A boy in M's class clawed her face and bit her arm today when she sat down beside him to look at the book a teacher was reading to them.
I am pretty upset about it and can't quite figure out exactly why. There are so many things. From not being able to protect her from mean nasty people like that to being pissed at how nonchalant one of the other mothers was who was picking up her mean little boy at the same time (likely the kid who attacked M, there are two rather angry little boys in her class). To feeling bad about disliking two little boys as much as I do and worrying that I need to figure out how to act about all of this in front of M.
What do you do in this kind of situation? Teach her to bite and claw back? Teach her to stay away and be afraid of mean boys? Let her see that I don't like those two boys? What do I say and do?
ooh, that's a hard one, I'd be mad too. My thought is it's okay to show disapproval for bad behavior and talk about what they should have done if they were mad. I'm not sure how much of that she'd be able to take in... Maybe practice what to do if that started to happen again (Say, NO! and go to a teacher/move away from the boy). I definitely understand why you feel protective.
ReplyDeleteNone of the above. Talk to the teachers about how they are handling the situation. In a good preschool these events are very short-lived because kids are trained not to behave in ways that "hurt their friends," and are given positive ways to interact instead (or sometimes given something else to chew on, depending on why the kid is biting). Biting does happen in daycare/preschool, however it shouldn't happen more than a few times or last longer than a short period. Serial biters who don't learn to behave are usually kicked out of preschool.
ReplyDeleteIf your kid's preschool continues to be an unsafe environment for her, then the best action is to look for a better preschool.
(Also: this is not just a boy thing. The biter in DC's class was a little girl. But they worked hard with her and she stopped.)
I get very angry when other kids are rude or mean to P, too. She is so open and friendly, and I want to preserve and reinforce her trust and goodwill as much as possible. I agree that that kid's behavior is totally unacceptable and needs to be seriously addressed. Damage control for M? I wish I knew!
ReplyDeleteWhat Nicoleandmaggie said. If M had an altercation of any sort with another kid, you should discuss with the teacher what they are doing to improve that sort of behavior.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on wanting to protect B as much as possible, especially because he is super social and walks up to kids (usually older) and says "hi" all the time. Last week he got sand in his face for his trouble. But on the other side, I'm sympathetic to the misbehaving kids parents, because B is a very big kid (he's over 3' tall and about 31 lbs) and while we have been working very hard on no throwing toys and no touching faces, he is not always perfect and has been known to hit a kid on the head with a plastic shovel. (The kid had really curly hair -- I think he was just trying to touch it.) It was mortifying and I after talking to B about how hitting was not nice I apologized profusely to the other mom.
So basically, what I'm saying is, kids at this age do stuff that isn't awesome, and good parents and good teachers will do their best to ensure it doesn't happen again. If there are persistently angry/ misbehaving kids in her class, you might ask the teacher about that, too, and get advice for how to teach M to deal with that.
Ugh, I'm sorry. I'll second nicoleandmaggie...talk to the teacher. And yeah, it's a TODDLER thing, not a boy thing. LG was assaulted repeatedly by her "friend" at that age.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter just started biting, too. Luckily, she's not in preschool. But we're working on "that's WRONG and it HURTS" ... unfortunately, they don't learn that lesson overnight.
ReplyDeleteI also think that talking with the teacher would be a good idea ... chances are that they're working with the child, too.
We used to talk with my son a lot about how some children take longer to learn about behavior than others, so he wouldn't see them as bad PEOPLE, just as people who have undesirable BEHAVIOR. I think it's an important distinction.
Seconding (thirsting?) that it's a toddler thing. None of my kids ever bit anyone. The baby has come home truce within the last months with bite marks and even my 5-year-old was in a period kicked/scratched by another kid. The daycare policy is not to tell you who did it, so we don't know who the toddler biter is, but for the older kid we know because our son told us.
ReplyDeleteToddlers get very frustrated that they cannot express their feelings especially of rage and frustration -- the feelings are complex but the vocabulary isn't there yet. Apparently, this is a very common reason for biting at that age.
Poor M!!! I know how you feel. Smurf has had a bite-bruise for over a week now.