Faiza Venzant says her son?s shoulder still bears a small scar from when he was bitten by a playmate at his Toronto daycare four years ago. Qayam was around one and a half when it happened.
When she and her husband were told about the incident by a daycare teacher, ?we felt very protective,? she says. ?We wondered, ?why is this kid targeting our child" Do we need to pull him out of daycare"? And my husband wanted to know which child was doing the biting.? The teacher did not share the child?s name with them?a common daycare policy that is meant to protect families from unnecessary conflict.
Their reaction was typical. ?Parents on both sides of a biting incident are often horrified?it feels very primitive and wrong,? says Lorrie Huggins, a Toronto-based YMCA general manager who oversees staff training in the GTA. (She’s also a co-author of the curricula for YMCA daycares across Canada.) In Qayam?s case, the teacher explained to his parents that biting is a normal behaviour for toddlers. The teacher also outlined the strategies the staff would use to rein it in.
About six weeks later, the biting stopped as suddenly as it had started.
Venzant and her husband were able to put the perspective they?d gained to good use a few years later, when it was their younger son who was the kid doing the biting.
?It really clicked for us when Malik started biting. We got the same reassurance we?d been given on the other side of the experience, about how it was developmentall...