How Daycare Educators Handle Peer Conflicts & Fights Between Children | Daisy Days Regina SK

Peer conflict at licensed daycare is not a problem to be eliminated — it is an inevitable feature of young children sharing space, materials, and adult attention. How educators handle it matters enormously. At Daisy Days Daycare in Regina SK, peer conflict is a teaching opportunity — handled with warmth, skill, and a restorative approach. Here’s what parents should know.

Why Peer Conflict Is Inevitable and Normal at Licensed Daycare

Children at licensed daycare are still developing:

• Language: When words fail, bodies react. A 20-month-old who can’t say “Stop taking my truck!” may hit instead — not from cruelty, but from developmental limitation
• Theory of mind: Understanding that other people have thoughts, feelings, and desires different from your own doesn’t fully develop until 4-5 — toddlers genuinely cannot fully grasp that the other child wants that toy too
• Impulse control: The prefrontal cortex — the brain’s impulse control center — is developing throughout early childhood. Young children literally cannot reliably stop themselves from grabbing, hitting, or pushing in a heated moment
• Emotion regulation: Managing frustration, disappointment, and desire without melting down or acting out is a skill that develops slowly through the early years

This doesn’t mean peer aggression is acceptable — it means it’s understandable, expected, and requires skilled adult guidance, not punishment.

Daisy Days Daycare’s Peer Conflict Resolution Approach — Step by Step

Step 1: Stop the Behaviour and Ensure Safety

Physical aggression (hitting, biting, pushing) stops immediately. If needed, the educator physically separates children. This is a calm, non-punitive intervention — “I’m going to help you both right now.”

Step 2: Regulate Before Reasoning

Both children are dysregulated at the peak of conflict. The educator stays calm (co-regulation), gets to eye level with each child, and waits for the emotional peak to pass before using language. Lecturing during peak dysregulation doesn’t work — children can’t process words when their nervous systems are flooded.

Step 3: Acknowledge Both Children’s Feelings

• “Liam, you were so frustrated when Mia took your car. You wanted it.”
• “Mia, you’re upset because you got hit. That hurt and that’s not okay.”

Step 4: Teach the Social Script

“Liam, if you want it back, use your words. Say ‘That’s mine. I want it back.'” — practicing the language of self-advocacy rather than physical reaction.

Step 5: Problem-Solve Together

“You both want the car. What could we do?” — even toddlers can begin to participate in this problem-solving process with educator scaffolding. A timer for turns, finding another similar toy, parallel play side by side — the educator guides children toward resolution.

Step 6: Coach Repair (Not Forced Apology)

Forced “sorry” does not build empathy — it builds performative compliance. At Daisy Days Daycare, we coach genuine acknowledgment: “Can you see that Mia is crying? She’s upset. What could you do?” — this develops empathy rather than scripted apology.

Biting — A Special Case

Biting is the peer conflict behaviour that most distresses parents. Important facts:

• Biting peaks at 18-24 months and is almost always communication (frustration, overwhelm, overstimulation, teething discomfort) rather than aggression
• Daisy Days Daycare responds to biting with: immediate first aid to the bitten child; incident documentation; parent notification for both families (without naming the other child); and preventive supervision adjustments
• Most biting phases resolve naturally as language develops — the child who bites at 20 months is usually no longer biting at 28 months as their vocabulary grows

→ Positive behaviour guidance philosophy
→ Toddler hitting at daycare
→ Emotional wellbeing at daycare

Contact Daisy Days Daycare — peer conflict is handled with skill and care in south Regina SK.
306-807-3233 | info@daisydaysdaycare.com | 2007 Potts Crescent East, Regina SK S4V 2E5