Question

Describe an experience you had which includes identifying problems and their causes, gathering and analyzing relevant data, and determining solutions.

Answer 1

One afternoon when I went to pick up my son from school, I was informed by his teachers that he was bit by another classmate on his hand. ‘Bit’, I exclaimed. ‘Who bites like that ?’ I thought to myself. My son was a little shaken as well. The teachers seem clueless as well. They didn’t know what went wrong. Coming back home, I started to wonder what must have led to this. So I asked my son again. But he kept on saying that he didn’t know. After a little while, I received a call from the parents of the same child who had bit my son. The mother was extremely apologetic about her boy. It seemed that the boy has already bit someone else too in the class. Although I was upset but I told her that it happens and I started asking her as to why he has been behaving so. What I could understand from the mother is the boy has been off late showing signs of aggression and hyper activity. Talking to her, I realised that this is obviously a part of the growing up stage and bodily changes. They were all 6 years of age. And teething !

So what I could understand is that the problem at hand was biting others. It could be an object or human. In some kids this shows a lot more clearly. Although my son has never done this to anyone but I cannot expect that same thing from others as no two beings are the same in their response to circumstances. The causes that could have led to this was that of hormonal changes (biological changes as part of growing up) and teething, of course. Speaking to the teachers and the child’s mother, I could understand that this could be tackled in a much softer way than otherwise. So the solution to this was speaking to the child about what he has done, explaining it to him that its wrong and telling him not to repeat it. I am sure his parents would have done so as I never heard anymore issues on the same. And now my son and that boy are very good friends as well.