Well, okay, there are some exceptions.
Posted on 02/25/2008 8:54:04 AM PST by Bruinator
I hope I didn't screw up my first attempt at a Vanity Post.
My daughter attends a private school. She is 19 months old and has been there close to a year now. She is a bit more advanced than kids her age, yet she has remained within her age group. She was to be moved up to a new class last month. She doest use sippy cup, and she is also letting her teachers know she has to use the bathroom, but they cannot take the time away to sit her down because two teachers have to be in the class room at all times. She uses the (potty) at home but it is hit or miss with the school.
Anyway, the question I have is regarding biting. She was bitten 5 times in the last two months by the same child, and now she is exhibiting the same behavior back to this child as well at home. She tried to bite me this weekend when she didn't get something she wanted. We have made our stance known on this and if she had been moved up from the class and not have been bitten so frequently, she would not be responding in kind. My wife and I have made this point to the schools owner and director and their response was that it was an age appropriate behavior. Now, I cannot reconcile this statement, because there is nothing appropriate about it. The school is tops in all other areas and it shows with her development. They teach sign language and she not only tries to speak in complete sentences, she signs in them at the same time. She knows colors, animals, etc...
My question is this. Were we wrong in letting the school know that she is now doing this because of their lack of action regarding her development, or should we accept that it is normal behavior with respect to her age? I know some kids bite, but my two other children were not biters.
Kids, especially that age, do bite. The teacher (and school) need to make the parent of the first biting child aware of the situation. The teacher also needs to be more aggressive in re-directing (and punishing) the biting child. That’s a really difficult age to discipline. They are becoming more independent, but don’t have fully developed speech patterns yet.
Flicking her lips everytime she bites will nip that in the bud. As far as the other person, a phone call to the parent might help.
Private School? ..as in 7 days a week?
Do you mean day care?
Private school at 19 months is the earliest I’ve ever heard of and I have 5 kids including one 16 month old who will do one day Mothers Day Out next fall....maybe...if he acts like he nmight enjoy it just so he can socialize.
Wow.
No school should allow biting. Once or twice is gonna happen but repeatedly is a bad sign. She must have a conflict with this biter.
My experience with biters is not that they just walk up and bite indiscriminately, biters usually bite in response to something they don’t like or fear or in the case of 19 month olds maybe just taking their toy or not sharing.
My youngest daughter now 17 would bite in defense, then like now she was pretty tough but she only bit someone if they picked on her.
I am steadily amazed at how much things changed. I entered first grade the fall JFK was shot and only a handful of us had even been to kindergarten then.
My mother used to bite us back. It seems to have worked. I haven’t bitten anyone who didn’t want me too since I was a kid.
Just my opinion:
If the school does not support your efforts at potty training and stopping the biting, this is the wrong school. Biting is normal for some children, the usual response is to bite them back once and it usually stops. If the other child continues to bite after your daughter bit her back, and if you gave your daughter one bite back and she continues, then biting is being reinforced, not discouraged, somewhere. The common environment for the two children is the school.
Kudos for the sign language though - being able to communicate usually reduces some of the “terrible twos” tantrums and problems.
If you wish to continue teaching her sign language, the “Signing Time” series is terrific for children. (Amazon carries them, or go direct to the source at signingtime.com)
19months old? That’s a baby. Stay home with your baby, she’s too young for ‘school’.
my grandson bit a kid in daycare. when he tries to bite at home, he gets bitten back. They will leard quickly that biting hurts and will stop. It is the most effective way to stop biting. As for age, my Grandson is showing the motor skills of a 2 year old, and he is 17 months, starting sign, and trying to speak. My guess is in an older group your child will be behind, and probably gets more attention in the younger group because of being more advanced. Keep her in the younger age, deal with the biting when it occurs......
LOL!
Sounds like a nice place....”Lord of the Flies Daycare Center”
I’m honest to a fault. Sometimes too honest.
Well, okay, there are some exceptions.
That the school does nothing is unusual. My best friend just went through this with her 20 month old. He started biting in day care and the day care was the one who informed them of the problem. He has also bitten both my friend and her husband, usually when he’s trying to get their attention.
They’re still trying to break him of the behavior. They’ve tried everything people have told them. Unfortunately, with some occurences happening in day care, the punishment is inconsistent. All the day care can do is remove him from the group, usually back down to the infant room since he can’t get at the babies.
No. Child care workers need to put the safety of children first, and that means stopping biting, by any means necessary. It sounds like the place is understaffed; their inability to take children to the bathroom is a clue that they need more personnel for this age group.
or should we accept that it is normal behavior with respect to her age?
It is normal, for some people, but that doesn't make it acceptable. My youngest, who just turned two, was much more likely to bite than any of the others. Maybe it's because he got his teeth so early. I don't find "biting back" to be appropriate. However, letting out a good loud scream a few times scared the bejabbers out of him and discouraged further bites!
Whew. Sanity exists.
What...you mean that when she smiles, it's not just gas? [/s]
I kept on reading, but laughing too hard to see the words!
No, she goes 5 days a week. It is not day care, they are a school from toddlers on up through 6th grade. Its not that the school allows it, they don’t and the re-direct, but our concern was that she was slated to move up but they didn’t mover her until this week. As far as biting goes. She has tried it twice, once at home and once at the school. It was in response to the other child biting her. Her way of saying paybacks a bi#$%, i guess. Anyhow they moved her and the other childs parents were notified. We feel, had she been moved up when she was supposed to be, this would not have happened.
She was home for most of her first year, but we felt the learning environment would be a plus, and it has been relative to her growth and maturity.
Most children of that age who are left on their own (for any period of time) with other children of that age will gouge and bite. That makes it highly probable that your daughter will get bitten in such an environment.
I recommend an Au Pair that you have diligently interviewed and is totally consistent with your methods. Its not that expensive, especially if you have more than one child, compared to other forms of child care.
My kids were potty trained, walking, and talking at 12 months and speaking in complete sentences and dialoguing at 24 months. In contrast, a friend’s boy in child care wasn’t potty trained at age 4.
She's an Aggie Child in C.S.
She might be trying to tell you she feels differently. I try like heck not to ever be judgemental about the choices that other parents make for their children--ask any other freeping parents on the forum, they'll back that statement up--but I'll be perfectly honest: I think a child under two being in school is a bigger problem than biting. Feel free to tell me to GTH, but you invited comments, so there's mine.
I don’t take offense. Of course children are better off at home at this age. Sometimes, it is unavoidable, as it is in this case. That statement, I know, opens up issues, but we will leave it at that.
When I was 6 yrs old I had a 3-yr-old cousin who bit everybody who stood still. When she bit me, I pulled her off the floor by the hair on top of her head. She never bit me again.
She needs to be home with her mother.
I had a neighbor whose daughter-in-law was always bragging on what her 4-year-old son had learned and what he could do. One day she was bragging and said, "Now if we can only stop his drooling." She wasn't kidding!
I met 5-yr-old Michelle, whose parents had realized she was reading the cereal box --from her high chair when she was less than 2-yrs-old. She went to a Montessori school until she was 5, was then put in a public school kindergarden because the parents were concerned about her social development and wanted her with children her own age. She read "Little Women" in kindergarden and had the run of the school's library/media center. The K teacher said she was better than having an aide and the other kids loved her. Her IQ was around 180 and she was very well adjusted. Her mother laughed... "She's adopted and we can't take any biological credit."
One of my twins kept biting her sister when they were about this age. I did the same thing. Bit her on her forearm right after she bit her sister and she never bit again. Mean, aren’t I? lol She was the bigger of the two and more assertive. I wasn’t going to let it escalate to the point that they both became biters!
She bites but....sips tea.
:-)
If a program that is accepting kids under 1 year age is insisting that it's "not day care", but rather a "school", that a huge red flag.
Nope, they are accredited by the state as a school.
But it is “Private” school!
That's the approach we used with our children. I seem to recall, once was enough and it was never a problem again.
i am surprised no one has uttered the word du jour around here:
"homeschool."
anyway, my mother used to flick our lips. holy crap that worked pretty quick. parents are allowed to physically discipline their kids.
sorry you are getting some insults about your home life and that your child should be home.
19 months does seem to be a bit young for full times school, but what do i know? no kids.
“From the mouths of babes...” - or at least from the hands.
Kids instinctively know how to take care of it. Adults rationalize themselves out of serious discipline into all kinds of psycho mumbo-jumbo.
I agree, I feel like a deadbeat at this point. At anyrate, she is developing and this was not about her biting. It was the reason for it. She is responding, and had she been moved up when she was supposed to be, this would not be an issue. She would not be biting. She showed no signs of it before, and she has only done it twice. Its not like she walks around biting everything. I love my daughter, I am doing the best I can for her, and if she is to be homeshcooled or continue on in private school, that will be our choice. The tone of my original thought is 180 degrees from where it began. Not by me of course. Mod’s, I can’t take the abuse any longer, please lock the the thread.:)
a common theme around many popular theories is that our behavior is most influenced at an early age by the people we interact with most and by the quality of those interactions.
i, of course, am not saying that this will lead to crime, but the underlying principle is the same. your daughter is spending a lot of time with individuals other than her parents. and while her interactions with you will be over many years and be very important, interactions with friends can be at least as influential, if not more so. she will pick up some bad habits.
but at this age, biting is normal quite frankly. it's those darn pre-teen years you have to worry about!
That’s a matter of legislative semantics. It’s what’s actually going on in the day to day program, and how the people in charge of the program view it, that really distinguishes day care from school. I find it pretty alarming that they seem to have something along the lines of a planned curriculum which is taking priority over things that are much more important for this age group —e.g. “they teach sign language”, but don’t have time to take an 19 month old to the potty when she TELLS them she needs to go.
A 19 month old child needs to be focusing on the real daily life of a 19 month old child — i.e. learning to go to the potty, learning to talk — and not being pushed into an ideologically driven program in which somebody has decided that these tiny tots ought to learn sign language. Sign language is sometimes an appropriate measure for toddlers who have serious clinical disorders of speech development, and are simply unable to learn to communicate orally, but pushing normal toddlers who are still working on things like potty training and sippy cups into learning sign language sounds to me like some wacko educational theory that comes out of our nation’s famously wacko university programs in “Education”.
LOL! Good job.
Does the original kid who bites have an older sister?
see post above this one...
When my 12 yr old bites it means he’s hungry. He has figured out chew toys, even with ketch-up, are no good.
There is so much to say about this post. “in a school” at 19 months? No, in a day care center with pretensions.
“advanced for age” Oh please. children are not produced by cookie cutters, they are all different. And there is always some other baby that is more advanced at this moment. This baby is just a baby, not some toddling Einstein. (don’t remind me I said this when I start raving over my grandchildren)
“Age appropriate” does not mean any one is saying it’s appropriate. Grow up. and take responsibility for your own child and bring the child HOME, where she belongs!
Babies should be raised by their own family! Not in some group setting.
And the other child didn’t make your child bite, he merely gave her the idea. Some kids are biters, plenty of advice here for that.
Lastly, but first in importance. No one is EVER going to raise your precious child the way you want, the child will never be as precious to anyone as she is to you. Give up some material goods and stay home and raise your own. It’s amazing what a difference you can make in your child’s life.
Amazing and fulfilling.
We feel, had she been moved up when she was supposed to be, this would not have happened.
Laughing so hard. I sure can tell this is your first. You are such an innocent. Do you really think she’ll only do what she’s been shown? Oh if she’d been moved sooner, she’d be the perfect child and would never have learned to bite!
LMAO but i’m laughing with you, not at you.
I had five boys, not too close in age, raised them myself too, so who do I blame when one of them bit????
“I feel like a deadbeat at this point.”
“Mod’s, I can’t take the abuse any longer, please lock the the thread.”
WAHHHHHHHH
LOL I take back what I said, I’m laughing at you, not with you.
oops, not your first, it’s worse than I thought!
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