Let me be among the first of what I hope will be a torrent of letters about "When Toddlers Get Fired." Thank God the author has shared his amazing discovery with all of us: Having kids is hard. Dealing with 2-year-olds is really hard.

There is no magical school that should be able to deal with a biting child. While I understand that there are those who truly need full-time daycare, I also know that many confuse "need" with "want." My husband and I are both artists, and we made many different career choices because we had kids. We were also creative with childcare; we took turns, we helped create a neighborhood network, and we learned to work when the kids were asleep.

I'll let the author in on another fact: Kids grow up. Now that you brought them into the world, take care of them. One day they'll be off and you can paint and write on your own schedule.

-- Paula Sjogerman

Please be sure Neal Pollack gets this letter! There is this nifty little program called Early Intervention. It is free, and your son will be evaluated -- by specialists paid by the Department of Health -- to figure out what is going on here. You are the parent, the grown-up. It is your job to help figure out what is going on with your son. By the way, you can't afford not to get your son some help, unless you are content to see him treated like a bad kid with a behavior problem for the rest of his school years.

Look up the phone number for Early Intervention in your area. If you can't find it, call your pediatrician or your local public school district. Your son needs help and early-intervention services -- which are free -- may be the way for you to start stepping up to the job of being his parent and getting him that help.

-- Katy Keohane

I do feel for the author and his wife, and it does seem as if their daycare provider was, to put it mildly, inept. But it also seems that the author's main reaction was to hope the problem would take care of itself, because he did not mention any parental efforts to understand the problem or to engage the daycare provider by suggesting alternative solutions. From a child's perspective, biting is a preverbal form of expression on the same level as hitting or kicking. From an adult's, biting usually elicits a lot more anger and attention. The biter often gets more attention than the victim, which can spur the biter to keep biting. And Elijah seems to have become the center of just such a negative feedback loop.

All the difficulties about finding affordable childcare notwithstanding, it is possible to deal constructively with an intractable biter. There are probably dozens of books and other resources that could have given these parents some ideas. I am a veteran daycare mother, and I know that the creativity and background, not to mention the workload, of daycare providers vary too much to assume that they will have an answer to a difficult behavioral problem. So the author should take this as a lesson that is best learned early in a child's development: Sometimes, parents need to be more involved than they want to or think they have time for.

-- B. Ryland

Could Elijah be biting to get attention? My concern is that nowhere in this article does the author mention seeking out some family counseling, which even in my small provincial town is available for low-income folks. Are they too proud to access this?

As a parent myself, I want to remind the author that raising a child is likely to be the most rewarding and profound experience he will ever have. Both he and his child will reap the emotional benefits of his involvement in his child's early years.

Neglect during these formative years will shape that child's future. I have been in your shoes, but please make it your biggest priority to pay attention to your child; soon it will be too late. Let the child know that he can depend on his loving caregivers to care enough to interact with him, listen to him and really hear him. Elijah's frustration is heartbreaking.

-- Name Withheld

This is familiar territory. I was one of the first superwomen in the '60s and '70s who did it all. My husband and I both worked together all the time as writers and artists, and the youngest was in school from the age of 6 months. The difference is that I came from a family of Scottish Mrs. Doubtfires and there was no way anybody was going to let me get away with blaming away what was clearly my responsibility -- discipline. This toddler is going to have big problems if his parents keep letting him bite people (a dangerous activity from a medical standpoint). Forget the chairs and mats. Make sure he has a well-padded backside, then take him over your knee and give a couple of loud-sounding whacks

Neal Pollack highlights the Yale article as if his child is being dismissed for sucking his thumb too loudly when in fact he is being expelled for a serious issue that threatens the safety of other children. The thought of spending the summer with their child "terrifies" both Pollack and his wife. Has it occurred to Pollack that that fact could be the cause of the attention-seeking behavior?

Pollack's assumption that his son may someday need to be medicated in order to be "sane" is sad. In my experience as a former teacher, the vast majority of "difficult" children need a little more discipline at home and, often, a lot more attention from their parents.

-- C. Davis

I think it's hard for artists who set their own schedules or non-schedules to deal with a child who desperately needs a regimented day.

You know Elijah's not ready for nursery school, but your summer need not be hell.

Here's a schedule:

7:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Parent A

9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Parent B

12:30-3:00 p.m. Elijah nap

3:00-6:30 p.m. Parent A

6:30-7:15 p.m. bath, book, bed (both)

A good nap and an early bedtime are crucial to 2-year-olds. Room-darkening shades: Buy them. Love them.

Alternate days being parent A and parent B. During your turns with Elijah, talk to him and give him eye contact. And get him out of the house. You read "About a Boy," didn't you? Remember the main character divided his day into small units of time? Go to the playground (3 units). Go to the store (4 units, if you let him help put every item in the cart). Revel in the slow passage of time. You're alive and with someone who loves you more than you feel you deserve.

You're not bad parents. You might just need more discipline than he does.

-- Susan Ochs-Scher

Reading Neal Pollack's article made my stomach churn. His assessment of his son's behavior, and the feelings he and his wife have regarding them, are painfully honest. What's (unfortunately) missing is an answer to the self-reflective question, "So ... what are you going to do about it?" Elijah, cherubic looks and abominable behavior aside, is simply a 2-year-old child in need of parenting. By "parenting" I mean guidance, attention, love, discipline, and routine, as well as the usual food, shelter, etc.

Since whatever it is they've been doing obviously has not been working, the school expulsion should be the wake-up call that Mom and Dad need to pull their heads out of the sand and get busy working on their most important project: their son. As parents, as in so many other things in life, we must play the hand we're dealt. To Mr. Pollack and his wife I say, game on. Indulgence and excuses don't work when raising a child, and they cannot replace loving guidance.

Build a life that the three of you can share and enjoy, even if it means making sacrifices. It doesn't have to be drastic; perhaps an hour-long session of hard physical play outside (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) with Elijah would ensure a nightly bedtime of 7:00 p.m., followed by many hours of blissful sleep (his, not yours!). Read to him every day, multiple times a day, so that he learns to appreciate the quiet times with just his mom and dad. Set boundaries, communicate them clearly, and then enforce them consistently.

Have a beautiful summer enjoying your son, and with some love and luck, he'll soon be acting like the blessing you know he is, not the albatross you're afraid he's become.

-- Christa McGarry

I feel for Neal Pollack and his wife and for Elijah -- I really, really do.

My husband and I were in quite a state about two years ago when our 3-year-old son, who also has had issues with "impulse control" and "using his words," had problems at daycare. After several meetings with his teachers, we too thought he might be kicked out.

In comparison, we were lucky -- our son's bites never broke skin and our attempts at behavior modification (our rewards were Superhero toys instead of ice cream) began working. He's doing much better now, and his teachers are devoted to him.

I wonder whether Elijah's parents and teachers considered that he might have some kind of special need? One that might qualify him for federally mandated special services? Many parents aren't aware that you don't have to wait until elementary school to qualify for such services.

If Elijah's problem is any one of those conditions affecting (especially) boys ranging from the well-known ADHD to Asperger's syndrome to something called Sensory Integration Dysfunction (my son seems to have a touch of this) to a plain old unexplained developmental delay, then Pollack's community would be obligated to pay for services for him.

All that said, and it grieves me to the bottom of my very liberal, human-services supporting, early-education advocating heart to have to write this, it occurs to me that their preschool situation is not really this family's biggest problem: Their poverty is. All biting aside, Pollack reports that Elijah might have been kicked out anyway because his family couldn't pay his tuition.

I would be much more sympathetic to their plight were Elijah the child of a struggling, uneducated single mother trying to hold down three jobs and pay the rent on a hovel. But Pollack and his wife are clearly educated and have greater options -- options like getting a job with benefits, so they could afford some therapy for their son or a nanny to help out until he is old enough and mature enough for preschool.

Instead, they seem to be pursuing more creative, but far less predictable and stable careers, something that doesn't go well with parenthood. Has it not occurred to them that perhaps they both should not pursue their creative passions full time to the detriment of everything else in their lives? Did they not realize they might have to make a sacrifice or two when Elijah was born?

In the end, Pollack comes off as a bit of a whiner. He never fully acknowledges the trauma and pain that his son has caused or comes to terms with the fact that Elijah's teachers made a superhuman effort with their son and made the responsible choice to expel him. Imagine being poor Sophie or her parents! Imagine how disrupted their lives and careers would have been if Sophie refused to go to school because she was too afraid of Elijah.

Did Pollack and his wife ever apologize to Sophie's family? Did they ever thank the teachers who worked so hard on behalf of Elijah? They don't seem willing to admit that their choices (paying taxes with a credit card!) have put them in this pickle.

-- Nancy Waters

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