To worry about Nursery questioning?

[Undertheboredwalk]

Ds (18mnths) started Nursery 2 days a week 2 months ago. He’s dc4, they’ve all gone to Nursery from around this age so I’m used to dealing with them. Ds is in a nursery I haven’t used before due to lack of spaces, so they don’t know us or us them yet.
They have a policy of documenting every injury as is usual I think, except they want to document every injury whether it happens there or not. So when I take him in if he’s hurt himself and got marks/bruises anywhere I need to fill in a form and explain what happened. I always let them know when I drop him if he’s hurt himself. But he is 18 months old, he has no fear and does everything at 100mph, climbs everything he sees and jumps off the top of you don’t get to him fast enough, he’s exhausting!
So it’s really bloody hard to know exactly how he got every little bruise or mark etc, his shins are always covered.
Without fail every time I collect him his key worker will pull me over and say “I found this bruise/mark/cut on him today and you didn’t tell us about it, I need you to sign this form” today was the same when I collected him except now I’m being asked to fill in the form and was also asked to explain how he got the bruise on his calf.
I have no idea!
The more it goes on the more scrutinised I’m feeling, and I feel like they’re genuinely feeling suspicious that I’m causing these injuries.
I’ve never had anything like this with the others at Nursery so I wanted to ask is this approach normal? Or am I right to worry about this. I’m starting to think I need to shadow him and stop him playing now incase he falls and hurts himself again which is just stupid.

Any insight would be much appreciated!

My 4 year olds nursery doesn't do this and tbh I wouldn't be thrilled if they did. He's usually black and blue - he's a very active little boy, forever climbing, falling, needing to be caught, lifted or held in some precarious position or other. I can no more keep track of his bruises than count sand on the beach. If there's something unusual (e.g. a cut on his head, bruise in an odd place) I'll tell them about it but they don't ask me to fill in a form etc, though I expect they hold their own records.

They can see for themselves that he's an active, inquisitive little boy - different if I was saying he's always into everything and he was quiet and still at nursery but I honestly don't know how he got most of his bumps and bruises - unless he's really hurt himself I only see new bruises when he's getting bathed.

The tick box, cover your arse approach to child protection is a pretty dangerous approach to take - I'd rather staff were properly trained to use their professional judgement and make an appropriate assessment.

Hmmmm, if my DS has a visible injury, they'll ask and you have to fill out an existing injury form. They don't ask for e.g. bruises on the shins, but one time he'd fallen and scraped his cheekbone and they wanted me to explain that. I assumed it was just standard safeguarding policy.

My nursery don’t do this and my 2 year old is always hurting himself, we would never be done filling in forms! I imagine it’s so you can’t claim he got hurt in their care to be honest, although a suspicious number or scale of injury might lead to a social work call being made I suppose. That would happen anyway though, form or no form.

I wouldn’t worry about it, just let him get on with being a crazy toddler.

We had this. For about 6 months we were filling these in at least weekly for ds. Tbh, something like "I'm not sure but he was at soft play/playground etc yesterday" worked perfectly fine as an explanation! I think it's mainly so you can't accuse them of injuring your child rather than accusing you of anything!

Jelly they are trained (my nursery we go to training ir have people come in every couple of months to do talks of different areas,( safe guarding that's done every year. Female gentila mutation. Cyber vulling/grooming radicalisation training.) . Spoting abuse isn't just seeing bruises. And it's not a tick box. It's actually evidence that can be used in court if something was wrong.

The nursery isn't accusing people of abuse. It takes all of a minute to say he was playing. And to sign a bit if paper.

My nursery does this, not for normal bruises in his shins etc but anything out of the ordinary. I don't think we've gone a full week without having to fill in an accident at home form but equally most weeks I've probably also signed twice as many forms for injuries he has got there. My DS is highly active and forever jumping off stuff , swinging on stuff or climbing things. It does another me a bit that they always expect us to know exactly how each bruise is caused, DS doesn't always cry when he injured himself so it doesn't seem serious then later there will be a massive bruise.

its safeguarding. they may have seen 'red flags' so are just doing what they need to

It's standard practice and it's to cover their own backs more than anything.

Echo what everyone else has said. DS is 20 months, his nursery once asked me to sign one when he’d got a big bump on his head from falling over at home and bashing his head on the corner of a coffee table. Never for normal little bruises on his legs though of which there are many!

Nursery practitioner here. As over zealous as it might see, documenting every mark on a child is normal and vital from a safeguarding point of view, because, although you are not harming your child, the uncomfortable truth is that some parents do, although this is rare. We have to document it all to protect all children and provide an evidence portfolio should there be any safeguarding issues in the future. These forms, in such cases, can show a pattern, or unusual frequency. We totally understand that some children constantly have accidents (my 3 year old is a nightmare for it) and seem to be covered in bruises constantly. If these are consistent with the accident etc, we don't worry too much. We wouldn't be doing our job properly if we didn't find out. The other reason is that it also protects us as workers. If there were no existing injury forms signed by the parents, it would be very easy for a parent or career to accuse us and we'd have nothing to back us up.

Try not to take it personally, it is not aimed directly at you, and for the normal bumps and scrapes, there will be no suspicion, but we have to safeguard all of the children in our care and make sure that a child who is experiencing abuse doesn't go unnoticed. The legislation covering this is constantly updated, reflecting recent cases, like Daniel Pelka, and our nursery policies have to reflect this.

Jelly we are highly trained in safeguarding, we are not allowed to practice if we aren't. Safeguarding isn't a tick box exercise, it is an extremely complex subject and we have to constantly be vigilant, not just for bruises, but for the explanations that go along with them, child and parent demeanour, the relationship they have (children tend to react very differently with someone who abuses them), disclosures, changes in behaviour etc etc, then tying all this together to look at the bigger picture. It is not something we are flippant about, for good reason. Yes we also have to protect ourselves, my nursery recently had a false allegation made by a parent (out of spite because we couldn't offer the days they wanted, it turned out). Without that evidence the practitioner could have lost her job and had her future career destroyed.

This scares the hell out of me. What is the world coming to when everything has to be written down and logged? This is a step too far IMO.

It's because of case like daniel paka and all the 100s more that it's needed and why they are put in place.

You want us to learn from the mistake and make sure another abused child is missed but not waste two minutes of your time.

It sounds like your nursery is a bit zealous, but the idea is surely good? I remember one time DD had fallen off the step stool, and had an exciting graze all down her back - hidden when she went to nursery, but they'd have seen it if they'd needed to change her clothes. I raised it when I dropped her off because I would expect them to be concerned if they discovered it unexpectedly. It turned out the nursery had a pre-existing injury form, though it was the only time I had to use it.

It's not standard practice, it's OTT. Nurseries should record unusual patterns of bruising - for example bruises in unusual places, grip marks etc., not every bumped knee or bruised shin.

Not normal for us, if it’s a ‘big’ bruise then we explain but more just to let them know not to worry and it happened at home than anything else. Often getting smaller bruises here as like you say it’s 100mph and we’re a terribly clumsy bunch 🙈 but then that’s just kids too!

My DS2's nursery did this almost excessively. Really interrogated about any little scratch or bruise. A few times the bruises and scrapes were actually from nursery, so when I picked him up I deliberately and thoroughly checked him in front of them. They didn't like it.

He has the wildest imagination and was full of stories, hellbent on getting me in trouble with the social services. He once told his keyworker DS1 was locked in the cellar for days. She looked horrified when she asked me about it. FTR We don't have a cellar.

But he also had it in for them. His keyworker once spilt tea on him He had a tiny cut on his finger from nursery, he told me a nember of staff cut him with the scissors. I made sure to tell them!

Its called

Safeguarding

Obviously you're not causing harm, but wouldn't you rather the inconvenience to you than them turning the other way and them failing to recognise a safeguarding concern?

No, I would not rather. It is not a nursery workers job to scrutinise and document any mark on my child. This is not safeguarding, this is interference.
It's not even helpful. All I have to do is make up a reason that sounds good even if its not the truth. What are they actually going to do about it? Nothing at all, that's what.

Thanks for all the insights everyone, interesting to hear peoples different experiences at their nurseries.

There’s no need to be arsey Londonlass, I’m perfectly aware of what safeguarding is, I’ve put three other children through Nursery, one of them is still in one, none of them have had this procedure and ds1’s Nursery currently don’t so it’s evidently not a universal standard practice. There’s obviously different ways of practicing safeguarding and this is one I’ve not experienced before.

I’m glad ds is at a place that takes it seriously and I’m reassured that it is a fairly normal way to deal with injuries etc.

I think nurseries are under a lot of pressure (rightly so) to safeguard and this affects Ofsted ratings. If a nursery can show they have robust procedures in place to ensure that no child in their care slips through the net, then they will obviously get a better rating. This is a good thing. It's not about intuition or red flags, it's across the board and is how it should be.

I had to fill them in several times for DS. He's quite a livewire, so it was amazing that he didn't mark himself more often. Nursery knew what he was like anyway.

He's the kind of child that doesn't make much fuss and picks himself up, dusts himself down and resumes rampaging, so there were some occasions where he had a minor incident that left a mark but the staff missed the moment and didn't catch what he did (he was also the type that's hard to catch and keep for an ice pack etc). Having a record of external injuries helps eliminate doubt about what has occurred on site and off site.

It's a faff when you're trying to get off for the day, but it helps protect the nursery and could help identity children who are being harmed.

My child minder does this. I think it's also partly to cover themselves to they are confirming and logging that the injury didn't happen in their care.

This is common safeguarding practice and all nurseries should want to be made aware of 'existing injuries'. If it is any comfort, once your child is potty trained, the bruises sustained through play on the knee to ankle area won't be questioned in the same way because the staff won't notice them so much unless they are wearing shorts. Nursery staff are not allowed to routinely remove clothing to search for injuries. It just feels like it is a constant observation because they are undressing your child to change their nappy.

We were questioned like this when we adopted DD1, by the social worker. She said she had to document every bruise. It was during the period before the adoption was approved by the court, so it was very unnerving. DD1 was also very active and constantly getting bruises so I really had to keep track.

DD2’s social worker wasn’t like this. He didn’t want to know about accidents unless there was hospital treatment required. So the first social worker was being over zealous.

I’ve never had this at nursery though. Although I did mostly tell the nursery staff about any bruises during the handover, probably because of my experience with the social worker.