Child injured in nursery

[PM73]

About 5 weeks ago i dropped my ds off at our local nursery,he has just finished but he used to go for 3 sessions a week for 2 hr sessions.

Well when i was waiting outside to collect him the nursery manager came outside to have a word with me & she asked me if my ds had come into nursery in the morning with a scratch on his face.

I said no, of course he never, well she then said that they thought another child had gouged into my ds's cheek but noone had actually seen his doing it.

Another Mum who was helping that day said she had seen this boy do it to another child about 10 mins after & my ds told us who had done it to him.

They wouldnt fill in an accident form because nobody had seen it happening & i was not happy about that because at the end of the day my ds came home from their care injured.

The scratch was very deep & he has now been left with a scar on his cheek about 5 mm long.

I know children are rough with each other but i did not expect my son to come home from nursery with a scar.

What are my legal rights here? If anyone can give me any advice i would be extremely grateful.

BTW I am not being PFB before anyone says it,like i say i am just very annoyed because he now has a scar for life from this,oh & nothing was said to childs parents either.

Oh fgs, dont mean to sound so harsh but he's a child. He is going to get scratches. Christ, my dd comes home injured all the time at nursery from falling off things, and is covered in bumps and scrapes. No harm done, Ive got scars on my eyebrows where I cut my head open as a kid and Im not mentally scarred. If you want your ds to be fully protected stick him in front of a tv in segregation.
As prev mentioned, a little form causing nursery more paperwork isn't going to heal his face, and if the dr said its not healing properly then thats no-ones fault either.
It seems that you just want to blame someone, which I do understand but you are wasting your energy.

Thanks for the tip re: using bio-oil & sun cream,i had never thought to use them.

I know children do these things & i know my ds will no doubt come home with far worse,i guess i am just really sad that he has a horrible red scar across his cheek.

I am not looking to blame anyone as it could quite easily have happened whilst he was in my care,i was just wondering whether they had to fill in a form of some sort with him coming home like he did.

I know its too late now & nothing can change this,i hope like some of you have said it will fade in time.

Thankyou.

My son scratched a little boy in his class years and years ago. I was absolutly horrified. The boy's dad was furious and I didnt blame him.

I passed the kid on the way in (as they were going out) the scratch was awful. When i got to the class I realised it was DS who had done it. I went haring after Dad and boy with DS. I made DS apologise I did too. DS hadnt done it on purpose, it happened during rough and tumble (honest). I really wanted boy's Dad to know that his DS wasnt being bullied or deliberatly hurt. That didnt make the scratch any better but I thought it was important that they didnt spend all weekend fretting about their poor little lad being picked on.

The man was fine and calmed down a lot when we worked out what had happened. I think it helped for hime to know how sorry I was and that my DS wasnt some sort of evil bully.

I think he would have felt as pissed off as the OP if he turned up to pick up his kid and found him like that with no real explaination. Stuff does happen. My children are always getting hurt (particularly the DS involved in this episode) but when they are very small it does help to know what went on and that it is being taken seriously.

OP i have a scar on my face. For 35 years. It is from a bad fall and an object, not from scratching. Everybody heard my screams and the place had blood. If you son had a scar like this 'for life' believe me the staff would notice what happened.

5mm? Did you type that right? 5mm is miniscule. Do you mean 5cm?

From a nursery point of view some points to consider we can't watch the children all the time and accidents like this do happen.

However to this should have def been put in the accident book, if a child bumps their head, but leaves no mark that is put in, if a child falls over and grazes their hand or knees that is put in, more serious accidents we call parents but still put it in the accident book.

For any injury whether its a bit, a splinter, a bump, a sting it all goes in the accident book.

Your Nursery should have put it in the accident book, but they are really just for record that you have been informed, and to help diagnose problem areas where injuries have occured.

How do you nothing was said to the other childs parents, cause really things like these should be confidential, and i am actually concerned about the other mum who informed you as this is breaking confidentiality.

Cookie - I am not sure if that is quite right (in this case), the nursery clearly thought he may have had it when he arrived. As it was not noticed it doesn't seem unreasonable that they did not want to put something in their accident book that actually happened at home! (Although I do think they should have done a slip once they checked it hadn't happened at home - technically - however as the childs parent was there by that point and they had drawn her attention to it I can see why they would want to avoid the paperwork TBH)!

actually it is quite easily to miss things when they come in, So if we were unsure we would have put in the accident book.

however if a parent doesn't point out certain injuries, e.g if that scratch had been there when child came in and hadn't been mentioned then that would have gone in the incident book, obviously we don't put in bruises and grazes that are in normal places e.g knees and so on,

God that is long and rambly

even a 1/2 cm scratch cookie? I am not disagreeing with you, I am just surprised, I wouldn't expect that from a nursery - especially as it seems not to be a private nursery (judging by the parent helper).

personally in my nursery, yes, we would put it in the accident book as a record that that it happened, and if we thought it happened at home we would put it in the incident book, because whats going to stop that parent accusing us if we know it didn't happen at nursery the parent does sign this

For instance a child has come in and when we have done a nappy change we have noticed scratches all over his knees, long lines. These were put in the incident book, and exlplained to the parent later, which the parent then expained how he got them, but she could quite easily of said that he got them at nursery. Very shocking how he got them

OP - sorry your little one is injured. Have to agree that they should have recorded it in the accident book, i would have done, but if it was not seen it would just have said, noticed scratch to face etc etc and then stated no incident witnessed. I can appreciate your concern but the manager did come out to see you in person, which demonstrates that she is aware of what is happening (trust me many nursery managers are not). Would an entry in the book like the one i suggested really make you feel any better? If the manager had not come out to speak to you, and no other staff mentioned it then you have every right to be furious.

With respect to speaking to the other child's parents, you do not know this is the case. An in respect of your child's face, nobody saw it happen so they could not tell the parents he did it.

Hope your little one face gets better soon, As many others have said scars do fade. In 15 years of nursery nursing i have never seen a scratch scar for life, although they do sometimes take a long time to fade.

If it helps you why not book an appointment to discuss all this with the manager. i would much rather a parent came in to see me than got more and more upset and cross about the situation.

Again, thankyou for the reassurances that the scar will prob fade.

I am not cross anymore just hopeful that the scar will go.

Thankyou.

You could report this lack of recording the injury to ofsted (altjough I didn't when this happened to Toby).

I withdrew my DS from a nursery as this happened to him too (there were also scratches on his gums and down his throat - that they hadn't even noticed). I was mainly unhappy as the nursery manager said she had seen it and wrote it up as if she had - she said a little girl just 'batted' him off as he tried to cuddle her. This honestly wasn't a scratch, it was a gouging. 1 cm long, 5mm wide and very gunky by the time I picked him up. The nursery nurse told me they hadn't seen it. He had been told off about the incident, but not been properly checked (his gums must have bled a little) and was very upset (it is true that he is a menace for cuddling and being too rough, I don't blame the other LO at all for lashing out - after all they are both only 2 yo! But I just didn't have any confidence in the staff to ever leave him in their care again). These things do happen - there is still a mark on Toby's face (from 5 months ago) but it is already very faded and is extremely unlikely to have scarred him for life.

Hi PM73, I was so sorry to hear about your ds, I have recently had a similar thing happen to my dd which no-one saw hard to believe really that no-one was keeping an eye on my child,
I also can't believe the amount of mums on this thread who have accused you of over reacting, what sort of mum does not get upset/angry when there own flesh and blood gets hurt like that especially when you have left them in someone elses care who you thought you could trust,
At the end of the day we pay these people a lot of bloody money to look after our precious children I know they get hurt from time to time but for no-one to notice when they get hurt when they should be looking after them is ridiculous,
My sympathies x

Did your child's scar ever go away? My daughter had a very similar thing happen and it is still red after 8 months. Her mark is about 1.3cm long. Was your child's really only 5mm? Thanks for any responses.

Wow! I’ve literally just signed up to mumsnet purely to comment on this post!
I can only assume that because this post is from 2009 …. You mom’s lived in different times because I cannot believe the lack of support for this mum and some of these ignorant comments calling her ott or that she must get over it..Wow! Absolutely horrible!

Sorry mum that nobody was really here to sympathise. I completely get it, my beautiful daughter has been left with a scar on her face from being attacked at nursery. When you look at her it’s the first thing you see even after 2 years, take a photo and it’s right there, two scars across her pretty little face. It was a horrible experience for her, open wound, blood dripping and regardless of whether it’s kids being kids I ALWAYS make sure my child’s fingernails are cut, therefore she would never be responsible for scratching, scarring or temporarily marking as some of you mums see it another child’s face.

Some parents need to cut their child’s fingernails before attending school or nursery, this will be a great start!