Biting in daycare | Imamother

amother

Violet

Tue, Aug 16 2016, 5:52 pm

I should have asked this question earlier when it could have given ideas but now it's more in retrospect. I worked with 2-year-olds in a summer program. One had a biting/pinching/pulling/grabbing type of problem. It was his first time in daycare and part of the issue was that he is physically large and strong, so if he hit it hurt much more than if another kid did. We had a good staff ratio and I was able to guide him in learning how to interact better with other kids over the course of the summer. But even with our best efforts we still had the occasional incident where he managed to "attack" another kid before a staff member was able to intervene.

I'm wondering what is typical protocol for this type of situation. It made no sense to kick the child out of the program because he was making excellent progress and improvement, and was fine 99% of the time - it only takes one off second to bite. He should miss out on 100% of daycare that he's gaining a ton from because of one-second incidents that happened only a handful of times in total? (Over a 6-week summer program we had maybe 5 significant bites in total, I'm not sure exactly but it was a few all within a week or two, and then we ramped up his personal supervision and the incidents stopped except a couple of random unexpected times spread out over about three weeks.)

On the other hand the parents of the kids who got bitten are understandably upset. I would also be upset if my kid got bitten but I'm a little surprised at the level of upset - the child is a baby, and what do they expect us to do that we weren't already doing? There was close supervision but it only takes a couple of seconds for a strong, large, clueless toddler to turn around and chomp someone.

What is a typical policy about this kind of thing? I haven't worked in other toddler daycares before so I don't really know how it's handled. I did pretty well at teaching the child how to behave more appropriately but as a system involving other kids and parents I'm not at all sure how it should have been handled.

pond user

Sun, Aug 21 2016, 7:49 am

Did he have any biting toys? Some children bite as it's a release for frustration, but I found that biting a kid or a special biting toy has the same effect. Make sure nit to lavish negative attention on the biter when he bites. A staff member should gently remove him from the area and supervise for a few minutes just him whilst another should attend to the bitten kid swiftly. During non biting times the biter should receive huge amounts of positive attention as attention may be another factor why he's biting. It takes time to break this type of habit so it appears you did all you could. I have a kid in day care who once came home with a bite mark. Whilst it's upsetting my kid was hurt when she wasn't with me I know this could have happened anywhere at any time even under my watchful supervision. Another kid biting takes less than 2 seconds although if it occured 2 or 3 times I would take it up with the day care management.