Q&A: altercations between toddlers

I got two somewhat similar questions about toddlers (17-20 months) fighting. The first was from Kristin, who writes:

"Our question relates to the effects of physical aggression at play group. We have started to take our 19 month daughter to a playgroup that is apparently run according to Steiner principles. One of the shared, central rules is never saying "no" to a child and never directly correcting what I often consider to be inappropriate behaviour. Most of the time this approach doesn't worry me, even though I don't agree with it, but my daughter is now being hurt by other children. For three weeks in a row she has been pushed over, punched and bitten by two older children in four separate incidents. When this has happened I've asked the children to stop hurting Boo but was given a very clear message by the parents that it is not my place to do so. However,the only intervention from the mothers has been a hug for the perpetrator - no apologies and no attempt to "make up". We're really uncomfortable with this but we're torn about leaving because there are some lovely kids,  Boo does seem to have a good time in many ways and we feel it's important that she is exposed to different situations with other people (she's also going to another playgroup where these situations just don't occur).  Our concerns are two-fold: will my daughter end up believing that aggression is okay, or that it goes unpunished?; will the aggression have a lasting impact on her, undermining her security and confidence? This second outcome is particularly worrying as Boo has started to bring up the aggression seemingly out of the blue: "Jilly push. Boo bump. Sad".  Are we being over-protective?"

So, yeah. Short answer: No. You're not being over-protective. Long answer will follow the next question. B writes:

"My 17-month-old daughter is in an all-day daycare program that's affiliated with a university and generally of high quality. There are ten one-year-olds in her classroom and usually three teachers. She's been at the receiving end of 2 biting incidents and maybe one or two-kids-piling-on-top-of-each-other collisions that resulted in a bleeding lip. Overall, she's very good at avoiding physical confrontations and knows which kids seem most dangerous to her--an excellent social skill to have, in my opinion. Thus far, she's not been aggressing against other kids.

I know that biting is to be expected in this age group and think that the teaching staff respond appropriately. But I also know that one of the biters has been engaging in this behavior for 2-3 months now. Worse, I've seen the notorious biter choke other kids by coming up from behind, putting them in a headlock and yanking their hair when teachers seek to break up the choke. Several things worry me about this:
a) it looks like a well-practiced move and rather more, shall we say, "advanced" than I would expect from a one-year-old;
b) the choking incidents are not reported to the parents of either victim or assailant, yet clearly taken seriously by the staff, who coming rushing to the scene to free the choking victim;
c) the choking behavior, along with the biting, has been going on for what seems to me an awfully long time, i.e. 2-3 months; but
d) since the center doesn't keep statistics on these incidents, I have no idea about the frequency of either the bites nor the chokes--my kid, after all, can't tell me.

Now here are my questions: Do you think that the choking is age-appropriate? Do you think that any aggressive behavior that goes on for 2-3 months or more is usefully chalked up to developmentally normal nuisances? Or would you say that the problem is grave enough for the teachers to either question the parenting that goes on at home or call in expert help or both? Further, do you think that a childcare center should document choking incidents to the parents even if they don't leave marks the way bites do? And does it strike you as a reasonable request to say that a daycare center should keep stats on the frequency of biting incidents and similar aggressive encounters in the classroom?  (After all, every poopy diaper gets recorded and every arts activity photographically documented.)"

This is all just a different version of the question we talked about last week about how to help a 1 1/2-year-old with tantrums.  The bottom line is that tantrums and aggression (hitting, biting, scratching, even choking) are normal for lots of kids. (And 2-3 months is not at all a long time for this to be going on.) They aren't doing those things because they're bad kids. They're doing it because they don't know how to communicate what they want, and because they don't know how to process their feelings or deal with the frustration of being so little and wanting to be big, or because they can't deal with other kids doing things they don't like.

It is the job of the adults around them to teach them how to deal with their frustration. This can be a tough job, because the toddlers are taking out their frustration on you sometimes, and it's hard not to just want to tape their arms to their bodies and their mouths shut with duct tape. But, as always, you have to keep your eyes on the long-term goal of teaching them to be civilized people who can communicate in better ways and manage their emotions in productive ways.

That's what's so disturbing about both situations. In Kristin's situation, it just seems counterproductive and ridiculous for the adults just to observe what the toddlers are doing without helping them. At the very least they should be protecting the kids who get hurt from the kids who are hurting, and reinforcing to the hurters that that's not acceptable behavior. At that age, toddlers absolutely cannot work it out on their own. Occasionally they may be able to navigate a situation in which two kids want the same toy, for example, but it's certainly not something adults can expect to happen all the time. They need firm rules and guidance in how to interact with each other. They need help from the adults around them.

I can't speak to Steiner principles (I know the basics of Waldorf method, but not all the ins and outs of Steiner stuff), but it just seems strange to me that the parents of kids this young are deliberately holding back from teaching their kids necessary life lessons. If there's no room to change the way the adults manage kids' physical aggression, then I think I'd just leave the playgroup so my kid didn't get hurt anymore. You absolutely do not want to teach your daughter that it's acceptable for her to be hurt repeatedly.

In B's situation, the adult caregivers are seriously dropping the ball. They need to be protecting the kids. All the kids. The kids who are the victims of the biting and choking, and the kids who are doing the biting and choking. It isn't like it's coming out of the blue. They know who the offenders and victims are, so they should be more proactive about stopping it before it happens. Yes, it sucks to have to be on top of a kid constantly to prevent him from hurting someone else, but what's the alternative? Kids who have no other way to manage their frustration and aren't learning appropriate boundaries, and kids who get hurt all the time (and don't learn appropriate boundaries).

It sounds like the management of the center is not qualified to deal with this sort of problem, because there's no clear policy for the caregivers to manage the kids to stop the hurting, and because there's no clear policy about reporting incidents to the parents. In this situation I'd talk to the other parents in the room and get together as a group to talk to the management and caregivers about what you want done. But it's not acceptable, and it's a problem with the adults, not the kids, who are just moving through this developmental stage the way kids do.

Comments

[hedra]

I'd start out by asking some questions in each case.

In the playgroup, until I understood how they planned to teach empathy, safety, and social responsibilities, I wouldn't know whether to stay or go. Talk to the other parents. Say the experiences have left you confused, and you are not sure how to proceed - you need information, so you can figure out how to handle it with your child as well as theirs. I'm sure if they're dedicated to the philosophy, they'll explain it. If the explanation doesn't sit well with you, you have an answer. If they aren't even doing what they say should be done, you can either start reinforcing them yourself, or go. If there's a response that makes perfect sense, then stay. But there ARE other lovely children out there, whose parents are teaching the things you want your children to learn. They learn a lot by observing, too... consider that in your choice as well.

At the childcare center, ask some more - is it possible to implement some tracking when a behavior occurs? How can I help my child feel safer around this child? What is your anti-bullying program for this age? (yes, the 'hot-button' topic of the day! Feel free to use the term to catch their attention.) Assume that they have a plan, even if it feels vague to you. Give them some time (a week or so) to come up with it before you talk ('can we talk about your anti-bullying plan? I have some time end of next week.'). Ask if you can help your child in a particular way. Ask if you can help the teachers in any way. Place yourself as a resource, support, and team-member. You'll likely get more information, and more help, that way. You'll also likely get a better picture of whether they have any idea how to handle the situation, or if their philosophy just doesn't mesh with yours.

[carabeth]

As far as I know,(and I'm fairly certain) Rudolph Steiner did not give out principles for toddler play groups. You should check with the people running the group what exactly the philosophy is. It may be based on RIE (http://www.rie.org/). Steiner believed that children should be at home until grade one, which he believed should start at 7 years old. Waldorf schools do have pre-schools and kindergardes because he also believed that Waldorf schools should not exist in a vacuum, and the truth for many parents is that they want or need this earlier schooling for their children, so he did (I think) lay out some principles for kindergarden and maybe preschool, and I haven't done enough reading to know what, if anything, he said about discipline in these years. But for children younger than 3.5, my understanding is that ther is no word from steiner himself. (except about the nice wooden toys and natural playthings!)

I believe that young children are still learning to be social. My personal feeling is that small (2, maybe 3) groups of children at this age are better for my daughter, (she's 2.5). Maybe you could have plydates with some of the children whose company you enjoy and avoid the larger group. I've found this not-saying-no (still correcting the behaviour by saying we don't do that, redirecting the offending child and comforting the other child) works fine for me when it's just me and one other mother.

[Nikki]

My son's day care tracks biting issues and so forth. When an incident occurs, it is written up. If it looks like biting (or whatever the disapproved behavior is) continues, the parents of that child are talked to. The caregivers of the center also focus on what seems to cause the child's frustration to bite. If it happens more at transition time (say from play time to lunch time) they will have the biting child do something, like put napkins on the table, to separate the child in a positive manner. You may want to have the caregivers focus on what propels the child to bite and then try to remove that situation.

[B]

Thanks for the discussion. Here's an update from my discussion with the daycare center. I had requested a change in the record-keeping policy such that chokes would get reported to the parties of both children involved, as is already done for biting incidents. I also requested that monthly or weekly tallies be kept and disclosed to parents upon request. It doesn't look like either is going to happen, as per university-wide policy on childcare centers. The reasoning was as follows: 1) keeping even more detailed records takes time away from dealing with the actual incidents; 2) keepin aggregate stats would be "meaningless" and "invalid" because it would not say anything about the real quality of childcare provided. While the center keeps an incident log, its contents are not divulged to parents. Of course I disagree with the idea that writing incident reports for chokes will increase the administrative burden substantially, unless of course these chokes happen all the time, in which case I sure as hell would want to know about them. And I understand that the center doesn't want to disclose stats for reasons of liability, but I can't say I'm pleased about it. The reason I'd want to see such stats is not that I distrust the caregivers, who I actually think are doing everything they can but obviously cannot give 1-on-1 attention to each child in the room (here I disagree with Moxie). Rather, I'd want to know what levels of stress everyone, including my kid, is exposed to over time. Also, of course, having such stats would substantiate the director's somewhat random claims that this center is actually experiencing lower than average numbers of incidents for that age group. I have no idea how other child care centers handle the incident reporting. Do other readers want to chime in? Those of you who have your kids in daycare, do you know what the frequency is of biting and other significant aggressive incidents in your kids' classroom?

[Foster]

I do not think that the childcare givers in Bs situation are dropping the ball. I run a one-year-old room at my daycare, and there are 7 kids and two (occasionally 3) teachers. We have 1 biter/hitter/scratcher, 1 hitter/scratcher, and 1 tackler/mouther, and taking care of 7 toddlers, let alone 3 who are aggressive, is much more difficult than many people think. I think it is easy to say that this or this "should" be going on when one has never been a daycare provider. I always hear people use the saying, "I had lots of ideas about how people should raise their kids. Then I had kids," and everyone laughs. Well, likewise, I think lots of people who have never worked in daycare have lots of ideas about how things "should" be done, and it just isnt that easy. Alphie Cohen, Im talking to you.

That said, at my center, if an injury results in a mark, we write up an incident report for the injured kid only. If a bite or slap does not result in a mark, we dont write it up. My biter is 20 months old now and has been biting pretty consistently (and v hard!) for 5 months with no signs of stopping. Yes, we do shadow him, but biting is so quick that I can litterally be sitting next to him and not move my hand fast enough to get in between him and the other child, or pull him away. We barely let him touch the other children as it is, but, like I said, biting happens thisfast, many times with absolutely zero provocation on the part of the victim. He will litterally walk up to a kid and bite or hit them for NO reason. Now, we also have a social worker who works in & for our building, and there was a meeting with her and the director a long time ago about this kid. Basically, there is not a lot as far as intervention goes at this age, so we talk to him A LOT and we have gotten better at preventing his biting (note: WE have gotten better, not him). BUT, I must also re-emphasize that there are SEVEN one-year-olds and TWO adults. Constant one-on-one attention for every child is NOT possible. That is just the way it is in daycare.

In conclusion, I think that as long as your childs daycare is open to parental discussions and you trust them, things are probably okay. There is no controlling how other people parent (or dont parent) their children. We have a 2-year-old who call teachers "fucking bitch" b/c Dad thinks it's funny to teach him to say that. It's not your kids teachers fault if your kid picks that up at daycare. Your childs classmate could have learned the chokehold from his older sibling and the parents truly might not give a shit. Again, something over which there is no control. Trust me, your kids teachers would, just like you, give almost anything if the aggressive child would just STOP, but it's a work in progress :)

[B]

Foster's teacher:child ratio is actually better than in my daycare, yet it is clear that not all aggressive behavior can be prevented under these improved circumstances either. I can accept that, just as I find it plausible that the daycare staff are taking a constructive approach to the issue. At this point, my main worry is with the bookkeeping: If my kid spends all day assaulting other kids, I want to know about that in specific terms. Ditto, of course, for incidents where my kid is the victim. Alas, the center's policy prevents me from learning details of the frequency of incidents. And yeah, it's a bit unfair to ask teachers to fix everything that may be amiss in a child's home environment. So, no, I don't think the teachers have dropped the ball, but I do think that careful and transparent bookkeeping shouldn't be limited to diapers and other highlights of the day, but should include the lowlights as well. The practice whereby only incidents that leave marks get recorded is highly problematic, given that some incidents may have serious consequences even if no marks can be found right away.

[Foster]

I do report specific occurences to the parents of the aggressor. I guess I should have made that clear. For example, if your child bites two other children, I would tell you when you pick him up that he bit two other children. We do not have a documentation policy for that, though.

[hedra]

I'm just going to pop in and say 'the biter you've got, without remorse and without warning, has he been checked for fructose intolerance?' Okay, the answer to that will be no, because this is only just beginning to become a matter of awareness even in the GI specialist world. Sigh.

Lowest tolerance for fructose (dietary fructose intolerance, not the rare genetic liver enzyme problem) is ages 1-3. That's when you see toddler diarrhea most, too.

BUT, the critically important point here: Fructose that is undigested, even without signs of diarrhea, can cause mood swings, low tryptophan levels, and low seratonin levels, which then may produce ADHD-like behavior. Including, as it turns out, impulse-driven actions without apparent concern for social consequence. Like biting without provocation. (!!)

One overdose of fructose (at whatever level the child is sensitive to), and you may see 1-3 days of this behavior. It makes it very hard to track to the cause, because it blurs in, and blurs out, over more than one day.

DFI is a realy pain, lemme tell ya. No enzyme products you can take like lactaid for the same problem with milk sugars. If your child reacts to High Fructose Corn Syrup (some do, some don't, mine does), the reaction will be extreme to even minute exposures. Anything with sorbitol or other 'non-nutritive food alcohols and esters' will set it off, too. And fruits with those sugars (apples, grapes, peaches, cherries, pears, mango, melons, garlic, onions, leeks) will be particularly bad. One peach, one day, and my son bit the nanny's son on the arm, hard, and admitted he did it for no reason, and didn't seem to care.

Anyway, since I have had one of 'those kids' (biting, pushing, etc.), and it turns out he has multiple carbohydrate intolerances (lactose, fructose), and his behavior COMPLETELY reverses to thoughtful, caring, kind, considerate (above age-normal) when he's on a restricted diet (whole fruit that have a low fructose level or as much glucose as fructose and NO JUICE and NO sorbitol-containing fruits)... well, thought it might be of use to ya. And to the poor kids parents, who are likely despairing that he'll EVER start functioning normally, and might be wondering if they'll end up with him on meds, etc. If the trigger is the diet, behavioral modifications don't work very well (though emphasizing responsibility for ones actions even when one is not in CONTROL of oneself seems to keep a bit of boundary in place for Brendan).

Also of note, the American diet at this point contains more fructose than most people can tolerate even if they are normal fructose tolerant people. So, feeling depressed or moody or unfocussed? Diet change may help...

Check out: http://www.underthemoon.squarespace.com/articles/2006/9/8/kid-food-substitutes-for-fructose-intolerance.html

[keesha dickenson]

my son is in a all day headstart/preschool program,he hits kids and pushes them down with no remorse at all,you try time out,spanikings and taking his toys away and neither of them work,it does not phase him any,any suggestions on what i should do.?