My child told school I hit him, they reported it to social services then he retracted what was said… social services want to speak to him!!

[Shoot4theMoon]

My son told a teacher at school I slapped his face for no reason the night before! When asked about it by another teacher he retracted what he said but they had already called social services on me! They are trigger happy about calling SS about people in the school. Social called me and want to go in and speak with my child tomorrow. I’m so worried! What If he says again I hit him in the face? What will social do??

A really awful situation for you. The school had absolutely no option but ring SS. They would be failing their duty of care if they hadn't.

You work with SS and cooperate fully and don't hold a grudge against the teachers.

Schools have to call SS just in case. They are the ones who would bare some blame if your son was being abused and they didn't act.

I would be embarrassed and gutted and be hoping that this was a one time thing. 💐

The school and social services are doing the right thing. Can you imagine how awful it would be if a child made a disclosure like that and it was ignored? Even when a child tries to retract what they said, how can anyone be sure which is the truth if they don’t talk to your child?

They will have seen situations like this before so don’t worry. They are professionals and will be able to work out the truth.

Did you?

Why do you think your son decided to say this?

If it wasn't true, then your ds can live with the consequences.

How old is your child?

Trigger happy? . It's a safeguarding concern, of course they had to report.
Why are you so worried he'll say it again if there's no basis to it?

Acting immediately on a child's report isn't "being trigger happy", it's being responsible.

It will be ok, reassure your child that they aren't in trouble and they should speak freely with the SW. FWIW school reported me to Social Care, maliciously because I had complained, the SW I spoke to couldn't have been kinder and saw through the school referral and closed it down straight away. Try not to worry.

Completely normal for school to call ss in this situation, how old is your child?

They are doing the right thing.

You read the news I'm sure. You read about children who are being abused at home. You read what happens when agencies fail to properly investigate!

I know it's scary if you haven't hit him and he's saying you have but it is absolutely right that they are not dropping this.

Lots of children who are being hit will do exactly what your son is doing.

How can they just leave it because he's now said it didn't happen? How can they know you didn't threaten him into saying that?

I understand that it's stressful but they are putting your child first as they should.

Schools have to report everything.
They are right to follow it up

I used to work as a child protection SW. this type of referral was an almost daily occurrence. The school have no option but to report it but if it is untrue SS will get to the bottom of it fairly quickly. They will also want to explore why he said this in case there are things going on for him at home or at school. Children just don't think of the consequences of saying things like this but it's better to be safe rather than sorry as plenty of children are telling the truth and it's best to make sure they don't slip through the net. It might be a bit frustrating for you but you just need to let SS speak to him then find a way to talk through with him the consequences of telling untruths. However also make sure he knows that if something is happening he should tel lo someone. Don't make him afraid to speak out if he needs to.

They’ve done the right thing contacting social services, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Did you hit him? Do you already have contact with social services? From your other posts, could you maybe do with a bit of support from them anyway? This could be a useful opportunity for you.

Kids get you in shit.

dc 2 stood behind me when I was getting a jug out the fridge when I dropped my arm it hit her in the eye. She told nursery her dad punched her in the face!

dc 3 bashed her eye IN nursery, one of the leaders asked her the next day how she bashed her eye. she said 'daddy did it when he was pushing mummy in to the wall' - I was dragged in for a welfare check.

I swear to god my ex never lay a finger on us and wasn't violent at all. We never even argued in font of them.

Just speak to SS

it's right and proper that this is investigated properly. if you didn't hit him then he will have the opportunity to make this clear, but they need to be 100% certain that they can tell the difference between this and the situation where a child is being violently abused and has been threatened with worse consequences if they tell. it must be horrible to go through the process but it is surely obvious that the process must exist and must be applied rigorously to protect the vulnerable children who are being hurt.

if your child has cognitive issues and didn't understand the seriousness of the allegation, or if you are having genuine problems with keeping your temper as you try to provide a safe and well-ordered home in the face of teenage stroppiness, then it's ok to ask for help.

They are trigger happy about calling SS about people in the school.

Off course they are going to call social they have a duty to safeguard every child how could they possibly know if your son was lying.

I've been through this. It's heartbreaking. My now 14 year old daughter who is going through some mental health issues took exception to DH and I setting normal teenage boundaries and asking her to complete homework.

She decided she would be better off going back to her birth mother. When we told her that wouldn't be possible she told us she was making a list of "complaints" to give to social services because she wanted to go back to live with her foster carer. We adopted her age 11 months!

Three days after that threat I received a call from school stating that DD had made a list of allegations against me. None of them were true. The school admitted that they were not convinced by her stories but had no choice but to refer.

DD admitted to me and DH that she had lied but never admitted it to anyone else.

We spent 6 months being "supported " by a SW and had to have regular meetings with her and the school. SW seemed to realise straight away that there were no concerns about us as parents but that there were lots of concerns about DD's state of mind. We were signed off with promises of help for DD which never materialised.

DD was at the time and is still on a waiting list for psychiatric help and she is still extremely difficult. She still occasionally goes to the same teacher with completely made up stories about her birth mother ( who no one has seen or heard from since DD was born ) She seems to do it to deflect attention away from herself when she is sanctioned for a school rule break. She realises it gets her sympathy and an easy ride.

I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about OP. Kids say all sorts of things. My then 6 year old DS (now in his early 20s) told school that daddy gave him white powder that kept him awake all night. First we knew of it was when the police arrived early one morning to arrest DH on suspicion of supplying class A drugs and with a warrant to search the house.

It was only some time afterwards that it dawned on us DS was referring to a sherbet fountain that he had not been allowed to eat before bed as DH said, "You can't eat that now, you'll be awake all night bouncing off the walls!"

We laugh about it now.

Trigger happy about keeping children safe 🙄. You'll be fine this happens all the time but they have to check of course.

You will be ok. A simple welfare check will prove that your child is very well cared for and loved, and the only issue in his life is that he is unable to tell the truth. Hope there are consequences for this - he is wasting valuable SS resources with his lies.

You've not said in your post if you had hit him or not

Given op's concern about him repeating it to social services, I would imagine there's some truth in it.

Way to jump into conclusion eh!

She hasn’t actually said she didn’t hit him. And from her other posts there’s a decent chance that he isn’t ‘very well cared for’, however loved he is.

Not really.