Advice please - pre-school

[Collymo]

Picked LO up from nursery yesterday and was told that they had been on the time-out step for hitting another child with a toy.
Was mortified to be told this (honestly my child is soft, never hit out before),asked what had happened, told that a teacher seen my LO hit another child with a toy snake. The teacher was not happy at all and put my little one on the time-out step, they cried the whole time that they were on there. When I asked if I could speak with the relevant teacher, they weren't available.
When asking my LO what had happened I was told 'playing with a snake (toy) being Jessie (Toy Story) the snake hit .... on the face'. My LO starting crying saying that 'I'm naughty'. 'Teacher said it was on purpose, I was just playing being Jessie'.
I'm now quite concerned, my little one isn't 'naughty' it just isn't in their nature. I can see it from his point of view that he was playing using the snake as a lasso but can also see that another child has been hit so my LO needs to be told. I've told him not to playing that anymore and not to swing things around.
He now doesn't want to go back to nursery and gets upset when I mention the word.
What should I do?

[cdwales]

It is just a small incident and time will sooth it...
My concern would be that is always a good idea to be clear that the message it 'that was a naughty thing to do' (though I prefer unkind or thoughtless) NOT you ARE naughty. Label the action not the child! Your LO seems very sensitive.
I would gently make this point to the senior nursery nurse too actually.

[Collymo]

Thank you!
Yes you are completely right, he is sensitive and he's a people pleaser.
Do you think I should speak with the teacher who witnessed the incident? I don't want to make matters worse, although at the moment they can't really get any worse as he doesn't want to go back.