The Biter

Stella started back to daycare or as we like to call it "school" last week. Dan dropped her off and said she was very excited and didn't have a hard time with him leaving her at all. I picked her up and as I always do asked the teacher how she did. Here is how the conversation went.



Her teacher: She had a great first day, she ate well and took a good nap. (pause) However she did bite a friend when we were in the gym. We talked about how we should not bite our friends and we talked about things we can bite, like food and she listed a lot of foods that she can bite. The little boy is ok and his parents were understanding because he has older siblings.



Me: Oh no! She has only bitten once before, she isn't a biter....Did you tell his parents who bit him?



Teacher: It happens especially when they start in a new place don't worry to much about it, I just wanted you to know in case you wanted to talk to her about it at home. And, no by law we can't tell them which child bit their kid.



Me: We will talk to her about it, it is not acceptable that she bit another kid.



Teacher: She had a good day besides that.



Me: (in my head) Ya ok she had a good day besides that fact that she bit a kid, this lady is just trying to be nice.



So I didn't talk to Stella right away about it. I talked to her about her day and asked her if she had fun and what she did. After we were home and she had a snack and we were watching a movie I paused it and said "We need to talk about something." I told her that she should not bite her friends and that hurts them and makes them sad and that it makes me and daddy sad too.

Later that night my dad called to see how her day was and I told him it went well and didn't mention the biting because I didn't want to keep bringing it up in front of her. When I got off the phone I said to Stella "Appa is glad you had a good day at school" to which she replied, "I bite." I said "I know but you aren't going to do it again so it's ok, you learned from your mistake." Then, later on my mom called and asked to talk to Stella so I put her on speaker phone. My mom asked Stella how her day was to which she replied "I bite friend." My mom told her she knew and that it's ok as long as she doesn't do it again.

Dan came home from work and I privately told him not to say anything because I think she gets the picture and that perhaps she might be feeling pretty guilty about it. So we carried on the rest of the night as normal. At bedtime we always pray with her. Dan was praying and said "We pray that Stella has a good day at school tomorrow," Stella immediately jumped in and said "I don't bite friends I bite food." We told her that's right, that she does bite food and not friends.

Needless to say there hasn't been anymore biting incidents but I am a little worried that she might be scared for life, even though she was the biter.