Originally Posted by judy:
I am very concerned about a situation at a licensed daycare center. What is the policy on handling a child who is biting other children multiple times daily? The child I am concerned about has been bitten multiple times daily, breaking the skin and bruising on 9 days in a short period of time by the same child. He is not the only child @ the day care who is being bitten. Also, the aggressive child who does the biting is also kicking other children. When I talked to the staff they said there was nothing they could do. I believe this is a staffing issue. It has become such an issue that I have filed a report with Department of Social Services. What information can you give me? Where do I find this information?
It's very difficult to stop biting behavior. We understand that parents are going to be upset that their children are being bitten, but biting is normal toddler behavior and daycare centers do their best to prevent it, but sometimes it just doesn't work. Becoming angry with the daycare teachers will not help the situation, they don't want to see your child being hurt either, and it can become very frustrating when there are multiple biters in a room. I'm not saying that parents don't have a right to be upset but they should also try to understand how the teachers and the parents of the biters feel about the situation. Parents are sometimes embarrassed that their children do bite. Children don't bite because they have bad parents, they bite because they're trying to express emotions that they cannot yet put into words. What we try to do is: 1. Prevent bites before they happen by watching the biter and removing them when you see them try to bite. 2. Tell the child "no thank you, we don't bite" or a similar phrase. 3. Remove the child from the situation by redirecting them to another play area or engage them in an activity 4. Prevent bites before they happen by keeping the child interested in play (introduce different toys and begin new activites when you see the child becoming bored) These suggestions don't work for all children. We have some children who don't respond to anything and continue to bite, and the best thing that we can do is try to protect the other children and be consistent with our methods.