Nursery told my child not to tell it at home

[Ribizli]

Hi everyone,

Yesterday my child had a wee accident in nursery. It’s nothing new or unusual, she can be very focused on play and goes to toilet too late.

At pick up they said she sat in a puddle, but at home I could smell it was not true.
I asked my child and she kept on changing the story and acted weird. I just felt something is not right and kept asking her about what has really happened. I could see she was nervous, and when I asked if she’s worried about something she said yes. At this point she completely burst into tears and she told me it was a wee accident but she’s been told not to tell it at home.
I've obviously reassured her that she done well telling us and she will never get into trouble with us telling the truth. She doesn’t know why she’s been told not to tell it at home. She just says that he doesn’t want us to know.

I’m so angry with nursery. I don’t understand why they did this, at home she’s never been punished or shamed for having accidents.

I can’t talk to them because he’s related to the management/owners, so absolutely no point. Also I’ve asked them about something else before and basically they implied that she lied, so I assume this would be the case this time too. At the handover it was a different person telling us the puddle story and not the one who actually told her not to tell it at home..

But what can I do? Shall I just leave it as she starts school in September anyway? But what if there will be more cases of ‘not to tell it at home’ ?

1 other child for sure heard them saying to her not to tell it at home.
What example they’re setting for little children?…

Generally we have a good relationship with nursery (and other parents too) and she loves to go there. Honestly I am just so absolutely shocked about this. The emotional stress they caused her with this is unbelievable.
I’m really unsure what to do about this, and I’m so heartbroken for her that she’s been put into this situation by the nursery workers.

You need to raise it with them.

Why did they not change her if she'd had an accident?

If it’s not an isolated incident and you can’t complain I would pull her out if practical. God knows what else they are telling her she can’t tell you. I’d also speak to Ofsted about this - it’s a safeguarding issue.

No one should ever, ever tall a child not to tell, or it's a secret etc ....... basic rule of safeguarding.

I would be fuming and have to talk to the nursery and I would pull her out if not satisfied with the answer. Accidents happen, they are young kids and it should never ever be a secret.

This sounds very upsetting. I would ask the nursery what happened and then give your dc version of events. There maybe a miss understanding.

They said she didn’t want to get changed.

I’m sorry your child losing control of her bladder and a male member of staff asking her to keep it a secret from you - I would be reporting and not letting her go back.

This is a massive safeguarding red flag. I would take my child out of the nursery if they do not address this and take it very seriously

Next day back you need to present them with the direct quotes from your daughter and ask them to explain.

Don't warn them or give them chance to create a back up story.

If you are not comfortable and they do not have a solid, reasonable explanation that discredits your daughters version of events, remove her straight away.

They don't get to tell a child to keep secrets from parents especially regarding personal care.

And as her advocate you don't get to avoid making a complaint on her behalf because it might make the staff uncomfortable or annoyed.

She deserves someone to ask these questions and clarify what happened.

Don’t forget to praise your child for telling you. An important safeguarding rule I taught my children is anytime anyone asks them to keep a secret unless it is a birthday surprise to come and tell me straight away. Everytime they do I praise them and reinforce the message. I hear about all sorts of tiny stuff but I am glad they understand and I hope it will protect them.

Dear nursery manager..

When I picked DD up yesterday her clothes were wet. XX told me that DD had sat in a puddle and did not want to get changed.

It was clear that DD had urinated in her clothes so I asked her what had happened. She was distressed and eventually told me that staff member YY told her that he did not want us to know.

On the face of it, this is quite a serious incident. I will be available at pick up today to discuss this. I refer you to your policies and complaints procedures and look forward to hearing the outcome of your investigations.

Yours..

I think I would also speak to the NSPCC for advice. Difficult to navigate to the line between pulling her out and reporting to Ofsted and attempting to resolve this with nursery management.

My child has ASD/SLD. When they started nursery school they were newly potty trained. Due to the fact they were also nonverbal at that point there were quite a few accidents for a while, with which nursery were very helpful and patient, I'd sometimes have 3 sets of uniform coming home.

After nursery my child would attend daycare for an hour or two. Again, for a while there were some accidents. However was going through more outfits there than nursery school in half the time. There was a 1-1 assistant in nursery so I thought fair enough.

Down the line... nursery school put in a hell of a lot of work with DC and accidents became very rare there, eventually non existent. DC also started to develop speech and/or used other communications to say she needed the toilet and at home could walk into the bathroom. Yet, at daycare, continued to come home after 'accidents', same amount of them and it was only at the daycare this happened. I stopped sending DC on the day my father collected and was told shoes were 'a bit wet from playing in the garden'. I thought this was strange as it hadn't been raining, DC does like water trays etc but I'd never noticed one in garden there. Got to collect child from my father, child was wearing brand new shoes. When I checked, the shoes they'd kept on my child's feet for him to collect, and socks, were so wet the liquid was dripping off. And it was not water from the garden at all. It was urine. Instead of saying child had an accident and creating that blatant lie made me pull DC from daycare immediately. By the wetness of the shoes I imagine DC had been trying to hold it in for a good while. Due to minimal speech they couldn't speak up for themselves, but they would have been able to communicate they needed the toilet. I later found out that several other parents had pulled their kids out for similar reasons. I still feel sick now at wondering if the staff were too lazy to take kids to toilet or what it was, but I wish I'd taken action to remove sooner.

Sorry for the absolute novel, but the moral of my story is, they clearly took advantage of my child's lack of speech and told me a blatant lie to cover their arses. Please consider withdrawing your child because the guilt still haunts me now that I didn't realise sooner with mine.

That's what I was thinking. Something is seriously wrong here.

"I can’t talk to them because he’s related to the management/owners, so absolutely no point."

So what do you want us to tell you?!

You have to make a formal complaint in writing following their complaints procedure. No point talking to them verbally as there will be no record of it and they can easily dismiss and ignore you. I think formal complaints are checked by Ofsted when they inspect, and you can also report serious concerns directly to Ofsted.

It might not be hugely relevant for your daughter if she is leaving to start school in September, but you should still make the complaint for the sake of the other children.

Thank you for all of your answers!
Yes, I do want to take it further, I just didn’t know how to do it without being brushed off. Or if there’s any point in talking/writing directly to them at all, as I assumed it’s conflict of interest because of the relationships within the setting. I tried to contact LADO yesterday but they didn’t answer, we have left a message for them and will try again on Monday.
I also just wanted to have other people thoughts on it, because I started to doubt myself that I’m overthinking and overreacting.

I think if anything you are under-reacting. You should be going nuclear.

This needs reporting for safeguarding issues,
Children can wet themselves due to a distressing situation. The fact they told her to lie to you is worrying. Don't warn them or they might try and come up with a story. Just report.

I see this is a slightly older thread, but what happened OP?