Nursery trauma - please help!

[littleshebear]

A bit of background - dd2, who's 4 this month, was a terrible biter from the age of about 2 to2.5 - she got so bad I stopped taking her to playgroups. She was really aggressive - would attack another child for no apparent reason, and would also "target" certain children.

At about 2.5 I gradually started going back to groups and from 2.5 to about 3 she was fine. She started going to preschool as well and seemed to settle in well - then the aggressive behaviour started again, after she'd been there about half a term - again she targetted one particular child, mainly pushing her, although she did throw toys at other children as well. She could also be disruptive at story time - shouting and banging.

At this time she was being no trouble at all at home, or when out with our friends, and I was at a complete loss what to do. I went into preschool to observe - to cut a long story short I felt she wasn't being stimulated enough, and also that the staff weren't really ignoring bad behaviour and praising good enough. I did try to phrase this tactfully but I must have failed because one of the staff was horrible to me and made me cry so I was left, for reasons too involved to go into, with no choice but to move her.

She now goes to a private nursery, and has gradually worked up to 4 days a week as I started f/t work in June.

Now, after 9 months at nursery, the problem seems to have started again. She did have some problems settling in but her report in July was excellent, no behaviour problems. For the last 3-4 weeks though, about once a week at least, she's hit other children, kicked out, refused to do as she's told, had massive tantrums lasting 45 minutes. She's also hit a member of staff - it is always the same one.Tonight things came to a head - I could hear her as I went in, and said member of staff was lifting her up, under the arms, as she kicked and screamed, and saying quite angrily "you will go outside and put on your coat."Apparently today she had hit two children,for no apparent reason, hit this member of staff, refused to apologise, refused to put her coat on to go outside, and then screamed for half an hour.

I has a chat with the other nursery nurse - who dd has never hit - and tbh she wasn't much help. We are going to talk to the nursery manager tomorrow.

I should add that I do not consider dd to be that difficult to manage. I do give her lots of praise and employ distraction quite a lot, but I don't have much difficulty getting her to do as she's told. She has the odd tantrum, and occasionally hits one of us while she's having one, but it's not a problem - I just ignore her when she's having one and then carry on when she's finished. She never does this for more than 5 minutes.

I am really upset that she is having this problem again, and really concerned about the aggression - I feel it keeps surfacing in group situations but as I'm not there I don't know how to proceed.Obviously what the nursery is doing isn't working - the nursery nurse admitted as much. I do think there's a personality clash with this other nn - I don't really think thatshe was dealing with dd appropriately, while recognising she was probably mad she'd been hit.I really want to work with the nursery to resolve it, but don't know what to suggest. Is there anyone in the local authority who could help, perhaps go in to observe? Or has anyone else had a similar problem? And am I being oversensitive in thinking that you should not lose your temper with a child in a nursery situation,or lift them up when they are struggling?

I would be really grateful for help - I feel terrible. I feel guilty for working, even though the previous aggression happened when I was a SAHM, and really worried about next year when she starts school. I put off returning to work for as long as I could but due to financial circumstance s it isn't really an option to reduce my hours at the moment.we are looking at DH having her an extra day as he works from home at the moment.

[twinks]

Hi littleshebear - if the nursery manager is not normally in the room your dd is looked after in perhaps you could ask if she wouldn't mind observing your dd? one thing that springs to mind is do they not have a set policy in place for dealing with difficult behaviour such as ignoring/ quiet time/ time out ? as you have said u want to work through it with the nursery and see if you can work out if there is a particular situation or trigger to the bad behaviour once you find that out you can work out a way to stop the trigger or at least have plan that is agreeable to both parent and nursery of how her behaviour will be dealt with if it happens (ifyswim). good luck with your meeting with your manager i hope it works out for you.

[brimfull]

there should be a discipline policy available for you to look at.Have you thought about contacting the Health Visitor ,she may beable to point you in the right direction re. someone to advise the nursery on dealing with the behaviour.

[littleshebear]

Thanks for all your advice - they do have a policy of time out - they use an egg timer for 3 minutes. I have no problems with this, but think it isn't really working. She knows she's being naughty when she hits - I think you're right that we have to work out the trigger.