Safeguarding called me today regarding DD4

[CC943]

My daughter’s school called me today (she’s 4) she’s been at school two weeks- saying they have a safeguarding concern.

Another child in the playground of the same age (4) said she overheard my daughter saying ‘mummy hurt me’ and told a teacher so the teacher pulled my daughter aside and asked her if mummy hurt her and said yes on the arm- and pointed to her arm. (Nothing on her arm, I have not and would not ever hurt my children)

I completely understand that they have a safeguarding protocol- but AIBU to think it was completely wrong to out wright ask a child ‘did mummy hurt you?’ Because my daughter lives in imagination land 99% of the time- if I asked her if her teddy hurt her and where she would say yes and respond the same way!

I just felt really taken back by the phone call from safeguarding asking me ‘ is there any thing or any reason or event that has taken place for your daughter to say you hurt her and her arm?’

I am not disagreeing about the safe guarding point of view- it’s more the way it was handled in actually asking ‘did mummy hurt you?’ I feel like many kids that age would just waffle on and agree with it.

i feel so worried about it now. I have asked my daughter why she said that and she doesn’t even seem to remember? She’s just waffling on about other things from her day? She never says things like this at home. And it’s made me feel uneasy that a child has brought this information forward that could be untrue as I can’t see her saying that then by asking her like that it has basically put words into her mouth!?

does this mean they are raising a safeguarding concern? I didn’t even think to ask these questions as I was in shock when receiving the phone call. I don’t know what to expect I just feel upset that they didn’t handle it in a different way for a child this age.

she’s moving to a new school Monday (our catchment school she was on the waiting list for called 2 days ago with a last minute placement) which now looks terrible when her report is sent over with this on! I’m really worked up about it I just feel like it was handled wrong. If she said it directly to or infront of an adult I understand, but a child ? Then question directly ‘does mummy hurt you?’ AIBU?

You need to take the emotion out of it - difficult i know. But when you respond emotionally and defensively it will look suspicious and like the response of someone who had hurt a child. Once you explain and meet with them im sure it will be fine. They are just doing their job and its great they did. If only someone had raised the alarm for all those kids who end up murdered through abuse that slipped through the net. Thank them for being so professionally curious in the interests of children's wellbeing. Dont worry about the school move.

I think you need to have a simple chat with your daughter about attention seeking and why she shouldn't tell lies. Not being horrible but if there's something going on with her mentally or physically, that's why she may live 99% of the rime in a fantasy world. Either way,you need to speak to her gently and do a bit of digging as to why she would say that, has someone else hurt her and satisfy yourself that she's physically and mentally unharmed. Don't want to worry you, but if she does keep making things up, the next report could be to the police, depending on what she says.

They would have had safeguarding training in the last 2 weeks. It specifically say to report low level concerns to a Designated Safeguarding Lead, who will be properly trained to ask the right questions.

I’ve been a DSL (designated safeguarding lead) in a school and am currently working as a teacher. I can confirm that they should not have asked her a leading question like that. It is totally against guidance.

They should not have asked that leading question. That is very poor practice
they do have to respond but at least they let you know. Schools can be terrible for referring without talking to parents first
it’s normal to be upset and scared
hsppy to talk via DM if it would help

Thanks all. I don’t know how to turn commenting off but this post has blown up so too many to reply too!

I don’t believe my daughter said it to the child in the first place to be honest ( can’t completely rule it out but coming from a 4 year old isn’t solid enough for me to believe over my child?) and I think she just agreed with the teacher when asked and then pointed to her arm. It’s not something she usually would say and when I asked her about it she has absolutely no recollection of it and just seems blank? It’s not her wording to say ‘hurt me’ to us if another child hurts her she always specifies, hit, push or scratch etc I have never heard her say ‘someone has hurt me mummy’ I know that sounds silly but it’s just not something she usually says….

I feel better after speaking to a few people about it now & getting advice today.

@admin please can you turn of commenting on this post

What a shock!
completely get you being in this state. Don’t let this bring you down though…they do their job and I am sure it isn’t what they prefere.
arf, kids.

Went to the docs earlier for the flu and there was one child screaming “I don’t want to go home!” Followed by a very embarassed dad 😂😂😂
kids!

No. The teacher should not have said this. I suppose she could ask "I heard you tell x that Mummy hurt you. What did you mean by that?" A child is then able to say they were playing a game and you banged heads etc. I once had a student proudly tell me his Dad broke his arm... And he did indeed have a broken arm and his Dad had broken it... But obviously his Dad and him had been playing and they'd landed badly etc. I suspect your Safeguarding concern will go through same way. Is there any possibility you did hurt her arm? That part is probably true — it's just the interpretation that's the problem! (knock it in the bath, grab it to stop her running into traffic, hurt it whilst playing?)

Thank goodness you've got her a different school — hopefully the new teachers have had safeguarding training.

Missing the point. OP said she is fully supportive of the system but that the questioning was poorly conducted. And it was. You are not supposed to ask leading questions. It’s interviewing 101

You haven’t been trained have you. Safeguarding practices are clearly explained and non leading questions are safeguarding 101. Especially important with young children

I was going to say the same thing. Yes they had to ask but that is the wrong way to do it .

So I would be upset about that, but I would probably report it back to the school tbh without making a huge fuss.

Also the new school won’t judge you on this! Try not to worry as horrible as it is. You’ve done nothing wrong!

Absolutely this. All safeguarding training should be this - don’t ask leading questions as kids can (and will) answer in the affirmative if asked a direct question.

I understand how you feel. My granddaughter's nursery notified Social Services when she had a tender spot which, when asked how it happened, said her brother did it!. He's just two years older than her and they regularly wrestle about, and on this particular day she'd refused to get off his back and he'd elbowed her off, not realising he'd hurt her. Not only did they alert Social Services, his infant school was them notified. This caused horrendous stress in or family. Luckily, the social worker quickly understood the situation, but it took weeks for the family to settle back down. I sometimes wonder if my son's earlier complaint to the nursery for arbitrarily introducing a totally vegetarian diet for all children, triggered them reporting this before speaking to the parents.

I absolutely want safeguarding. I’ve been asked about things to do with my children. I’d much prefer that 99%, or even 99.9% of time that it’s innocent and for those times they catch abused children. Sadly the stats aren’t actually anything like that, abuse is for more common. So suck up that sometimes good parents get questioned and rightly so because it’s not always obvious who is abusing children and this is about protecting children not about not parents

@CC943

"Does your mother hurt you" [etc] is what is known as a leading question!

My son told his school I locked him in a cupboard when he was a baby 😂

When my son was in preschool he was terrified of flies. There was one on the wall one day when I was collecting him. He shouted please mam get your gun out of your bag and shoot him. He then started rooting through my bag looking for "my gun". Had no idea he saw me as a sniper able to take out a fly with ease.

Quite, other than stressing innocent parents, I'm not sure what their procedure achieves.

All the people on this thread saying the teacher has asked a leading question and they know this because they've done their safeguarding training seem to have no understanding of what actually constitutes a leading question.

'Did your mummy hurt you?' in these circumstances is not a leading question because the child had already told another child that her mummy had hurt her.

The teacher asking the child 'did your mummy hurt you?' is therefore an establishing question. The teacher is looking to establish whether the claim the child already made was true.

It's only a leading question if a child hasn't already offered the information and you are putting words in their mouth. 'Your mummy hurt you, didn't she?' would be a leading question in that circumstance.

The school has done nothing wrong here.

The teacher was trying to establish the truth of a claim the child made about their mother hurting them. The child affirmed that their statement was true. This then meant the parent had to be contacted.

It's basic safeguarding procedure.

OP, would you rather they'd just laughed it off?

As a teacher of many years, I could tell you many horrific stories of what children have come to school and told me about things happening at home. Often this has been behind the doors of seemingly very 'respectable' homes. We can't as teachers risk making any assumptions. If a child tells us something that concerns us, we have to report it. With little children, nine times out of ten, it is nonsense. But that one time, it's a child who really is getting abused, and that teacher's intervention could save their life. We've all seen stories in the news about children who slip between the cracks because nobody in authority did anything or the assumption was made that the parents weren't the 'type' to do such a thing. Children's safety has to come before parent's feelings, every time. Just be grateful the school was seeking to care for and protect your child and let it go.

But she hadn't offered the information to the teacher, or very possibly at all. This was hearsay reported 2nd hand by another 4 year old.

A child reported to the teacher what they heard the OP's child saying.

That is in safeguarding terms, a potential disclosure. You need to establish whether that potential disclosure is true.

To do so, you will need to ask the child a series of establishing questions.

'X told Mrs Y that she heard you say mummy hurt you. Did you say that?' - Establishing question.

Child says yes.

'So you did say that mummy hurt you. Is that true? Did mummy hurt you?' Still an establishing question, as the teacher is using the words the child themselves has used.

This is, in all likelihood, what the conversation at school actually looked like. The teacher would have had to ask these questions in order to find out whether the report from the other child was true. There was no other way to do so.

The OP emailing the school criticising their safeguarding procedures based on a bunch of people on mumsnet not knowing the difference between an establishing and leading question is going to make her look rather foolish.

That was completely the wrong wording for the question. "Is your arm hurt? Can you tell me what happened" would have been much better.
They acted on hearsay evidence from another child - they should have been more cautious.

"Does your mummy hurt you?" has a very different meaning to "Did your Mummy hurt you?" The teacher should know that. I bet the child does too.

No, it wasn't.

If you see the child has hurt their arm, and they've not said anything about it, that would be the right course of questioning.

But in this circumstance, the child has already told another child that their mummy has hurt them.

So the first thing to do is to establish whether that is true.

Once you've established the facts, you can then ask for the child's version of events.

When it comes to safeguarding, we have to operate from the assumption that what has been reported is true and investigate accordingly. As such, our first job is to establish whether it is true or not, and then we go from there. We can't dismiss things as 'hearsay' until we have all the facts and it would be dangerous to do so.

The OP states clearly in her first post that the teacher asked 'did your mummy hurt you?' not 'does your mummy hurt you.'

The OP then later on changes this to 'does your mummy hurt you' - which is indeed a very different question.

If the OP herself can't report accurately what was said by her child, then I don't think she's really got a leg to stand on when it comes to complaining to the school.