Wed 3 Oct 2007
When I picked Minor up from school yesterday, before I reached the door I ran into one of his teachers in the parking lot. She pulled such a sad face upon seeing me that I automatically said, “My God, what happened? Is Minor okay?”
“He’s okay, but he was bitten by one of the other children today,” she said.
It’s the second time Minor has been bitten in the last few months. In cases of toddler-on-toddler violence, the school has the policy of concealing the names of both aggressor and victim, probably to prevent the parents from getting into it outside of school. From little hints that were dropped, though, I could tell it was the same child who had bitten Minor both times, and that he or she was a habitual offender.
Both Minor’s teachers seemed genuinely upset about it, and surprised that I was not more upset. Both told me separately that “this WILL be taken care of,” in tones that left no doubt that either they were having a hit put out on the toothy one, or he or she was going to be removed from school.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I want my child to be safe at school. On the other hand, I’m resigned to the fact that he’s occasionally going to fall and cut his lip, or get stung by a bee, or have a confrontation with another child. If Minor were older I would definitely be concerned about bullying, but I assume that the under-two crowd doesn’t have all that much self-control OR malicious intent. Mainly, I felt terribly sorry for the biter’s parents. Most mothers in that class work, and if my boys were unceremoniously dumped out on the street, it would be a hardship on me to find them a new place without taking time off work.
What are you supposed to do if your kids bite? Both Minor and Aitch went through biting stages at home, and Aitch went through another one recently, but the only time one of them has ever bitten a non-family member was a few weeks ago, when Aitch bit his best friend. I was mortified, especially since he is old enough to know better. We were playing on the beach, and I packed up the boys immediately and took them home. Aitch got a lengthy time-out in his room, loss of multiple privileges, and many stern lectures. I think it made an impression on him.
Nothing makes an impression on Minor, though. If he were biting, I’m not sure how I could get him to stop. How could his classmate’s parents control their child’s biting, especially when he or she is at school and they are not?
October 4th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Losts of kids go through a biting stage - and they’re mostly too young to reason with about it - one has to just remove them from the situation. Your’s is the second blog where this has come up in the last few days (sorry, can’t remember the other one) but I agree with you that kicking a kid out of daycare for it isn’t reasonable most of the time. Expecting toddlers to not act like toddlers doesn’t seem rational to me!
October 4th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I don’t think I’d get too exercised if my 18 month old was bitten at daycare. I would be concerned if it kept happening- but twice isn’t enough to get me upset, really. I also think the amount of damage matters. One bite per time, and the combatants are seperated, is different from bites all over. If I were in your shoes I might plead for leniency with the biter, but, then, who knows how many other people they are biting
I agree, thoguh, that not much can be done other than surviving it and waiting for them to age.
AM
October 4th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
No advice here. My 15 month old was a biter and we just started popping him in the mouth and saying NO BITING whenever his little chompers got close to us. He eventually stopped and never bit anyone but myself and his big sister. My daughter, however, was bitten on the face by a little boy I babysat. She had a huge black bruise on her cheek for weeks and small tooth shaped cuts on her jaw. That was the second offence, the first was a bite on her arm a week earlier. That little boys mom got 2 days notice when she came to pick him up. I understand that kids bite, that it’s a phase and not malicous. But I have never wanted to punt a child like I wanted to punt that little boy when I saw my sweet little angel with blood dripping down her neck from his “innocent” bite. I was terrified when my son started biting so I nipped that in the bud right off.
October 6th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
In the context of your blog this comment may be a bit of a non-sequiteur.
First let me preface this by saying that we are proudly owned by two 5 year old male Vizsla’s - Zach and Taj - aka “Da Boyz”.
I received an e-mail from my daughter who is away at college telling us that she had been doing some research on the internet and found something that made her pause. She suggested that we go into google images and type in “attachment” and “dog” to see what comes up.
Try it - you might find it amusing - we certainly did.
BTW - I skimmed your blog and found it quite interesting - having 3 children (8,19,21) many of the experiences you relate hit home.
Best Wishes - Howard