Is this child being abused?

[DDDN]

This is more or a WWYD but posting for traffic…

I was doing nursery drop off today and saw this mom with twins (3-4 year old) First time seeing her there so maybe new? She said ‘I should slap you for this…lets go’ to one of the children. First part in foreign speech (I speak this language too) and ‘lets go’ in English. I believe the child left something…I was in the corridor fixing my child kids’ coat in direct view of the doorway they were standing at (6 meters away from them). Not sure what to do or even if anything should be done??? I do not want to get involved in other moms business but can’t get the image of the child out of my brain…he was just looking up at her frozen. I feel like she said it to my child…I know that sounds crazy. I did say to her ‘be careful what you say. You might get reported in the language we both speak. She said ‘ok thanks ‘- totally unperturbed.

Mind your F business and move on? Or
Don’t be stupid - tell staff!

I don’t want to cause issues for anybody…I mean some people can say violent things and not actually action them…wish I never over heard this.

@NeverDropYourMooncup ,

But who are you going to report it to, and what do you expect to happen?

You can’t expect everyone to parent the way you want or to be perfect parents. The threshold for agency involvement is much much higher.

@ThreePointOneFourOneFiveNine ,

No, not a DSL, but have worked as a teacher.

You can’t just report any old thing, you have to believe it is making a child ‘unsafe’ according to current laws and guidance.

I think this is a predominantly well educated middle class forum where people try to be perfect parents. I think most have no idea about how bad parenting needs to be before agencies get involved.

Think how many people work in social services and then think how many children genuinely need support (neglect, abuse of all kinds, ignorant parenting, grinding poverty etc etc). They don’t have time for someone who threatens a slap!

That's ignorant comment. They can build up an evidence bank. Threatening children is emotional abuse.

Threatening with violence is emotional abuse. Would you want your husband talking to you like that and getting away with it?

True, nobody bothered reporting what I experienced as a child - which was a lot of physical abuse behind closed doors but clearly signposted in plain sight - but I thought society had moved beyond 'not our problem, we haven't actually seen it happen so let's pretend we haven't heard anything either'.

The DSL will be able to record and perhaps over time, if things continue (as they inevitably do) with physical abuse, bruises, a child making disclosure, there's a list of concerns that mean it's less likely that the child is dismissed as getting funny notions or making up stories - because there have been concerns long before.

The other concern is that social services are already worryingly stretched. Thousands of children in the 50s/60/s70s grew up with slaps being threatened/administered ( ie single swipes in the heat of the moment ) without being traumatised or abused . Children often slap/push each other and then are best friends a minute later. It’s not great parenting ( to say the least) and I did not parent this way, but to say it’s abuse lessens the children who are dangerously abused with starvation /beatings/cigarette burns and risks SS missing serious cases because they have to investigate cases where a parent says “I could slap you”. Maybe the mother was stressed. The point is she didn’t actually do anything.

You are right. But reporting it to the DSL at nursery is not the same as reporting it to social services.
The DSL will log the concern somewhere, like CPOMS. It will sit on the system. If no staff ever notice anything else of concern about that child, and if no further worries are reported, nothing will happen. Social Services will never know.

However, if this becomes one of multiple worries logged on to the system then SS may well be informed- not because this one incident is a cause for concern but because it is one of a number of them which build a picture that needs to be looked at, and may indeed indicate abuse.

But this kind of trivia doesn’t add anything other than a few lines of code on a system (and maybe a warm feeling for ‘doing the right thing’).

If the children disclose they are being beaten, that is enough as a stand alone to refer up the chain. The chances of multiple threats being referred (bearing in mind that they are not in English) is minimal.

Of course there is nuance in tone of voice and the reaction of the children to the threat but, as it stands, it is a threat of doing something entirely legal, which many parents still do, and may not ever have been carried out anyway. Maybe it was just a desperate overtired mother and a stubborn child.

How long since you did safeguarding training? All the time I've been doing it the rule has been you pass on anything you think is concerning to the DSL. No one's suggesting reporting it to social services. If the DSL gets lots of reports about the same family they can then ask the nursery staff who work with that child to keep an eye on them. Which then could mean the staff notice something that really is concerning that they might have brushed aside had they not been told to look out for these things. The whole point of the central register is that all the little things are pretty meaningless on their own, but might turn out to be a big thing when all put together. But if the little things never get reported no one will see the big picture.

@ThreePointOneFourOneFiveNine ,

Within the last 18 months….

Of course the mantra is ‘safeguarding is everyone’s business’ and ‘report any concerns at all’.

But where does that end? ‘I saw a parent in the park feeding a large bag of crops and a big bar of chocolate to her 4 year old’?

You have to view the guidance through a lens of common sense. ‘Move or you will get a slap’ is not concerning IMO (as ever, unless there is more to this than the initial post states….).

OP was concerned, and therefore should report it. Feeding your child rubbish food is not on the same page as threatening them with violence. That's a ridiculous comparison to make.

Just report it. You've got nothing to lose. Mention it, do something, keep an eye. Yes, it might not help, but it's not going to do any harm so why not just do it?
As others have said, it might seem like a little thing but it's all part of a bigger picture.
I was abused and badly neglected as a child. It was very obvious but not one damn thing was done about it by anyone. Protecting kids should be everyone's business and responsibility and it really is high time everyone thought like that because if they had back in the 1990s I might have had a happier life.

@ThreePointOneFourOneFiveNine ,

‘OP was concerned, and therefore should report it. Feeding your child rubbish food is not on the same page as threatening them with violence. That's a ridiculous comparison to make.’

In your opinion…

I suspect the actual hard scientific evidence might point to poor nutritional choices doing at least as much long term damage as the occasional threat of a slap.

I did say to her ‘be careful what you say. You might get reported in the language we both speak. She said ‘ok thanks why on earth did you say that?? It's like you're telling her it's ok bur keep it hidden!!!

No. Absolutely not.

Let's say that it is just the threat of a slap and its never actually carried out.

That brings fear of a parent. It beings fear of authority and it sets a tone for acceptable ways to treat the people you love.
And that can lead to lying, keeping things bottled up inside, anger issues, abuse of partners or children, and a whole host of other issues that a chocolate bar just isn't going to do.

I'd rather feed my children 50 chocolate bars than threaten to slap them even once. I should be their safe space, because children need someone they can run to, not someone they fear.

@Applescruffle ,

‘That brings fear of a parent. It beings fear of authority and it sets a tone for acceptable ways to treat the people you love.
And that can lead to lying, keeping things bottled up inside, anger issues, abuse of partners or children, and a whole host of other issues that a chocolate bar just isn't going to do.

I'd rather feed my children 50 chocolate bars than threaten to slap them even once. I should be their safe space, because children need someone they can run to, not someone they fear.’

I won’t say much more as I know this is a very emotive issue to some people, but I know parents who slapped their children occasionally (and certainly threatened to slap them a fair few times). Their children are now grown and well adjusted kind adults and come home regularly to spend time with their parents. Yes, anecdote isn’t data but the actual research on this is poor quality, as it makes no distinction between the odd slap and beating a child regularly (I have looked at it).

And, if you fed your child 50 chocolate bars, you would be encouraging obesity for life and type 2 diabetes, as well as the inevitable stigma and worse life outcomes that go with it. That is far from being a ‘safe space’.

I wonder what percentage of parents have threatened to slap their children in a desperate moment. I would wager well over 50% on this thread.

(and again, with the inevitable disclaimer, I am posting my personal opinions anonymously here. When teaching, I rigorously stuck to school policy etc).

Or if not threatened to slap then really felt like doing so! Parents do so much for their children, their lives revolve around them and when it’s thrown back in one’s face, the emotion is there! There are so many posts where people can’t cope with their children and resent them. Maybe the threat of a slap would make the kids think “ oh mummy’s getting cross… we’d better not push it” and everyone would be happier all round. I was even slapped by a friends mother when we disappeared to the park on our own aged 7. She was frantic with worry. It was once on the arm as we came back into the house and didn’t hurt, but it registered that we shouldn’t have done that. She and her daughter are VERY close and mean the world to each other. It did not destroy their relationship in any way.
By putting a slight slap on the arm in the same camp as beating, diminishes the experience of the child who is really abused.

Yep. I worked in a school where it took 4 years for children to be removed from a home with a drug addicted mother who often left them at home alone overnight. This is what SS is dealing with, with cases like these the threshold for things to be considered abuse is high.

A threaten to slap, which is still legal in the UK? lol.

Why do people keep putting 'it's still legal' as if that suddenly makes it ok, it's a threat of violence, some morals flying straight out of the window because....'its still legal'!!!!

I found this very peculiar.

I know people who were severely beaten and/or sexually abused, who are now happy kind well adjusted adults. It hardly means the abuse they suffered is harmless.

No one is saying that this particular incident on it's own is cause for alarm, just that it could be a sign of a lot more going on that would be alarming if only someone would look at the situation more closely.

As to the bad diet, yes it is potentially harmful long term, but still not on a par with the long term mental health damage caused by abuse suffered as a child. Physical health is a lot easier to repair than mental health.

If this is the only incident/comment that has been recorded about this family, then nothing will be done, other than perhaps the DSL/nursery manager having a quiet word with mum. Which in itself may be enough to make mum think “oh, actually, I shouldn’t be threatening violence and will stop”.
However, if there were any other existing concerns, or if things crop up in the future, e.g. unexplained bruising on the child or other reports of threats made, then this could contribute to a bigger picture of what this child is experiencing.
If SS were to be involved, then they would be first looking to support the parents to make better parenting decisions. She would only “get in trouble” if there was something to get in trouble for.
My point is, there is no harm in mentioning this to the nursery manager or dsl, but this info could be part of a bigger picture that leads to some support for this family, and ultimately, better care for this very young child.

Verbal abuse is abuse, it is part of emotional.abuse
There's a movement at the moment about trying to get it to be its own section of abuse. I recently did training with this group and research showed that it is the verbal abuse that children receive that lives longer and can affect their whole lives.
Can you imagine someone with so much more.power than you, telling you you need a slap and the fear that that kid must have felt?

OP mention it to the manager. Just say what you heard and that the more you've thought about it, the more you feel you needed to mention it.
As others have said it won't trigger anything unless there's also other information that has been recorded elsewhere. It's simply recorded information.

Suppose that the OP reports this threat to slap. SS will want to know who the parent is, and the OP doesn't have this information, so how can they know who to investigate?

Sorry, just read again, and the OP does know who it is.