We bite food, not friends.

Sabrina's been biting her classmates at school. Gene and I were even called into the director's office for a meeting. Despite Gene and I regularly repeating our mantra "We bite food, not friends", it has become a problem and one that is causing me great concern. Sabrina had been on the bitee end of thing in her old day care and I remember thinking that the biter's parents need to get control over their kid. Oh how the tables have turned!

Anyway, at the meeting with the director we talked about the fact that she has bitten her classmates 6 times since October (getting more frequent recently). In most cases it's when she gets frustrated, but once it was seemingly unprovoked (at least, the teachers hadn't observed the events leading up to it). She even bit her teacher, Ms. Mia. The school director suggested that we contact a county program that can evaluate her and even come in and observe her if needed, and that "It could buy us more time". Hmmm, I was afraid to ask what she meant by that (more time until she is expelled? until she grows out of it??). So I called, and Sabrina and I went to their offices this morning.

There was a dearth of information on-line, so I asked a lot of questions. The bottom line is they evaluate children for things like learning disabilities. In my heart and brain I know she doesn't have those types of issues... she's very verbal, is learning tons and tons, etc. But to check off the block so to speak, we went. The teacher (a special ed type, I'm guessing), asked if I wanted to observe the interactions between her and Sabrina. Well, of course I want to be there! So off we went to this trailer, where we sat in a small room that had a round table and 3 chairs. Sabrina sat with the teacher on her left and I sat to Sabrina's right, facing the teacher.

Sabrina went through a series of exercises, including:
Identifying/naming objects on flashcards (house, tree, etc)
Identifying objects on the table (in one instance, she was told that a doll on the table was hungry and was then asked what she should give to the doll. On the table was a play bottle, and some other objects. Sabrina correctly pointed to the bottle)

She did so well. Thank goodness she was NOT in one of her cranky moods... it probably helped that she had been getting lots of sleep during the Christmas/New Years break).

The verdict: she mastered all the tests for her age (never got a wrong answer). Next, the "review committee" will meet and come up with the recommended next steps. The teacher said she would recommend they share some strategies the school can use (and I had signed a form allowing them to have direct contact with the school, among many others).