Teething Problems – How To Deal With Biting Incidents
When it comes to handling incidents of aggression between young children, clear policies, positive parental engagement and perspective are key, says Lorraine Jenkin…
When a child bites another child, there is so much more to do than just drying the tears and telling the perpetrator not to do it again.
Although you do not want to imply that their child is to blame for the bite, it can be worth mentioning if the bite was the end of a tussle and if their child might not be a blameless victim. This can also bring the bite into perspective.
In perspective
One practitioner I spoke to knew of a parent who had actually removed her child from the nursery due to persistent attacks from another child – a reminder that although you might retain confidentiality, a child might not be so inclined…
On the whole, however, most practitioners stated that parents are pragmatic. The biter’s parents are typically mortified and desperate to help to ensure it doesn’t happen again, while the bitee’s parents tend to accept that it was an occasional event that whilst unpleasant, wasn’t out of the ordinary.
What parents tend to seek most is reassurance that staff are going to be proactive in making sure it’s something that doesn’t happen again. One preschool manager told me that although she would often feel awful when such an incident happened under her watch, she was always inspired by the trust and confidence the parents held her and her staff in. She found that the more professional she acted in front of them, the more professional they felt her to be.
That’s how she was able to run a nursery, manage four members of staff, keep a variety of children occupied, stimulated, fed and watered, speak to two sets of parents about an unpleasant incident and still consider it to be a good day at the office!
How to respond
Eight points to consider after an aggressive incident…
• Are your policies robust? Review them if necessary.
• Ensure your parents have read the policies and that your staff are familiar with them.
• Act calmly – hysteria only escalates the drama.
• Communicate clearly with both the children and the adults.
• Review the situation quickly. Work out why it happened and how you might have intervened earlier to prevent it happening.
• Devise a plan to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
• Model the behaviour you would prefer to see from children. Give them the tools to talk, not bite. Be confident and in control of the situation.
Lorraine Jenkin is an author, journalist and blogger, a mother of three girls and has been involved in childcare for several years, including running the village playgroup, acting as a parent-governor and working as a play-assistant within a three-year-old provision; for more information, visit lorrainejenkin.blogspot.co.uk or follow @lorrainejenkin
This kind of management of wildness is far more effective, she explained, than trying to tell children to calm down.
Reporting an incident
Biting needs to be logged as an ‘incident’ in your incident book. Do it diligently and be honest – these things do happen, but you may have to rely on your report at a later date, so ensure it’s an accurate description of the events. Do it quickly, in case one of the parents turns up early for collection. A potentially awkward part of the incident is reporting the facts to the parents of the perpetrator and those of the victim. Many practitioners will tell you how uncomfortable this can be; finding the time and space to have a confidential conversation with both sets of parents (at necessarily different times) can be almost impossible in some settings, due to a lack of private space or a group pick-up time.
This is the time to rely on your setting’s policies. You are less likely to be criticised if you can show you are acting in the way you said you would. Managers need a designated space where they can have difficult conversations, and other staff need to know so as not to interrupt. Practical suggestions include making sure both sets of parents can sign the incident book without seeing the signature of the other party, which must remain confidential. If you feel uncomfortable broaching that someone’s child has hurt another, rehearse a spiel beforehand. For example: “You will have seen in our policies that we are obliged to tell parents about incidents such as these. I will also be speaking with the parent of the bitee. You will know from our policies that I cannot tell you the name of the child that yours bit. You will appreciate that this also means that I will not mention your child’s name either.” It’s important to give your interpretation of why the incident happened, since this might provide ammunition to prevent it reoccurring. Ask parents if they have any thoughts, particularly if it’s out of character. If it’s common in the home, are there any triggers that they could tell you about?
Whilst it is important to reassure them that this is relatively normal behaviour in small children, they also need to appreciate the distress it causes, and that you will be proactive in seeking to stop it – as should they. To the parents of the child who has been bitten, you need to take a different tack. Reassure them that whilst you cannot tell them the name of the other child (in accordance with the policies that they are familiar with), you will be speaking with that child’s parents.
Although you do not want to imply that their child is to blame for the bite, it can be worth mentioning if the bite was the end of a tussle and if their child might not be a blameless victim. This can also bring the bite into perspective.
In perspective
One practitioner I spoke to knew of a parent who had actually removed her child from the nursery due to persistent attacks from another child – a reminder that although you might retain confidentiality, a child might not be so inclined…
On the whole, however, most practitioners stated that parents are pragmatic. The biter’s parents are typically mortified and desperate to help to ensure it doesn’t happen again, while the bitee’s parents tend to accept that it was an occasional event that whilst unpleasant, wasn’t out of the ordinary.
What parents tend to seek most is reassurance that staff are going to be proactive in making sure it’s something that doesn’t happen again. One preschool manager told me that although she would often feel awful when such an incident happened under her watch, she was always inspired by the trust and confidence the parents held her and her staff in. She found that the more professional she acted in front of them, the more professional they felt her to be.
That’s how she was able to run a nursery, manage four members of staff, keep a variety of children occupied, stimulated, fed and watered, speak to two sets of parents about an unpleasant incident and still consider it to be a good day at the office!
How to respond
Eight points to consider after an aggressive incident…
• Are your policies robust? Review them if necessary.
• Ensure your parents have read the policies and that your staff are familiar with them.
• Act calmly – hysteria only escalates the drama.
• Communicate clearly with both the children and the adults.
• Review the situation quickly. Work out why it happened and how you might have intervened earlier to prevent it happening.
• Devise a plan to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
• Model the behaviour you would prefer to see from children. Give them the tools to talk, not bite. Be confident and in control of the situation.
Lorraine Jenkin is an author, journalist and blogger, a mother of three girls and has been involved in childcare for several years, including running the village playgroup, acting as a parent-governor and working as a play-assistant within a three-year-old provision; for more information, visit lorrainejenkin.blogspot.co.uk or follow @lorrainejenkin
Anyone who works with young children knows that sorting out biting, or any aggressive behaviour, is an unpleasant but necessary part of the job. The skill for staff, and particularly management, is to deal with the process without turning it into a long-running saga – to manage the adults within such a situation (staff and parents) in order to reduce re-occurrences and keep dialogue constructive.
Plan your response
It is crucial to have a thought-through positive behaviour management policy that staff know and understand. Parents must have the opportunity to read it – and ideally be able to sign somewhere to say that they have – before their child starts at the setting.
If and when such an incident occurs, you can refer to the policies to demonstrate that you are doing what you said you would do. You are then working within a clear structure, rather than reacting emotionally, which is easy to do at a time of high tension.
When a biting incident occurs, it’s important that staff review it quickly to reflect on what happened and why, and then discuss how to decrease the likelihood of a repeat. Staff hovering, poised to pounce, cannot be a long-term strategy, and tussling children must not be kept apart.
The benefit of having staff review the incident can be to highlight triggers and to work out a plan – be it to buy a second tractor, or to watch closely when Jonny and Jenny play together in the sand.
Although it would never be planned, such behaviour can be a result of a setting’s managing of a situation. Staff obviously want children to enjoy themselves at nursery – but sometimes that enjoyment can spill into over-stimulation, which can result in an hysterical reaction such as a bite.
One practitioner I spoke to told of how she used Theraplay techniques if this happens – staff join the children in their madness, do a bit of crazy behaviour themselves and then bring it back down to a manageable level in a structured way.
This kind of management of wildness is far more effective, she explained, than trying to tell children to calm down.
Reporting an incident
Biting needs to be logged as an ‘incident’ in your incident book. Do it diligently and be honest – these things do happen, but you may have to rely on your report at a later date, so ensure it’s an accurate description of the events. Do it quickly, in case one of the parents turns up early for collection. A potentially awkward part of the incident is reporting the facts to the parents of the perpetrator and those of the victim. Many practitioners will tell you how uncomfortable this can be; finding the time and space to have a confidential conversation with both sets of parents (at necessarily different times) can be almost impossible in some settings, due to a lack of private space or a group pick-up time.
This is the time to rely on your setting’s policies. You are less likely to be criticised if you can show you are acting in the way you said you would. Managers need a designated space where they can have difficult conversations, and other staff need to know so as not to interrupt. Practical suggestions include making sure both sets of parents can sign the incident book without seeing the signature of the other party, which must remain confidential. If you feel uncomfortable broaching that someone’s child has hurt another, rehearse a spiel beforehand. For example: “You will have seen in our policies that we are obliged to tell parents about incidents such as these. I will also be speaking with the parent of the bitee. You will know from our policies that I cannot tell you the name of the child that yours bit. You will appreciate that this also means that I will not mention your child’s name either.” It’s important to give your interpretation of why the incident happened, since this might provide ammunition to prevent it reoccurring. Ask parents if they have any thoughts, particularly if it’s out of character. If it’s common in the home, are there any triggers that they could tell you about?
Whilst it is important to reassure them that this is relatively normal behaviour in small children, they also need to appreciate the distress it causes, and that you will be proactive in seeking to stop it – as should they. To the parents of the child who has been bitten, you need to take a different tack. Reassure them that whilst you cannot tell them the name of the other child (in accordance with the policies that they are familiar with), you will be speaking with that child’s parents.
Although you do not want to imply that their child is to blame for the bite, it can be worth mentioning if the bite was the end of a tussle and if their child might not be a blameless victim. This can also bring the bite into perspective.
In perspective
One practitioner I spoke to knew of a parent who had actually removed her child from the nursery due to persistent attacks from another child – a reminder that although you might retain confidentiality, a child might not be so inclined…
On the whole, however, most practitioners stated that parents are pragmatic. The biter’s parents are typically mortified and desperate to help to ensure it doesn’t happen again, while the bitee’s parents tend to accept that it was an occasional event that whilst unpleasant, wasn’t out of the ordinary.
What parents tend to seek most is reassurance that staff are going to be proactive in making sure it’s something that doesn’t happen again. One preschool manager told me that although she would often feel awful when such an incident happened under her watch, she was always inspired by the trust and confidence the parents held her and her staff in. She found that the more professional she acted in front of them, the more professional they felt her to be.
That’s how she was able to run a nursery, manage four members of staff, keep a variety of children occupied, stimulated, fed and watered, speak to two sets of parents about an unpleasant incident and still consider it to be a good day at the office!
How to respond
Eight points to consider after an aggressive incident…
• Are your policies robust? Review them if necessary.
• Ensure your parents have read the policies and that your staff are familiar with them.
• Act calmly – hysteria only escalates the drama.
• Communicate clearly with both the children and the adults.
• Review the situation quickly. Work out why it happened and how you might have intervened earlier to prevent it happening.
• Devise a plan to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.
• Model the behaviour you would prefer to see from children. Give them the tools to talk, not bite. Be confident and in control of the situation.
Lorraine Jenkin is an author, journalist and blogger, a mother of three girls and has been involved in childcare for several years, including running the village playgroup, acting as a parent-governor and working as a play-assistant within a three-year-old provision; for more information, visit lorrainejenkin.blogspot.co.uk or follow @lorrainejenkin
