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nannyde 08:35 AM 11-04-2015
Originally Posted by Betanya:
Over the years, I've heard all the Dr. Spock-ish rationalizations and "it takes a village to raise a child" idioms about how you (as a parent of a non-biter) should address issues with habitual BITERS that have decided your child is their personal chew toy whenever they get upset, frustrated, or want a toy your child is playing with.

Understand this ... it's NOT my responsibility to protect or understand the biter. It's my responsibility as a parent to protect my child's welfare until they can protect themselves. I don't care if the biter is frustrated, can't verbally communicate anger, doesn't feel loved or that its getting enough attention, or wants toy that someone else is playing with ... he or she is NOT my child.

I would love to stay at home with my children and keep them out of the day care industry. Unfortunately, the reality is that I'm not independently wealthy and have to work. Over the years I've encountered biting incidents to my children (sometimes multiple bites by the same biter within days) ... since none of my children have ever bitten anyone either in day care or at home ... I have had no problem ever telling the day care provider to remove the biter from the room period and they can attempt all the intervention techniques they like ... as long as it's somewhere else not around my children.

Once, a Director told me she couldn't possibly penalize the biter because of the social trauma it would cause the biter and that we needed to be more tolerant of the needs of such children and that my children also needed to be tolerant of others even if they are biters.

My response was to the point and without compassion (since it was the 3rd incident of the week, and two bites broke the skin) ... either remove the biter from the classroom or I would definitely penalize the day care with law suit and a lot of bad biting media publicity (the day care was located in a state that at the time had a low opinion of day care centers to begin with). My child had been with the day care for 3 years without incidents, the biter had been there only 3 weeks and had bitten or hit or kicked a child almost every other day.

The biter was in another room the next morning with a shadow staffer. Which lasted about 2 days when the biter bit the staff member on the leg hard enough for the staffer to require stitches and a hepatitis shot.

To the parents of biters, I don't blame you. But when your child inflicts intentional, unprovoked pain on my children repeatedly ... I will do everything possible to make sure your child never does that again. I shouldn't have to "switch" to another day care just because your child can't keep their teeth to themselves.
^^^^

This is why I have a zero tolerance policy for biting.

Parents FLIP when their kid gets bit. They threaten to sue and turn you in. They want the biter gone. They want the biter to have it's own adult... whatever it takes to have their kid not get bit.

They don't give a flip about developmentally appropriate. They don't want to hear it.

The only parents who care about the biter learning not to bite is the biters parents. Nobody else cares.

I had one bite when I first started doing daycare. The biters mom was so upset because she was so concerned about whether or not the kid her kid bit had any communicable diseases! I got schooled.

When I was a school nurse, I would have rather called and told a parent their kid broke their leg than call to say their kid got bit. The bite calls were way more work because the parents were so upset.

It doesn't matter if the parents of the bitee is right or wrong. It doesn't matter that biting is or isn't normal. It doesn't matter what measures you put in place short of exclusion and.one to one care.

What matters is that I don't want dhs called. I don't want inspected over it. I don't want the complaint on my record for life. I don't want to pay to give the biter his own adult for group rates.

I can't afford the learning curve the biter needs. Bottom line.

You bite... you are out.
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