The Dreaded Incident Report

Those of you with kids in daycare will know what I’m talking about.? Each day, we get a report of Thing 3’s activites:? what he ate, when he slept, when he pooped, the new words he learned, and his general mood.

Usually, the daily report is pretty standard and I just skim through.? On some days, there is a second report called an Incident Report that I must sign to acknowledge receipt.? There are generally three situations that can result in an incident report for Thing 3:

1. He had a self inflicted accident. These are pretty common as toddlers are always climbing, falling, and bumping into things.

2. He had an accident that was caused by another kid.? Someone pushed him on the playground and he got a bloody nose, for example.

3. He was the cause of someone else’s accident.

When I see the Incident Report, I anxiously hope for #1 or #2.? Thing 3 gets so many bumps, scrapes, and?bruises, either on his own or with the “help” of his brothers, they don’t worry me anymore.? And I know if the accident was more serious, they would have called us during the day instead of waiting until we came to pick him up.? The last thing I want is for my kid to be the cause of someone else’s incident report.

Unfortunately, this was the case yesterday.? One of his friends took a toy from Thing 3 without asking.? Not that it would have mattered if he had asked, the answer would have been no.? At 20 months sharing is not his strongest suit.

So Thing 3 bit him.

In my mind, I can rationalize this type of incident report.? At least my kid wasn’t the instigator.? Sure, he shouldn’t have bit him.? But the other kid shouldn’t have taken the toy, right?

10 thoughts on “The Dreaded Incident Report”

  1. Oh no. Bitting is bad. Z-Dub was bit quite a lot and school but has never gone pit bull on another kid, thankfully. Daycare takes it seriously. It’s grounds for expulsion for repeat offenders.

  2. Oh yeah. DS was kicked out of daycare for biting and hitting. He’s over it now, but somehow I see trips to the principal’s office in my future.

  3. At 20 months…? Daycare should be watching out for him to prevent the escalation of the incident to the biting point. I have a 6 yo, 4yo, and 19 mo (boy, boy, girl) and when the girl gets frustrated, she tries to bite. How else can they declare their boundaries when assaulted by others at 20 months? She sure isn’t about to come and tell me. I place the blame on the caregivers. Here at home, it’s up to me to mitigate that situation and help her learn better–same should go for daycare. Repeated offenses means lax supervision in my book.

  4. In defense of the caregivers…I teach my students that in every day care’s handbook should be a statement that “BITING IS NORMAL TODDLER BEHAVIOR”. There is no way that 2 adults with 10 or more children can prevent all the biting incidents. The important question is how the biting is dealt with. Kids need help finding strategies to deal with frustration, and some kids don’t have good enough verbal skills yet to cope. The real problem is when biters get the same treatment as axe murderers . Now that the staff know that #3 has bitten I would hope that they pay some extra attention, but I hope they do not trat him as “the biter” but instead trat him as a child who needs to develop some coping skills.

  5. With Scout I realized most incident reports involved the same child, whether Scout was the agressor or not. I decided first, it’s up to the care-giver to make sure all the children are safe and second, you’re likely to lash out at whomever is closest when things take a turn or when you decide, ‘hey, I’ve had enough of this’ and don’t know how to say it. (He still has a scar, nine years later where a little girl turned around and scratched him because he was following too closely, in her opinion, up the ladder of the slide). So really, it’s best friends that bear the brunt of their frustration. Isn’t it that way with adults? Don’t we tend to hurt the ones we love the most? because they are the ones with whom we feel safest. they’re the ones least likely to walk away forever. they’re the ones with whom we can let our guard down and be ourselves.

    Biting at that age is normal then they grow out of it and into the next stage.

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