DH accidentally hit DD(7) and left a mark. Do we tell the school what happend?

Be honest with the school.

For everyone saying it must have been hard to leave a mark, it depends on the skin.

I constantly have bruises because I mark and bruise easily, most of the time I have no idea how I have got them, or I do know but other people would not bruise. Things like catching my leg getting out of the bath or dropping a hairbrush on my foot.

There may have been a meltdown due to ASD or due to other things. If OP's dd has ASD she is vulnerable and deserves protection.

Hiding injuries from school is dodgy as hell.

Advice on how to cover up injuries? The father left finger marks on his 7 year old dd, a baby still really. It disgusts me. Op has not commented on her shock or horror about her dh mishandling the situation, just how to avoid being found out. Extremely concerning.

No. It is helping a mother who is at her wits end. There will be a range of answers to any post (some helpful and some less so) but if if we can't ask for advice on a parenting forum then where can we?

Who else feels that MN should remove this thread as it essentially gives tips to cover up abuse.

Firstly don't worry, they won't ever want to take her away from you because they don't want the hassle and expense of looking after a child with ASD.
However, I would seriously question why your DH lashed out so hard? In doing so he is likely to just inflamed the situation more.
He needs some help and education in how to manage her behaviour and you should use this event as the spark to change things.

The circumstances you describe don't sound at all plausible. Dashing something out of a child's hand does not require that level of force.

They do have bruises all the time, but first they have a plausible explanation for the marks - so you say something like that's an impressive colour and they give a story about sport that is consistent and likely and you don't report that normally.

But bruises in some areas of the body are unusual and some patterns are unusual. So you going to report those internally, especially if the story makes no sense / sounds coached. We have annual training on it. So take pp, a burn on the forehead is very unusual, so of course I tell the safeguarding lead if I see that.

They decide what to do next. They might report to the safeguarding hub. They have more training and often more information when making that decision.

Being reported doesn't mean anything gets done about it, or the action might simply be a call from social services who have even more training and decide no action is needed.

Did you see what happened? It doesn't sound quite right.. to be slapping at something a child is holding hard enough to leave a hand mark?

Tell the school and the will have to report it to the safeguarding team and you may expect a visit from a social worker - however, this could be a good thing. They may be able to offer help, advice and support

For those who say school will report and social services will intervene, have you got any experience with social services? I regularly make social services referrals and only one (very serious) has been taken further because the threshold is ridiculously high. Something like this wouldn't reach threshold.

They don't report for every mark but they'll report what obviously looks like finger marks or hand marks as it indicates they have been hit.

You surely must agree that if a teacher notices a hand mark on a child's body that they should report it? Seems pretty obvious to me.

Offer early intervention? Laughs long and hard

DH went to slap one of the objects away and accidently caught her instead, hard enough to leave the raised imprint of 3 of his fingers

Slap marks on the skin fade. Even hard ones.

If she still has a mark the following day, to the point you're worried about school noticing, then it wasn't a slap.

I'm struggling with this too.

I work in education.
This will definitely need reporting, any staff who see it will report it using their concern portal which goes to the DSL. The DSL will then speak to DD and you and make a decision from there as to whether it needs reporting further.
Be honest and be a part of the consideration for reporting, there are many channels that they can refer to you that will provide lots of help and you don’t want these to be missed because it’s been reported for you trying to hide and making yourself look guilty.
Also for a lot of PP, yes lots of things are reported. Anything from injuries to not eating breakfast in the morning, it all goes to the DSL who can then notice patterns, if it was just one report of no breakfast it wouldn’t be taken further but if it was a consistent issue being reported they would start looking into it, is the child alone in the mornings and not organising their time well enough to prioritise breakfast? Are there financial issues which mean breakfast isn’t available? Is there neglect? All of which the school can support with, we have a number of students who eat breakfast at school as mum and dad work in the morning and teenagers just don’t prioritise food over sleep and then hugely regret it once they’re at school and hungry!

Teachers have a duty to report safeguarding concerns to their DSL and make a record.

This is different from reporting to social services, which anyone can do but it is far more likely the DSL would investigate first and make a decision/plan.

We have a violent, autistic 7 year old and I don't know how this accident happened, TBH, OP. It's confusing. Where is the mark and how did it get to be three-fingered?

You don't let your (small) DC get to throwing objects hard enough to hurt - you have to restrain them, arms by sides, with the minimum reasonable force in a safe comfortable, quiet place (e.g. on a sofa), and keep them there until they calm down. Then, bring a favourite toy and cover the child with a heavy blanket, so they can recover.

That's it. Well done. No one is injured and nothing is broken.

Some of the replies here are, sadly, quite deluded about the likelihood of effective, useful help beyond what I've just written.

I do understand that @socialdilemmawhattodo - I have ND children myself and I know how horrendous meltdowns can be. I have been contacted by SS myself after taking my child to A&E with an accidental injury. I just fall on the other side of the line from you when it comes to protecting those children who really are being harmed. And as a teacher, it's really not a choice, not if you have any professional integrity.

Teachers now have a legal obligation to report. So I agree no choice for you. The problem is that for many families, particularly those who have children with SEN. We live in fear, or I used to. Child now older.

Our SEN children don't use convenient language; they state what they see, what they saw/felt/heard. No nuance. One would hope that "authorities" might understand that but no. I am not a fan of the 1 child saved, the other 99+ reported without issue, is OK.

I don't understand the school reporting for marks. Don't kids turn up with bruises and marks all the time from messing about, play-fights with friends, sports injuries, etc?