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Preschool and Daycare Discussion
Biting at Daycare
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Anonymous
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Not all toddlers bite. They can express anger through hitting (what joy), throwing tantrums, crying, pushing (more joy). Either way, toddlers don't have the verbal capability nor emotional maturity to express themselves appropriately. The same can be said of many adults.
Overall, it's very upsetting when it happens, but hopefully, more so for the parents than the children involved. |
Anonymous
Biting may not always be aggression, but there is something to the daycare-aggression thing. Here's an old AP item. If you don't have time for the whole thing, just read the last paragraph. Day Care Linked to Child Aggression The Associated Press, 19 April 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) - The longer young children spend in day care away from their mothers the more likely they are to be overly aggressive by the time they reached kindergarten, according to the largest study of childcare and development ever conducted. The basic results of the 10-year, 10-city federally financed study were outlined Wednesday at a briefing. Principal researcher Jay Belsky of Birkbeck College in London was presenting the findings in more detail Thursday in Minneapolis at a meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. "There is a constant dose-response relationship between time in care and problem behavior, especially those involving aggression and behavior,'' Belsky told reporters Wednesday. Belsky, a research psychologist who worked at Penn State University until two years ago, added that children who spend more than 30 hours a week in child care "scored higher on items like 'gets in lots of fights,'cruelty,' 'explosive behavior,' as well as 'talking too much,' 'argues a lot,' and 'demands a lot of attention.' 'If more time in all sorts of (child care) arrangements is predicting disconcerting outcomes, then if you want to reduce the probability of those outcomes, you reduce the time in care,'' said Belsky. "Extend parental leave and part-time work.'' However, Sarah Friedman of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which financed the study, said the federal agency is not willing to get into policy recommendations. One of the lead scientists on the study with Belsky, she said, "The easy solution is to cut the number of hours but that may have implications for the family that may not be beneficial for the development of the children in terms of economics.'' The study followed more than 1,364 children in a variety of settings, from care with relatives and nannies to preschool and large day care centers. Its conclusions are based on ratings of the children by their mothers,those caring for them and kindergarten teachers. The average time in day care for all those studied was 26 hours per week.Researchers found that 17 percent of the children who were in care for more than 30 hours per week were regarded by teachers, mothers and caregivers as being aggressive toward other children. That compared with 6 percent for the group of children in child care for less than 10 hours a week. |
Anonymous
| 17 percent of >30hr kids seen as more aggressive that <10hr kids is not earth-shattering, but something to consider. At least you should weigh that in the balance when you plan your schedule. Fewer hours is better than more, other things being equal. |
Anonymous
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There are many reasons that children behave aggressively. Contrary to popular belief, it may not have anything to do with how the child is being raised. Let’s take a look at some of the causes, and how this behavior can be addressed.
Young children do not have good language skills compared to older children and adults. Often, a child may act aggressively because he feels angry or helpless and has no way of expressing these feelings verbally. Children generally understand language better than they can use it, so talk to the child in age-appropriate language about why it is important not to hit others, and how it makes them feel. Encourage your child to use the language that he does have at his disposal to make his feelings known. Role-playing with children this age can be helpful. Some children do not have good language skills because of a disability. With young children, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a disability and normal development, since children develop linguistically at different rates. If you suspect that your child has trouble with verbal communication, hearing, or understanding, you should take him to a neurologist or speech language pathologist to begin ruling out a disability as a possible cause of aggression. It can be very frustrating for a child to want to understand and be understood, but not be able to. It can set up a very negative cycle of behavior and consequences that the child may not fully understand. If it does turn out that a disability is the cause of the aggression, the professional that you are working with will be able to give you tips on how to limit your child’s aggressive behavior. If your family engages in frequent horseplay at home, your child may not see the difference between acceptable behavior at home and acceptable behavior with peers. If he can shove his dad or older brother at home and get into an exciting wrestling match, he may not understand that shoving is not an acceptable behavior to others. You will need to discuss this with him, and if necessary, cut down on the amount of horseplay in your home until he is old enough to understand the distinction. As with horseplay, television can model behavior that your child may think is acceptable in everyday life. Children’s television programming is becoming more and more violent, and young children simply do not understand the distinction between pretend and reality when it comes to television, especially since often, violence can look extremely authentic on television. If you think this is the case, limit your child’s time watching television, and closely monitor the shows that he is watching. If you encounter him watching a show that contains violent behavior, it can be a good opportunity to watch a bit of the show with him, and explain why it is not okay for people to behave in the manner depicted on the show. Some children act out aggressively because they have been treated in the same manner, or because they are angry about something that is happening in their lives that they have no control over, such as parental arguments or divorce. Even a change in a parent’s work schedule can trigger a bout of aggression. If your child has not been acting aggressively, and suddenly begins to do so, take a look at what may be happening in his life that may have triggered the aggressive outbursts. Children also need to feel as though they have some control over their environment, and this need can certainly manifest itself through aggression. Sometimes a child may act aggressively merely to get a reaction or to regain control over a situation with another child when the other child is taking his toy, for example. This sort of aggression is very common, and is normal in toddlers. It is very difficult for very young children to separate what they are feeling from how they are acting. If they are feeling happy, they act happy and are pleasant to be around. If they are feeling angry, they act angry, and this includes aggression behavior. Over time, your child will come to have more self-control over his aggression and be able to separate his feeling from his behavior if given the proper guidance. Regardless of the reason behind the aggression, there are some things you can do to reduce it. The most important thing is to be consistent with your expectations and discipline. If your child gets sent to time-out for hitting once, then he should be sent to time-out every time he hits. Otherwise, he will not know where the boundary lies, and will continue to test it, and possibly become more aggressive, because he is confused and does not know when he should stop or what the consequences will be. Children need to know what the consequences are for their behavior, as it makes them feel emotionally safe. Let your child know that having angry feelings is okay, but that hitting and biting people is not. Give your child the choice of taking a time-out before his anger reaches the level of aggression, if possible. This way, time-out is not a punishment so much as it is an opportunity for the child to get himself under control. You can even explain that grown-ups also take time-outs when they feel angry and do not want to talk to people nicely. You also want to try to catch the child behaving appropriately when he is angry, and praise him for his self-control. For example, you could say, “I know you were angry when Jonathon took your truck, but you used your words and did not hit. I’m very proud of you!” With a stable environment, consistent expectations and discipline, appropriate interventions as needed and lots of patience on your part, you can help your child learn to control his aggression. Never hesitate to ask for help from your child’s pediatrician if the child’s aggression escalates or does not decrease after you have given the situation some time. Your pediatrician may be able to give you referrals to other experts as well, if needed. Whatever the case, remember that you are not alone. Aggression is a very common behavior with the small set, and chances are, with the right training, your child will outgrow it fairly quickly. |
Anonymous
But most of what follows has everything to do with how the child is raised. So it's true that " it may not have anything to do with... " but more often than not, it does. |
Anonymous
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FTR, I dislike daycare. We did it and then switched to a nanny. Based on our experience and hindsight there are downsides to daycare but I don't think aggression is one of them. I was really struck when I went to an open play area with DD and saw how non daycare kids can behave. The kids were 2-3 most were with SAHMs and 1 or 2 with nannies. They had no idea how to interact with other kids, no sharing, no playing together, lacking in social skills and pretty aggressive. I've seen the same thing at parks.
A daycare with workers who can manage the room well can really promote good group behavior and manners with kids. A daycare with workers who are not attentive and just 'watch' the kids and let them run around in chaos has the opposite effect. |
Anonymous
| Negligent childcare, by parent or anyone else, is unlikely to produce positive results. |
Anonymous
| I notice that the results cited by 20:35 aren't comparing daycare to nannies. They are comparing maternal care to non-maternal care, including relatives. Also, the results are that 83% of children with more than 30 hrs/Wk of non-maternal care were not discernibly different from those with less than 10. (17% were). Significant, but not dramatic. Is the effect stronger with daycare than with grandparents? We don't know from this piece. Maybe the sample size was too small to break down. |
Anonymous
I can easily imagine that the negative effects are more intense in a daycare than with a responsible relative/friend in a home. To me one of the obvious reasons would be that the relative/friend (even a nanny) is more of a long-term figure with whom the child can maintain an attachment . The more severed attatchments a child has, the more difficult it is to form the next bond. Each severed attatchment has consequences. I believe that is the first question to inquire about should be: how long can my child expect to have the same teacher/caregiver? |
Anonymous
bump |
Anonymous
Why don't you start a new thread instead of bumping this one? This current discussion has nothing to do with how a day care should handle a biter. |
Anonymous
Of course, but there is a lot of denial here. |
Anonymous
How can we handle a biter without wondering what's causing the biting in the first place? |
Anonymous
OK, I just thought this line of discussion would be better in its own thread, that's all. They'd each get more views/participation that way. |
Anonymous
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/524/context/archive Perhaps most important, is there an ideological side to the whole issue? The loudest voice about the aggression finding is being made by the controversial researcher Jay Belsky, now at a London University. In 1986, he wrote an article that created a furor. He suggested that day care for very young children could harm the "attachment" (or bond) between mother and child. The media ran wild with that idea and professionals worried. In fact, concern about the trauma that daily separation from their working mothers might have on children was one of the reasons that the study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development was launched in the first place. Guess what happened. The study found that infants in day care were securely attached to their mothers. We probably should have guessed that result in advance, because in the 1930s, Dr. John Bowlby did the studies on which the whole idea of "maternal" deprivation" was based. It came from studies of orphans who lay for hours on end in their cribs with no human contact. Not surprisingly, they wound up with serious developmental problems. But at the same time, Bowlby studied the children of women who worked in factories, and these children were perfectly normal. The whole "attachment" issue turned out to be very much overblown. So we have to ask, is Belsky doing it again? |