Please provide some insight...

[My2Kiddos]

I have issues going on with both of my kids and neither issue is more important than the other.  In my opinion they both require my undivided attention and figuring it all out is stressing me out.

We'll start with my son.  He's 6 years old and is now in the first grade.  He was premature and suffered through a rough first few years delaing with Sever Reflux Disease.  He struggled to get through kindergarten (focusing, following directions, and following through on assignments).  His father and I are not  together and with that you can understand we disagree often on alot of issues.  At his last parent teacher conference the teacher pointed his issues to maturity or development issues. The teacher had conerns about him going forward so I suggested we hold him back a year and give him time to catch up before going on to first grade.  His father was concerned with the social aspect and how I would be putting negative thoughts in his head.  Here we are, just finished the first quarter of first grade and he's struggling with the same issues and they're more noticeable as the year progresses.  He has absolutly no behavioural problems in regards to getting along with his peers or acting out.  He's a very mellow and happy child, but is non attentive at both home and school.  Even asking him to put his homework in a folder and put the folder in his backpack is a struggle.  I have to be on top of him for him to get it done.  Same goes for his homework, he seriously struggles on his own and has to be walked through from begining to end.  Is this still just maturity?  It's been 8 months now and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.  I'm thinking he's either overplaced grade wise, or he may be showing signs of inattentive ADD.  I'm worried and only want whats best for him but don't know what what else I can do outside of continuing to work with him through his teacher and getting a dr's opinion.

Now we get to my daughter.  She's 2 years and 4 months old.  Yes terrible two's.  But the aggression she's showing in her daycare setting is really stressing me out and I don't know how to help her.  She's biting and hitting and I feel horrible about it.  I dread the talking to I get everyday when I pick her up from daycare.  I feel for the parents and the child she is hurting but what can I do when I'm not there?  She is overactive at home but in no way aggressive.  I'm fearful of moving her daycare because she's so settled there and I don't want her to get kicked out.  I also adore her daycare provider.  She's been with our daughter since she was 6 months old.  My husband and I are just at a loss for what more we can do.

I've rambled I know.  I just have alot going on and am not sure how to tackle what is going on with my kiddos.  Is a trip to the pediatrician necessary to discuss behaviors or are these just normal phases they go through.

Thanks for reading this and I appreciate any responses.

[BaseballDad]

I have no experienceto offer with your son, but I did have a biter.  He had over 50 bite reports from 18 mos to 32 mos at his daycare.  I never saw him bite once in my life.  My wife and I used to try and goad him into biting so we could deal with the problem (take his toys, annoy him, etc)- as you know dealing with biting 3 hours later is impossible.  He never would bite us.  The first thing we did was talk to the daycare teacher to figure out what the pattern was with biting.  He bit when another child would take his toys, high frustration, and sometimes just when someone reached across his face.  We asked the teacher to please be very attentive to these scenarios to prevent the bite.  He was a pretty good talker with a lot of words, but the kids he was biting generally weren't.  So was he biting when communication failed or when he didn't have the words to express himself.  Here's the kicker though- one day he just stopped biting.  It was a nightmare to have these other kids getting bit and the other mom's wanted to know whose kid was doing all the biting.  In many other scenarios he probably would have been kicked out of daycare.  Frankly, most of the burden to prevent the biting falls on your childcare provider.  You don't see any biting.  You are not there to address the biting.  You can't reason with a two year old hours after a problem.  Your two year old will stop biting eventually.  Until then, figure out what is triggering the bites and help your provider figure out how to anticipate them.