Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Biting Mad

About three weeks ago, I picked Alice up from school and had to sign an incident report because she bit a boy on the hand. 

Hold the phone, she did what?! 

They're not sure what happened. They were cleaning up after nap and he started crying. When asked why, he said Alice bit him. When asked if she bit him, she shook her head yes and said, "he mean." (There are only 4 kids in her class - 2 girls, 2 boys. It was not hard to figure out which boy it was.) I fussed at her and told her biting is NOT okay! 

The school has a strict biting policy - two bites and you're out for a week. This was put in place after last year when they had a serial biter they could do nothing about. 

She went to her Wednesday class (with the older kids) and had no problem.

On Thursday (back with the younger kids), I get a call from the Director saying she's bit the same little boy and I have an hour to pick her up. I'm not sure what they would have done with her at minute 61. So I spent my commute FUMING. How did they allow this to happen.....again....in one week...with the same boy. 

I fly into the school like the Wicked Witch of the West. They have her waiting in the office. I calmly asked what happened. "Well, that same little boy was shoving her off the scooter she was on and she bit him in the back. It's an extremely age appropriate reaction to being threatened but there's the Policy so she has to be suspended for a week." At 2 1/2. This has to be some sort of record. 

I asked what happened to the little boy who started it. Oh well, he got a talking to and he's back in the gym. I responded with, "playing with the scooter he wanted in the first place?" No response. I go on to ask that since this seems to be a problem with this particular little boy if she returns, can she return to the older class for the remaining three weeks. She says that's not going to be possible but she will be shadowed when she returns. I ask, "why wasn't she being shadowed after the incident on Tuesday?" No response. "Okay" I say, "I'll let you know by the end of next week if she'll return" and we went home. 

I spent the weekend so very upset. I can't punish a behavior I don't see firsthand. We can talk about it until I'm blue in the face - it won't make much of a difference. She doesn't understand. And now she's labeled The Biter while The Shover no longer has to share his toys. 

We talk about it and weigh options and decide it's not worth the stress of sending her back. From where we're standing, all he's learned is if he provokes her in to biting him - he gets the toy he wanted in the first place. And she learned that if she bites him - he leaves her alone. So - shadowing or not - it's going to happen again. It's just a matter of when and I'll need to be within an hour of the school at all times.

I sent the Director a lengthy, wordy email about why she's not returning and while Daniel was picking up her pictures and the rest of her stuff, she told him that they decided Alice could go to the older class for the rest of the year. 

We talked about it and thought it might be a good way to test it out - see if it's a biting problem or a certain boy problem. 

Last week was a good week. This week is only starting. 

These are things I'm sure of:
1 - what she did was a natural response
2 - she doesn't bite at home and until she does, I can't bite her back
3 - her school loves her and hated that they had to enforce the Biting Policy for the very first time with her
4 - her Tuesday/Thursday teacher is not a big fan of me right now
5 - my loyalty is with Alice - not her teacher
6 - I am a Momma Bear - a hotheaded, "not MY baby!" Momma Bear. I need to work on that. Maybe.
7 - I'm not upset she defended herself. We're not raising a little girl who thinks it's okay to be shoved around by ANYONE.

When I was picking her up after the second incident, the Director said, "she's usually so good about saying 'sorry'. I asked her if she wanted to apologize to him and she said, 'u uh!." That's my girl!

Until next time.....

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