Yesterday, I received a call from my daughter’s daycare. They informed me that my daughter had been playing with a toy and another child wanted it. When she didn’t give it up, the child bit her in the face.
Now, I understand that children sometimes bite other children. They told me that the child was a first-time biter, but would not tell me which child was to offender.
I am not sure what I would do with the information, but I want to know which child did the biting. I understand why they won’t tell me, but I feel like I should have a right to know about something that concerns my child.
What do you guys think? Do I have a right to know? This was a pretty serious bite. It broke the skin and there is a bruise that is fairly significant. Both children are around the same age, between 1 and 2 years of age.
I had the exact same thing happen a few months ago (bite on the cheek), and my centre also a policy of never telling you which kid. They did tell me how they handled it, i.e what they told each kid and how my little one reacted.
It didn’t bother me too much - the parents of the offender were clearly told (on another occasion one of the other mums mentioned to me that her kid had been the transgressor), and my little one is just big enough to tell me about these incidents when I probe a little if I really needed to know. It would only bother me if the incidents were repeated and a single kid was a clearly picking on my daughter, but at her age 2.5-3) I think that’s a little early.
If it’s the schools policy that they don’t tell, and you agreed to the policy, you don’t have a right to know. My son was bit once or twice and I never felt the need to know who did it. And I was very happy for the policy the time or two my child was the biter.
I checked all the paperwork I signed upon enrollment and this policy was not discussed anywhere. I supposed I could have asked before we entered her, but it didn’t occur to me.
If your daughter was injured by another child, you have the right to seek damages against the parents or guardians. By withholding information the daycare is depriving you of that right.
My concern would be the possibility of disease transmission. Saliva can carry a lot of bugs, and the human mouth is notoriously dirty. If the biter has any communicable illnesses, I’d want to know so I could make sure my child was protected.
Kids at this age bite each other. Not all kids bite but it happens. My daycare has the same policy and my son was bitten several times in a 2 week period, then it stopped. I initially wanted to know who the biter was but it was corrected by the daycare center and all was well. Last week he was the biter. I was mortified and realized the reason for the policy. We see each other and our children all the time. It is personal when your child is the victim, but it really is just a part of socializing kids at a timewhen they act in ways that are due to frustration at not being able to clearly communicate verbally. If the problem persists the daycare should remove the child but at this stage there are undesireable behaviors that are short phases and part of growing up.
Well I very much hope you’d be laughed out of court if you tried it (and perhaps penalized for filing a frivolous suit). How are parents supposed to be in con control of their toddler’s behavior when they are not even there? It seems to me that the only party who might even remotely be held responsible here is the daycare center. They are the only ones in a position to do anything about it. But even then I would think (and hope) that there would have to be some pretty specific evidence of negligence or a repeated pattern of this sort of mishap before there was any legal liability.
As for the “right” to know, fuck it! It is much better that parents are not told. Telling could cause all sorts of trouble. There are plenty of idiot parents who will take it on themselves to take revenge on the offending kid and his or her parents. (And if you are not going to do that, knowing who it was is of absolutely no use to you.)
Laughed out of court? For the most obvious basic lawsuit regarding wrongful physical harm? Of course the parents would be liable. The alternative would be that minors could commit any kind of offense with no possible recourse or restitution for the victims. Your kid vandalizes my car, you pay.
Judges don’t laugh when victims come before them asking for justice.
[Morgan Freeman voice]
And that’s how it *all *began. They passed it off as “kids being kids” so that it seemed natural and harmless after a while, but little did they know that every single child under 10 years old had now been bitten. Soon, when the hormones of puberty triggered the virus that had been coursing through their veins throughout their childhood, a *whole *generation would begin to gradually rise up and unleash their angst.
[…]
How could they have been so blind? Now, they had no choice; an entire generation - the zombabies - would have to be cut out like a cancer before they reached their teens.
[…]
And that’s how it came to pass, that for an entire decade, there were no teenagers. Suddenly, the world seemed a lot more quiet, MTV went bankrupt, and there would be no more *Twilight *movies.
[/M.F. voice]
Since there was no option for “Hell YES!” I voted, “yes”, but on reading the thread, yeah, I’d be mortified if my kid was the biter, so that gives me pause for thought.
If there was permanent damage, then I think you’d have the right to know. For a temporary injury, I’m not sure what the point would be. To make sure you’re angry at the right toddler?
A serious injury, one where you might look for compensation from the parents, should have full disclosure. A minor scrape between toddlers is something that should simply be expected from time to time and it should not be allowed to turn into a bigger deal than it needs to be.
Of course, if you were in a position to seek compensation, you’d just sue the school, and they’d give up the parents in a heartbeat.
Really? Maybe I was lucky, but the daycare my daughter spent some time at had zero tolerance for biting. First bite, if serious, meant expulsion. Worked for me, as my kid wasn’t feral.
It’s obviously never too early to start shunning a kid. See:
Only feral children ever bite?! Wow. I guess I should have brought my kids out to the woods and left them there the first time one of them nipped me while nursing.
WebMD has some information about why—other than being feral—some kids may bite.
You know, my kid never happened to bite anyone either. I’m not congratulating myself though, since I don’t labor under the delusion that it was my mad parenting skillz that prevented it. She did, after all, partake of plenty of other reflexively anti-social behaviors, in the way that toddlers do because they’re little animals who need to be taught social niceties like “We don’t bite people who make us mad.” or “We don’t throw food.” or “We don’t poop in closets.”
Why in the world would it be laughed out of court? Parents are legally responsible for damage and injuries caused by their children’s willful behavior in almost every state.
Why? Because sane, normal people generally recognize that no law was written with the intention of legislating toddler behavior and that litigation is not the best way of resolving conflicts between toddlers.
Seems like overkill to me.