How to tell parents their child was bit?

So my new 11 month old dcg was bitten by another child today. This has never happened in my daycare before. She was trying to take a toy out of the other childs hand (child is 18 months old) and they turned around and bit her out of frustration. Not acceptable, I seperated them and child was given a consquence. It did not pierce the skin and dcg is fine, a trooper actually, barely cried lol. My concern is bringing it up to her parents at pick up tonight.....Any suggestions?

Hi!

I had a biter in my last group. "Luckily" he only bit my daughter or his own brother. I would tell them at pick up...not in advance via text or anything! Just explain what you saw and how you will prevent it from happening again.

I had it happen once and I had to say that their child got bitten - I apologized, said how I addressed it and that I intervened as soon as I saw what was happening.
I would then assure them that you will be watching the biter like a hawk. That is behaviour that has to be nipped in the bud and the biter has to be closely monitored from now on around the others.

I would say "We had a great day to day, we did ........., However we did have a minor mishap. One of the other dck's bit her. her skin was not broken and she handled herself very well. The other child was disciplined accordingly. I do have an injury report for you to sign, and will photocopy it for you."

If her skin had been broken I would have called to let them know right away. In case they wanted to take her in to be check. I would also not give them the name of the child who did the biting. I would also do a report for the parents of the biter.

I am with two agencies and am required to do the reports.

I am a firm believer telling the patents right away when any injury occurs. It's always important to put yourself in your parents shoes. Let them know right away, tell them it wasn't serious as no broken skin etc... I usually do this via email and say heads up on so and so's day.

thanks everyone! this is only her 2nd week so I am dreading the dcp reaction. They have been seperated the rest of the day and I will continue to shadow the biter. Its very strange tho, I have never had this kind of behvior from this child before until today.

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Originally Posted by Skysue

I am a firm believer telling the patents right away when any injury occurs. It's always important to put yourself in your parents shoes. Let them know right away, tell them it wasn't serious as no broken skin etc... I usually do this via email and say heads up on so and so's day.

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I usually take the opposite approach as often the marks go away or the injury doesn't look as severe by pick up time. No need to make a parent worry needlessly since you are not asking them to assist with medical intervention.

If I do email I would do it during naptime so the parent only has about an hour to stew about it and not all day.

I would mention it at pick up and let them know this is not normal behaviour for this child to bite. If they've never done it before how would you know to watch for it right?

Show them the place it happened and the mark and let them know that you will be monitoring the biter closely so it doesnn't happen again.

I've never had a biter... thank goodness!

Ugh... I have had a couple biters.
I use incident reports, if there was any type of mark left behind (and sometimes even if there wasn't!). Either way, I will make sure BOTH sets of parents are aware. I treat it matter-of-factly, because it happens, but make sure that everyone knows that we will not be letting this matter / issue slide.