To be absolutely heartbroken by this comment made by a 5 year old

[dreamer998]

My job involves working with kids. Today, a teary eyed little girl told me this: "I don't see my daddy because mummy said that he doesn't care about me and doesn't want to bother with me"

Why on earth would you tell this to your 5 year old child?! Haven't stopped thinking about it all day. Made me want to cry 😢

You do NOT know the mum has TOLD her child this. The child may have overheard her mum saying it or heard mum had said it from someone else.

You are happy to judge mum as being bad yet you don’t know exactly what happened. Yet you say you can’t judge dad as you don’t know the circumstances.

*Teder · Today 21:07
MissTrip82 · Today 21:04

Your code of conduct permits you to post details of a conversation you’ve raised as a safeguarding issue on the internet? Really?

I’d really consider whether this post fits with your professional ethics.
Particularly the level of judgment the OP has demonstrated towards the mother. She’s taken the child’s word and made assumptions based on this about the mother but has been kind enough not to make assumptions about the father.
If any mother did this, it is categorically wrong but the father is absent and that is abusive and harmful too. Poor child.*

Poor children than there are people on here excusing the mother and presumably doing shit like this themselves. But hey, easier to pile on the OP and criticize her. OP, I hope you are ignoring this nonsense.

"Mummy said" doesnt mean it was said direct to the child. it could have been overheard. I wouldnt judge a single parent who had got tired of trying to think up new lies, especially when that parent may be exhausted from a new baby,

A child said something similar to me, but they were 10 at the time. She was quite mature for her age so I said that some men are just not very good with young children. He might be better when she was older but some men never grow up enough to be good parents. She seemed content with that.

I believe that the child was actually told this by mum as there have been issues similar to this previously.

Nice drip feed OP

Because this is incredibly damaging and tantamount to emotional abuse.

Not necessarily. Maybe mum is spiteful and is taking the end of a relationship out on the dad by cutting contact. Even if it is true that the dad just can’t be arsed that is not the way to tell a 5 year old.

I think you should read up on the long term damage of Adverse Childhood experiences

I am not worried about the post being outing or it putting my job at risk. The child is not identifiable and I have changed a few details. The main point I was trying to get across was that I don't think this should be said to a child under any circumstances.

It would have been/was upsetting for them.

However it was more upsetting having a Mum who was saying one thing when they could clearly see another. Even if I was doing it for the 'right' reasons.

My 12yo is far more easy going about the situation than my 21yo because she knew that her dad didn't give a shit from a fairly young age, unlike my oldest and the middle 2 who I fucked up the most with by stringing things out, my oldest was the one who told dd that I was just being nice and her dad didn't give a shit,and she could see that so accepted it quickly.

So you can't guarantee me anything.

I get you're upset as you've been dealing with an upset 5yo, but you're clearly no expert in this at all.

Most of us are just trying to do our best, and sometimes we are faced with 2 impossible choices, and just get slated for choosing the least worse choice at the time.

As a father, I have been on the other side. The mother of my children would bad mouth me to my eldest who was at the time 7. He would come to me crying saying "why do you hate mummy, she told me that you don't like her" or "in our religion, mummy told me that I have to love her more than you". I would try to rationally explain that neither was the case.

After a year of this manipulation, I noticed my child consciously chose to believe his mother but unconsciously show me love through his actions like instinctively playing with my hair, holding my hand etc. It killed me to know that he was conflicted. I can see that this has damaged him, as he is growing up to be negative and paranoid, despite my best efforts to always be positive around him. I have tried to lead by example, never saying anything negative about his mother and even speaking positively about the time he lives with her. Thankfully he has found some independence and our relationship is strong again, but it was a horrible time for us both.

Children are impressionable, sensitive to their environment and never want to hurt the parent that is caring and providing for them.

What the mother said to the child in the OP was emotional abuse.

@ItsThePlayBusDingDing

That's a very good, thoughtful post.

This.

You’ve jumped to conclusions and you should know better if you deal with this in your job.

You would be guessing wrong. They was 7 the other child was 8. This happened in the school after the lesson was about families.

It wasn’t my interpretation. It was said to one of mine. My dad is away a lot and when he can he calls and writes. Does you dad do this? No? He mustn’t love you.

But you don’t know it was said to the child.

My first thought on reading was that she had overheard a conversation between adults. It's really easy to think children are busy and not listening.

Or maybe the mum has let her own feelings get in the way, or maybe she doesn't understand how damaging such a message can be. All of which she can be helped with. And it's in the little girls great interests to try understand where the mum has come from and help her with parenting. Intentionally hurting her little girl is possible but probably low down the list of possibilities.

And people involved in safeguarding are usually very careful about confidentiality.

If it continues it is emotional abuse telling a child someone doesn't love them is cruel

I think you've misunderstood, or not read my post properly.
Id shared this in response to you saying that if the child had an 'active and engaged dad' this wouldn't be a problem.
My point was I had an 'active and engaged' dad, and we did have this problem. One who tried to fight for us, was repeatedly threatened (including my mum threatening to hurt us - which he felt was credible given her behaviour) He didn't walk away but it did mean he couldn't see us as often, and due to the lies we were told, we 'decided' very early on not to see him. He tried, but how exactly do you fight to see a child when the child doesn't want to see you? As a child I hated him. I thought he was to blame for everything that was bad in our lives because that's what we'd been told.

There isn't enough information in this case to know if dad is deadbeat, or being blocked from being involved.

I tell my kids the truth about their Dad 'he's a nasty man and does bad things, the police have said he can't see you anymore'. Mainly because I was sick of making excuses for the idiot. My eldest is 10 now and will say himself his Dad doesn't care about him and my reply is always 'I don't know about that but I do know that you are my entire world'. Lying doesn't help anyone, chances are the kid heard it from Mum ranting to someone about it. I know my kids have overheard things they shouldn't.

@MusicDreamer well yes, you could be right. It might not have been said directly to her, but if it was a case of her overhearing a conversation, then surely her mum should be more careful when discussing the fact that her child's dad "doesn't care" about her when said child is in the house.

I know I am coming across as judgy to some people, but stuff like this is really damaging for young kids. I've witnessed it first hand.

I think you sound a bit naive OP.

My friend was in this situation with an extremely flaky father who messed about their kids then basically stopped bothering.

I don't know where her 4 year old daughter heard it, but she was convinced it her mum (my friend) that was stopping her seeing her dad.

My friend had to say in the end that no, it was his choice because she didn't want her daughter thinking the only parent she had left in her life was evilly stopping her seeing her dad. She had to put the blame squarely where it lay to preserve the trust with her daughter and to protect their relationship.

It wasn't an easy decision, but after very much agonising this was what she decided to say to her dd, out of the very best intentions.

Some family situations are just hard. There is no easy way to deal with them. You just have to try to minimise the hurt and damage.

I think your pupil and her mother need your compassion and understanding, not reporting. This isn't a safeguarding issue.

@dreamer998
So you may have changed a few details, but if you have a role in safeguarding or have any ethics at all, why on earth do you think its acceptable to put this on a public forum knowing that a whole heap of judgement would descend on this mother.
What do you hope to achieve by reporting her - social services involvement?

OP I'm not sure what you're hoping to get from this thread. Clearly it's an inappropriate thing to say to a child, and upsetting for you to hear.

But if your work role involves safeguarding children I am shocked you think it's ok to post about it on an internet forum and start a public debate on the issue.

You seem to really dislike this Mum. Your professionalism is really questionable here.

So your dad left you with someone who had threatened to harm you and had reason to believe this?

Hm. My father was a useless, neglectful, horrible man. My mother was diplomatic about him, but my siblings wouldn't have taken it personally had she merely verbalised what we actually already knew. I'd have just felt that was honest. And she loved us enough for two parents. We were 6, 8 and 10 when they split, and he barely bothered with us.

Obviously the 5yo got upset, but maybe the mother felt the truth was important, and is parent enough to make up for the lacking father.