I voted it depends. How badly was your daughter hurt?
I ask because since your daughter and the biter are toddlers then no you don’t have any right to know (IMHO) because biting is normal toddler behavior, unless your daughter was hurt. Since the biter is a first time biter – ie it’s not a chronic problem for this child – and is a toddler he/she/it will grow out of this behavior. Was the skin broken, was the bit mark visible to you when you saw her later in the day? These are questions that need to be answered before I would venture an opinion on your right to know. If the skin was broken - yes you have a right to know. If there was no visible mark when you picked your daughter up, then no. If the mark was visible when she woke up the next morning, if I were you I’d show the mark to the management and say that is why you want to know.
Unless you’re planning to exact some kind of revenge on the kid, what the hell are you going to do with this information?
Some little kids bite. It’s what they do, as they are tiny savages who have’t yet been taught how to behave like people. Why do you really even WANT to know? I mean, you’ll just end up thinking very badly of a kid who will grow out of the behavior and could end up being your child’s best friend in a year.
I’d just like to point out that if your child’s daycare isn’t letting children bring firearms for self-protection, you’ve got to expect this kind of assault.
Our daycare has the same policy: they report the incident to the parents of both the victim and the biter (or hitter, pusher, pincher, scratcher, hair-puller, etc.), but they don’t tell either party who the other was. The reason is that, as everyone has said, there is no point. Unless you’re planning to sue, the only thing you can do is direct your anger and mistrust at a specific child. Unfortunately, I can guarantee that kid is not the only one in the class who’s bitten someone, or who will in the near future, and that includes your daughter. They’re all capable of being vicious in one way or another, and unless it’s becoming an ongoing problem, there’s really nothing you can do. And even if it is an ongoing problem, then there’s still nothing you can do. It’s up to the school to address the issue with the biter’s parents. You can’t expel the kid, only they can.
And the thing is, very soon, this won’t be an issue anyway, because your daughter will be able to tell you who did what. (Just wait until the day she comes home and tells you, smiling proudly, “I pushed Ethan! He fell down!”) Our kid talks a blue streak now, and so we always know exactly who the perp is. But we don’t really care anymore, because at this point, pretty much everyone in the class has hurt everyone else, and we know them, and know that they are all nice, normal, gentle toddlers, who occasionally get frustrated and lash out physically, as many nice, normal, gentle toddlers do.
Exactly. The other result of this is that since all the kids are talking to their parents, and the parents talk to each other, everyone ends up knowing everything. Even if my kid doesn’t tell me something the other kids tell their parents and they tell me. This is why it’s nice to be in the loop with the other parents and spend a night a month or so going out for drinks or having dinner at someone’s house or whatever. That way you know what’s going on.
My nephew was expelled from preschool. I assumed it was to keep him from biting other kids. The school did what was necessary to stop kids from hurting each other; I don’t know what good it would have done to rat him out to the victims’ parents.
FWIW, I have no intention of suing. For me, I want to know because I like to know about what is happening with my child and who she is interacting with.
I, most likely, wouldn’t do anything with that information other then scoping the kid out to make sure that they didn’t look sick or anything. It isn’t that I don’t trust the daycare, I just like to have the ability to assess the situation myself.
For example, if this was a child that I knew wasn’t normally aggressive, I would pass it off as toddlers being toddlers. However, if it was a child that I had seen exhibit aggressive behavior in the past, it might change my view of the daycare center and how they approach these kinds of situations.
I voted yes, but after reading the responses here, I think I would be good with just knowing that the offender didn’t have any diseases/sickness that I need to be worried about.
The bite broke the skin wouldn’t that mean it may leave a scar? And if the bite required medical attention, who is paying for it?
They say human bites are among the worst. I was never bitten by a person, so I really don’t know. But if your small child was bitten that badly, wouldn’t you need to get it checked out?
I also am confused. Do you really not have the legal right to know who is harming your children? I just always assumed that if your kid was harmed at school or daycare, you had the right to know who did it. If for nothing else than to find out if the child has any diseases that could be transmitted.
