A Daycare WWYD and Toddler Behavior

[Laila619]

Hi LV! You and I can be 'bubble-wrap' moms together, because I would have felt just as you did! For what it's worth, my 16 month old son is so mild-mannered and calm and sweet. I can't see him behaving like that rambunctious little boy did. Never say never, but right now he is just so gentle and polite. I think a lot of it is just inherent personality. I hope it lasts! Anyway, I think you are a wonderful mama to little S. She is a lucky girl.

 

[KimberlyH]

LV, I started time it's around 22 months, and then only for acts of physical aggression. I waited until I knew she understood hitting meant stopping whatever she was doing and taking a break. At 25 months I've only used time outs for that reason. My girl is extremely timid around other kids and a sweet child in general, by she is also a toddler and they hit/bite/kick/whatever helps them express their frustration, or simply as an attempt at interaction when they haven't reach the point in social development where they has other means of doing so. I also put her in her room when she is whining or tantruming. She know to come out when she is ready to play again. I don't honk there is a specific age when kids are ready, it's developmentally dependant and you'll likely recognize when your daughter is able to understand.

 

[packrat]

Boys are so incredibly different than girls-I have a brother, so I knew that but..I don't remember us at toddler age, I just remember playing compromise games of "My Little Pony meets Transformers Insecticons" and "Barbie moves next door to Insecticons". London wasn't around other kids very often, my one friend who had kids had two boys at the time, so there was some parental interference during play time there, but one boy was a few years older so he liked to help keep them playing nicely. When London started preschool when I'd volunteer there, there were only a couple boys so I never saw anything to be concerned about. Then..Trapper came along, and he learned to crawl and then walk and then..smash toys on the wall and leave dents and chip the paint and leave paint marks that no Magic Eraser has been able to magically erase, throw toys at London, kick her, bit a couple times-even just in a crawling stage, that boy could do some damage. Never seen anything like it before. I said something to mom that I thought there was something seriously wrong w/him, and she said "Yes well..I thought your brother was going to grow up to be a serial killer for years, and he's fine"



Cuz yeah, that helped you know.

Boys are rougher than girls. London has had to learn to defend herself against the onslaught of Into Shit Bob, and mom tells me I had to do the same thing. Your daughter will too.

Thanks for your response Packrat. I laughed, as I often do when you post, at the bold! You're very funny! You should post more often!! Anyway, it's an interesting thing re: boys vs. girls, isn't it? I will surely keep it in mind.

Hahahaha always glad to be of humorous service! Your daughter *will* learn to fend for herself at some point..one of these days she'll walk in and when he comes running she'll shove him back before he can do anything, or some other way to defend herself. That's what my brother did. All but one of our cousins are girls and we all apparently used to pick on him, so one day he just had had enough and he walked in swinging, and once he learned how to wrestle, that was the end of it for the cousins. Your daughter will figure it out sooner or later and then that boy will learn to steer clear.

And you know, he's probably trying to show her affection..like when little kids flop down on the family pets and lay on them and you know the cat/dog is like Ohhh gawd what is wrong w/this kid?

 

[Dreamer_D]

That's actually why I posted here because I really am interested in how you all feel. I truly was not sure how to feel about it because I genuinely was not aware of that toddlers had this lack of physical boundaries. It may sound strange, but I really didn't! I've had friends who would complain that their kids had gotten bitten by other kids at their dc's, or co-workers who had to have the meetings with dc because their kid was biting or pushing, but no one has ever said, oh well my daughter was bitten at daycare because the other child is such and such age and isn't fully aware of physical boundaries or whatever else. This is very much a learning experience for me, and I am so glad I can come here for well-reasoned and thoughtful responses.

Question about time-outs -- at what age do parents start that? And, this is an honest question -- if the kid is running around like a nut and knocking other kids down because he doesn't understand physical boundaries, then how would a time-out help? He's not going to learn about physical boundaries that way, so why bother?

I can address your bolded statement. I have a biter/hitter (son) and a child who has never hit or bitten in her life (daughter). You can imagine my shock to see my son in action after having a child who is simply not physically aggressive (she has never responded physically to defend herself even when my son is hitting or biting her)- I was thinking, what kind of feral child do I have?! Actually, he has been bitten more than he has been the biter; just yesterday, I got a call from daycare saying another child had bitten him on the thumb. We have repeatedly asked his teachers if he's overly aggressive or physical and they always say no, that it's very normal for kids this age to push, hit, or bite and that he doesn't do anything that's out of the ordinary. Now that I've had a biter myself, I more fully understand that it's nothing that we're doing to make him become a biter, but of course we address each and every offense.

But like I said, if this boy (who let's face it, at 15 months is still really a baby himself) is regularly aggressive (again, most likely without intent or malice), then I do believe it's incumbent upon the daycare and the parents to work to ascertain what, if anything, is triggering his behavior. Some kids don't do well with transitions, so maybe drop-off is a particularly bad time for him. My son has been in daycare since he was 6 months old (he just turned 2 last week) and at times still finds drop-off hard, so I wouldn't say that the longer a child has been in daycare necessarily always means that certain aspects of being in daycare, like drop-off or pick-up, are smooth and easy. And don't forget, children this age get frustrated easily- they can't talk to express themselves and they're in pain because they're teething- so some can bite or hit as part of their frustration.

But, I did want to say again that I understand! When we put our daughter in daycare, she was almost 18 months old and there was a boy who seemed really aggressive towards her- he'd come up to her and hit her, etc. We were shocked! We talked to the teachers/director just to make sure they were aware of what was happening, as this child was like this to a lot of kids, and they knew and were working with the parents. And in the end, as they matured, sure enough, he grew out of that phase.

And about the timeouts- opinions vary widely, but my own opinion is children this age are too young to understand the rationale behind timeouts. I've put my son in a "timeout" before just to get him to cool down and to separate him from my daughter, but I don't think he understands why. My daughter at 3 or 3.5 understands and gets the concept, but not my son.

Big ditto to all of this!

And to just expand on my perspective on time outs... We did not use formal times outs in the sense of one minute per year of life on the naughty mat, and still don't. For discipline, at about 14 months we began instituting consequences for our son that fit the situation. If he was hitting the wall with a bat, we would get down to his level and say clearly in his face (not barking at him from a standing position ): "If you hit the wall again, you lose the bat!" And then followed through on the consequence EVERY-SINGLE-TIME, no matter how dranstic his reaction. Those real life consequences made a huge difference and worked for a long time, and we still use them now in the majoirity of situations -- they work well to get him *to do* things too, not just *stop doing* things (like, "get dressed now or mommy will dress you", but then you have to dress them no matter how they writh and scream ). When he was about 20 months to about 30 months, we did start using "time outs" in the sense of interrupting the bad behavior. These were reserved only for hitting, biting, slapping -- the really bad behaviors. Basically, we would just pick him up and take him to the stairs and sit him down, get to his level and say "You can come back when you are ready to say sorry". He would run back in within a few moments and apologise and all was good. The interruption of him playing and the surprise of being removed from where he was playing was enough of a consequence to work. When he was about three we noticed that he was running back into the room from the steps to say sorry within about one millisecond and did not really mean it So we started doing more formal timed time-outs. We don't make him sit there for three minutes, but we make him sit for a while, until we think its "long enough" (he can't tell time! haha), and it works. Again, its only for hitting and other physical things.

For a 15 month old, we would redirct the child away from the situation where they were engaging in the unacceptable behavior: "Gentle hands with your friends! )lead the child away to another area of activity)". We learned that from our daycare, where the care providers all have early education certificates and run the most tight ship in terms of discipline.