DD(8) in trouble at school for the first ever time

[springlamb]

DD's teacher asked to see me after school. She said there had been lots of 'devil' talk amongst the girls and now one of the mums had complained that her dd was scared. Teacher said she had traced it back to my dd, had made her apologise to the other girls but wanted to know what I thought.
(DD came home from school a couple of weeks ago talking about the devil. I asked her then where she'd got it from, she said two other girls in the class. I asked her to refrain and it wasn't mentioned again.)
I told the teacher I would investigate. Teacher said dd had said I had talked to her about the devil, and that dd said if teacher spoke to me about it I would send her to bed without dinner!
Well dd is besides herself. We have talked, she admits she did start the devil talk but then it got out of hand with the other girls carrying it on. She admits she lied to the teacher about getting it from me, and about what my punishment would be.
We've talked about a plan of action and decided we will go to school early in the morning to see the teacher, we will tell her the truth, we will ask the teacher to suggest a suitable punishment (such as losing a playtime or golden time). DD will wear red clips to school tomorrow to reassure the other girl that the colour red doesn't mean devil (apparently the girl is scared to wear her red coat).
What else can I do? Should I approach the girl's mum? I'm reluctant to start imposing home punishments on dd because she is in a right state - she has never been pulled up at school before.
What d'you reckon?

Oh heavens, don't approach the other girl's mom unless you are feeling very brave. So easy for things to get further misconstrued.

Sounds like ordinary boundary pushing I have an 8yo DD too, and she comes out with outlandish behaviour and statements (like talking about people's sex lives) it's like she's just trying the outrageousness on for size.

I just read my 7yo a fairy story. It was about a miller promising his daughter to the devil, and obeying the devil's instructions to cut her hands off. It was a kids bedtime story book - lots of trad stories are pretty gruesome and have this sort of stuff in. My ds could quite honestly tell the teacher I'd told him about the devil!

Can the teacher and the other girl's mum really not manage to say convincingly that it's a load of nonsense? Your dd sounds nice, and if she wears red and tells the other girl she made it up and didn't want to frighten her, that should do it imo.

Oh thank you, I'll stick to our plan. I don't know where dd got it from, she is saying she saw it in a library book a long time ago. And I am trying not to push her too much now, we spent a lot of time on this earlier on and she's absolutely exhausted with it.
The teacher (whom I've never had any problems with) said in a rather accusatory tone 'well you must wonder why your daughter has told these lies'. I don't wonder really, I think she was absolutely terrified at being in trouble and desperately looking for a way out. Doesn't make it right though.

I would still give her a punishment to do at home and let her know that it is for lying to you, not the actual Devil talk

Even if the punishment is no tv afterschool or something, or give her some jobs to do

30-odd years ago, I did something similar to your DD and scared other children at school with my fabrications. I'm so glad that I had an excellent teacher who, when she got to the bottom of it, didn't accuse me of lying but asked me to write it all down as a story to be read out in assembly... I can't help feeling that as long as your DD realises that others were upset and makes amends, she deserves praise for her creativity, rather than punishment - sounds like she's punished herself with her fear.