My 3 year old told nursery I hit him

[HarrysMummy17]

When I collected my 3 year old from nursery at lunchtime I was called into the office.

The children was asked during group time what made them sad. My 3 year old said "when mummy hits my head".

I've never hit his head. I'm totally mortified that he's said it. I've never hit him. I tell him hitting is wrong. When fighting with his older brother I always tell them off and make a point of saying how dangerous it is to hit a head.

I asked then to ask him if he can elaborate and give any more details but he clammed up.

I'm mortified and upset by the whole thing. The nursery have said they have to record if, but what does that mean? Will they speak to my older child too?

Children don't lie

You haven't met the kids I know then!
My own nephew said I bloody bit him! I put him in time out and he bit his own arm! The little teeth marks and the little mouth was a proof it wasn't me! Little shit

Yeh children don’t like it’s obviously not true. Mine always lie and blame each other for things. Having multiple children means they can blame one of the other ones for doing something. Mine actually lie quite a lot.

My boys lie all the time, especially the one who has just turned three. He is the expert.

My 3 year old told his grandparent that I was hurting daddy. When In fact he'd asked me to scratch his back. Also he overheard a conversation where I was talking about a possible mouse in the kitchen and the next day he stood in the kitchen. I asked him what he was doing and he said he heard a mouse it was going eek eek.

@GrumpyHoonMain at 3 he really isn’t big enough to understand at all. Plus he may not be lying - there is often a very innocent explanation to these things that are open to interpretation eg mum may have bumped his head with her bag one day without realising and he’s talking about something as simple as that - in his mind she hit his head.

My son was/is a chronic liar, and truly believes what he has imagined. He told nursery that I punched him in the face, and would blame me for scratches and scrapes that he had got from falling over (when I was nowhere near). He also lied about all sorts of other things like how many fire engines were parked outside nursery (um, none).

After a couple of safeguarding incidents I phoned my hv and referred myself to the family support worker. It was great to talk about it to someone and i wanted to have my views on record as well as his “complaints”, and to be proactive in finding solutions. In the end we found techniques that worked sometimes and he has mostly grown out of it.

There is help available if this behaviour continues and it’s good to engage with the professionals as much as possible. You are not the only one!

@teapotter
Thank you for sharing that. I've spoken to ds again tonight. He won't go to sleep unless I'm in his bed with him for a snuggle.
I asked him again. What makes you sad? And he said, when you hit me in the head. I asked, when do I hit you in the head? He replied with, when I'm naughty.
I'm worried if the nursery ask again. The answer will be the same.
I did think about asking tomorrow what happens if he says it again.
I might see if our health visitor is still the sand person as I heard she'd moved. She was lovely and very helpful with my eldest ds when he was struggling developmentally.

Please don't worry.
I used to work in a nursery. I had to write out two statements during my time there as children had said odd things to me. One was a 4yo 'my daddy hits my legs and makes them bleed'. There were no marks on his legs. I gave my statement to the safeguarding lead who put it on file. She said as there had been no others from the child they didn't have to report and in any way, their policy was to chat to parent before referring on.

If it makes you feel any better OP, my almost 3 yo told any one who would listen last week that she's sad because "mummy pushed her in to the table"

I pushed her chair in to the dining table so that she was close to her food and would stop standing on her feet. I explained to her that this was to keep her safe. She responded by saying she was happy now because "mummy said sorry!" I did nothing of the sort!

I gave the nursery the heads up about that tall tale! They hear all sorts but they have to record everything - just in case!

It is horrible to experience as a parent, but I always think it's better to have a bit of awkwardness than have a child in real danger slipping under the radar.

I used to have to keep records of any "incidents" in a previous job and knew the vast majority would be just one of those things.

Thank you for all of the replies. It's a really scary experience! Good to hear other stories! He's not a liar usually. Apart from blaming things on his older brother!
I now know what makes mummy sad!

@FrancesFlute
Thank you. All of the nursery staff are lovely. And I've known them since my now 7 year old started at 3.
It's the shock of being 'accused' and the shame of them having doubt and me having to try and explain.
I'm terrible with confrontation, even though they did it in the nicest possible way! I want to crawl under a rock and not have to face them tomorrow.

Children don’t lie,

Oh for goodness' sake! I remember telling lies! I've watched little kids do something and then blatantly lie about it!

I wouldn't keep asking him about it OP. You're fixing it in his head, whereas he'd probably have forgotten about it by now otherwise.

One of my friends was coming out of M&S and in full view of a crowd turned to her and asked 'what did we steal from here mummy?'

@Paddy1234
😮🙈

I always remember my little sister doing this is primary school to my mum. She told the teacher that my mum pulled her round the house by her hair my poor mum had never payed a finger on any of us (6) she had to have a meeting with the headteacher after she said it but nothing got done about it. The complaint went on file obviously but luckily my mum had had 4 other kids that had gone through primary before her and never had a complain like that! As a mother now I can only imagine how mortified she was

But do tell him he's wrong that didn't happen.

The nursery will have to belive your son as there are cases when children are telling the truth. And failure to protect children has been missed over the years so I don't blame the nursery for taking his words seriously. If anything it's a good thing. Although you know it's not true. The nursery staff don't. So it's good that they are trying to establish what the case is.

We had a similar case growing up and the truth was missed. Leading to mine and my sisters abuse not being believed. Our mothers lies were believed and it was passed off as children who imagined being abused.

My DD told nursery that I put her in the bin Never actually figured out where it came from.

Mine told nursery that I starved her, didn't give her food and that she'd
had no breakfast all week.

She'd had a piece of toast and two bowls of cereal that day

Nursery have to ask but also know what kids are like

I have worked in a school setting and have been told all kinds of things by children, some of them are true and some of them are their versions of the truth. Many of the things were things that had happened to other people and they just couldn’t make any sense of them so they told me the story from their own point of view as if it happened to them.
I hope you can get to the bottom of what’s happening with your son.

@bruce43mydog
I'm so sorry that the system failed you and your sister. 😔
I totally understand what the nursery have to do and I'm glad they do take things so seriously. x

Thanks for all of the support ladies. I had a brainwave moment this morning an think I've figured it out!
Ds has been super super clingy recently, he's just over chicken pox and still feeling a bit rubbish. He's constantly under my feet and I figured out this morning I seem to have a habit of moving him out of the way by using my hand on his head to guide him in the direction I want him to go, or placing my hand in the top of his head to stop him moving so I don't fall over him etc. Sorry it's hard to explain without demonstrating! It doesn't hurt him as I asked today. I believe this is what he's referring to. "Mummy hit me in the head when I'm naughty and that makes me sad". I usually say, "ds please come out of the way" etc etc, but to him that's him being told off/naughty. And it makes him sad because he's wanting attention and I'm dismissing him. I don't think anyone actually asked if I hurt him. I made him sad.
I spoke to the deputy head today and she said that makes sense. The nursery staff were confused as when asked where mummy hits him, ds pointed to his forehead which is a random place!
I'm making a point of changing how I speak to ds and not to touch his head and nursery will speak to him again in a few weeks.
I've told him if mummy makes him sad to tell me and I can stop what I'm doing!

DCs definitely do lie, my DS2 would blatantly lie about stuff, for instance he would write his name on his bedroom wall and say it wasn't him. He ripped wallpaper off and he was holding a strip in his hand when I caught him, he said it fell off in his hand. He was under 4.

My 14 yo is a really intelligent lad but even he will say I have said things when I haven't, not blatant lies but an interpretation of things that as an adult make sense but to a teenager they may understand something different from them,

I am glad you have figured it out, it's definitely scary though, you have handled it brilliantly.