What Can I Do About My Child Getting Bite at Daycare?

You need to get your child out of this situation right away. Your child care provider is not adequately protecting your child, nor is she effectively disciplining her grandson. And you are beginning to teach your daughter a very dangerous lesson.

It is misguided to suggest your child bite another child to teach them to quit biting. "If you get hit, hit'em back harder" only creates an environment of violence.

We should never, ever instruct a child to hurt another person in lieu of the adult's adequately parenting. It is the caregiver/adult's job to manage this situation, and your three year old daughter should not be put into the position of having to resort to violence to protect herself.

Please look into some Love-and-Logic classes. They take a no-nonsense approach that might appeal to you. Know, too, that by encouraging your child to protect herself by hurting others, you might likely be teaching her how to get kicked out of grade school in later years. Now is the time to change that.

Is this a licensed day care? There are very strict rules in our state (Massachusetts) since I used to get an official notice home if my kids had any kind of medical care, even if it was just a band-aid. It sound like an in-home daycare, and it also seems obvious that the day care owner is not supervising the kids closely. Drawing blood is a serious bite that could get infected. Get your child out of there and find a better day care.

Document it, take photos of the injury.
Licensed daycare have rules and policies to follow, incident reports to fill-out....
What is she doing about it, thus far? Nothing?
that is unacceptable.

Last resort is you find another daycare....

This is her Grandson.... so what the heck, is his Mom... doing about him, as well????

Telling your daughter to bite him back, is NOT a solution. Geez. I can't believe the woman told her that.

First off, DO NOT ENCOURAGE HER TO BITE BACK!

I did daycare for 5 years and I had a biter once. The times I wasn't able to stop it, the little girl was placed in time out. (She was about 2 or 2 1/2 when she went through this phase.) She didn't have any rhyme or reason to her biting. Just did it whenever the urge struck her....... Is your daycare lady disciplining the child??? IF she is not proactively trying to stop this behavior, you need to switch. If she IS trying to eliminate the biting, then stay. There are biters at lots of daycares. Some kids just go through this phase. BUT IT HAS TO BE ADDRESSED!

On the whole do it back thing. I had a set of 7/8 year old twins who had been told by their dad their whole lives to "DO IT BACK" if anyone ever did anything to you. These girls were kind of nasty. When they would be naughty, all they had to tell their dad was the other child did it first. Then the would get away with ANYTHING! NOT A GOOD THING TO START!

You should STOP telling her to bite him back. Even though she isn't doing it, it encourages bad behavior. Your provider needs to put a stop to it now. If this was not her grandson, the child would have been given time to correct and then would have been dismissed from her care. I am sure that won't happen since it is her grandson but regardless of where he is, he has to learn to quit biting.

If you child is bitten again and the grandson remains in the same daycare, you need to contact the licensing board and see what can be done. Also, at that point, you may need/want to change daycares because 1. your child should not be bitten and 2. your provider is not going to be happy.

You and the daycare worker tell your daughter to bite him back??? Wow! To me that seems like teaching to hit back as well. I think the daycare worker and the parents should work on it but I believe it is a phase.

if she wont do anything about this biter, take your daughter out of there!

I actually understand your train of thought of trying to get your daughter to defend herself by biting back. Many years ago I read in a parenting magazine that his was appropriate with babies.

You don't say how the day care lady is handling it. Is this child punished in any way? I think I would sit down with her and see what kind of plan you can come up with to discourage the grandson. Time out, not allowed to play with the toys that provoked the biting, etc... I'm afraid if she doesn't comply changing day cares is all you can do.

If you have talked to your day care lady keep talking to her, ask her to talk to the mother or you talk to the mother. Yes it does help if your daughter bites him back or smacks his mouth when he bites her maybe he doesn't realize he is hurting her. My son was a biter- not anyone outside our family- but he would bite me and my other son all the time. The pediatrician actually said it was a sign of affection that he just wasn't showing it correctly anyway he grew out of it in a couple months. good luck

You can't stop it. If you move to another daycare, odds are there will be another biter. It's a horrible phase and it's no fun being the parent of a child who gets bit, but understand this will get better over time. I was sitting next to our daughter when a girl right next to her chomped on her arm. I couldn't stop it. No more than 30 seconds later, that same girl bit her again ... even on full alert, I wasn't quick enough to stop it. Biters are fast. And biting back will NOT stop it. However, it may teach your child to bite. :(

Biting happens as kids are developing their communication skills. There really isn't anything you or the provider can do to prevent bites. Unfortunately, they're a common phase. Even Modern Family did a recent episode about it.

Biting can happen quickly, and lots of kids do it for lots of different reasons. It's always terrible for the parent of the biter and the parent and child who get bitten.

Your provider needs to have a plan for it. I would ask her what she's doing to prevent the biting and extinguish the behavior. It's never something that goes away over night, but in the process she should be able to catch it at least most of the time. The provider should sit close by the child who is biting and if it means that she has him next to her the whole day to prevent biting, she should do that.

In my daycare we play with the kids on the floor most of the day. We are well aware of the behaviors of each child and make sure to be close to the one(s) that will have conflict with each other, so we can intervene and use that moment to teach. If I have to make lunch and I know an aggressive on a particular day (or in general) I take that child in the kitchen with me and engage him/her in an activity. Telling a child to bite another child back isn't an effective way to change behavior, and if that's all she's doing I'd find another provider.