’s totally natural that your instinct was to go into full protective mode. Someone hurt your kid; of course you wanted to get in there and kick some toddler ass. I don’t think it’s an overreaction or a sign of overprotectiveness to feel that way, as long as you don’t actually act that way.