Dealing with biting incidents in nursery

How to manage biting at nursery

Biting at nursery can happen quite frequently as many children go through the biting stage; this can be both upsetting for children and parents. It is hard for parents to see that their child has been hurt and this can create a difficult situation for practitioners. As many of us know children got through the biting stage and eventually stop but when a child is bitten this isn’t what parents want to hear.

Finding the triggers of why children bite may help prevent this happening again. Child may bite because they are;

• Tired
• Jealous
• teething
• Unable to use language to communicate
• Unwell

When a practitioner sees a child biting another child this can cause mixed emotions. It is important to comfort the child who has been bitten and give them some reassurance. With regard to the child who has bitten it can be difficult knowing how to deal with them especially as young children don’t fully understand time out. The main thing is to be consistent and ensure all practitioners are following the settings behaviour management policy.

Communicating the settings behaviour management policy with new parents is good practice; this allows them to become familiar with how incidents like this are dealt with.

Understanding why this has happened;

It is important for practitioners to understand what happened and why the child may have bitten the other child, were they arguing over a toy or was the child trying to communicate with them, knowing this information can help prevent the incident reoccurring. Also having this information can help reassure parents that their child isn’t doing this on purpose, there is a reason.

Report a biting incident;

Reporting the incident is crucial as all incidents should be logged for safeguarding purposes. Practitioners should be honest and accurate as possible.

Many practitioners can get anxious about approaching parents. Find a confidential space to talk to parents is ideal. If unable to find a suitable place why not ask the manager if you can use their office. Explain to parents that you have a behaviour management policy in place that all practitioners follow. Inform the parents that you will be speaking to the other child’s parent. By showing the parent’s that you are dealing with this incident in a professional manner will show them that you are being proactive in dealing with the incident.

After speaking to parents individually make sure you get them to sign the incident book without seeing the other parent’s signature and this must remain confidential.

Monitoring the situation;

Once you have communicated with both parents keep an eye on the situation and observe to see if there is a particular trigger. If the biting continues to try using an ABC Chart, this observational tool is used to record information about a child’s particular behaviour. It will give practitioners a better understanding of what the behaviour is communicating.

Here are some top tips for dealing with biting

• Be consistent in following settings behaviour management policy
• Have policy accessible for parents to read
• Record all incidents
• Communicate openly with parents in a professional manner
• Use an ABC chart if incidents continue

It is important to remember that children don’t bite intentionally, try and look for contributing factors and trigger as to why this may be happening. Always be open and honest with parents as they will respect this.