4yo being silly - CPS called on us by school

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Our life feels like it's been turned upside over a silly comment my reception aged child said to their teacher that her and my DH have been eating crayons out each others bottoms.

We've ended up with social services knocking on our doors and my DH is being investigated. It is absolute nonsense, she's 4 and says stupid things like this all the time about a variety of people. My DH is being investigated as sexually abusing her now. That's one issue and I'm hoping he's found innocent in their eyes as he's been kicked out the house by then.

But how do I handle comments like this moving forward so it doesn't happen again. She tells lies and imaginary stories that I know aren't true and this time it's ended up with us being in real trouble.

Nobody cares.

The CPS is the Crown Prosecution Service.

I'm really surprised at that. It's so in the realm of what a child would say to be silly. And why dad to leave when it was mum and dad supposedly doing it to each other. It just doesn't add up.

Just re read and it's dad and dd that it concerns.

I do wish people would read updates.

No It's not CPS, it's social workers, I got the term wrong because I clearly don't come across it. I must watch too much American TV and thought we called it child protection services in UK Can we move on now?? 🙄

And once again to reiterate, nothing sinister has happened, and it WAS the one off comments that triggered this.

My husband wasn't 'forced' off my house, they asked if we could cooperate just overnight whilst they come back in the morning with more info. And it was just the 2 social workers, no police or court had been involved at the stage. The police were involved in the morning to help the investigation.

School reports your husband to SS
your husband is removed from the property
hours later he is returned BUT not the end of SS involvement and a plan will be put in place

and the mother, the OP, banging away furiously on her phone throughout updating her Mumsnet thread with 27 detailed updates.

bloody. hell.

I got the term wrong because I clearly don't come across it

because you weren’t listening to the SW properly when they were talking to you, too distracted by thinking about updating mumsnet

Seriously, can anyone imagine something this serious happening in their family, and their priority on the very day it happens is live updates on a mumsnet thread

so very weird

The police were involved in the morning to help the investigation.

how so?

It's not a programme, it's an assessment. 45 days is the time they have to assess the situation, write it up and suggest a course of action. The options are either close the case, refer to early help (with your consent), child in need plan (with your consent), escalate to a child protection conference or CP conference and legal advice. However if it's a 45 day assessment the last 2 options are very unlikely. If that's the track they were on they would have 15 days to complete the assessment.

Presumably the social work team held a strategy meeting with the police (usual where there is evidence or a disclosure of sexual harm, which this was treated as) and police decided not to investigate as a criminal matter.

or not enough evidence at that stage to pursue
would they really have stepped away entirely so early?

This is it. We play the bite the bums game frequently. We do it to her, she says "my turn" and we swap. There is no physical touch on the bum though, it's all air biting , pretend. For example, when she's finished eating her dinner, we pretend to eat the food out her belly with a "nomnomnom". It's become our thing, it's cute, she laughs her head off.

I've only had a couple posts actually answer my question about what can we do to stop this happening again, But I agree, moving forward we've had to have a chat about being careful. We also both change in front of her, my own parents were naked in front of me until I was about 7/8 yo. I don't recall being told when is the wrong age to stop all this?

Just a point I haven't made yet either, is we play the "secret game" so for example, tell her a secret and I say "don't tell daddy" but she tells him straight away and vice versa with him. We both do it. So we both know there won't be any malicious "secrets" from people.

We also ask for a kiss or cuddle and if she says no, we say that's fine and she often says something like "I will give one when I want to" so we have had talks about consent and she's very good with it.

I’m a teacher and to be honest i wouldn’t play the secrets game, it’s innocent but sounds like it could be used with the wrong intent.

I would also be very firm about telling the truth. No letting her giggle and tell a fib, look at the trouble she has unwittingly got you into. She needs to know to always tell the truth, to be honest I’d be asking school or the social worker to talk to her and say this.

Thankyou for clearing it up, ive clearly been too busy posting on mumsnet and not listening to the social workers to understand a process completely new to myself to understand the terminology properly.

Tbf it feels like a programme the way they'll be imposing on our lives but we have agreed to cooperate.

From what the social work said, I'm hoping we can take some things to learn from it. Ivr asked for copies of the 121 learning sessions so we can make sure we're saying the same thing at home

Ok thank you, that's a good point. we can stop that too.

Potentially maybe that's where the lying and fabricated stories has come from. Or at least we've not helped it.

Thankyou for clearing it up, ive clearly been too busy posting on mumsnet and not listening to the social workers to understand a process completely new to myself to understand the terminology properly.

yup

Police would yes. They don't investigate every child's disclosure or allegation unless there is clear evidence like an injury. Often they leave it to social services to investigate as single agency and if more evidence comes up they will hold another strategy meeting.

Yea another agreement on the secrets game from a safeguarding pov. It doesn't teach her about being open and honest in the future but teaching to tell fibs. Even if it's a joke she's still young and doesn't fully understand that you shouldn't keep secrets

There is a lot of twaddle on this thread, mostly from @Typeonesickofchocolate

• it is normal and appropriate for schools to report concerns and seek advice from social services
• it is appropriate in the case of suspected sexual abuse for police to form part of the early investigation
• threshold for social work intervention and police intervention is different. The police can and will step back if there is not enough evidence to pursue a criminal investigation
• social workers can and do ask for parents to enter voluntary agreements such as a parent leaving the house. This can be via a safety plan or working together agreement (some local authorities use different terminology)
• these agreements are not legally binding but if broken can be used as further evidence for concerns in the social workers assessment
• not every case is escalated to court. Courts are overwhelmed and only the most serious cases of abuse are escalated this far and very very rare that it happens at first disclosure

That's one of the things they'll likely ask your daughter during this assessment. Some version of "Does mummy or daddy ever ask you to keep a secret?" And she's probably going to say yes because to her that's normal.

I thought we were doing the right thing with the secrets thing. Knowing that she doesn't keep the secrets has been reassurance for us that she would tell us things.
But I get it now.

We play the bite the bums game frequently. We do it to her, she says "my turn" and we swap

I think as much as it is harsh for you to go through the assessment, what strikes me as unusual , is you did the above, and thought it was normal. Even now in your posting, it’s clear you see nothing wrong with teaching a child this, and you both have her pretend to bite your bums. And you have her do it regularly, saying you find it cute. This behaviour is what’s led to this.

im sure it is absolutely innocent, but I’d also have sent you for assessment, because the concern here is you cannot see the inappropriateness of it . It is quite disturbing to be honest. I don’t know of anyone who has an evening game of let’s all bite each other on the bottom.

She knows it's a joke when you or daddy says it. But what happens if someone else says it in a non-joking way? She might think she has to keep the secret this time because it's not a joke.

She's too young to understand context. You need to tell her that if anyone asks her to keep a secret, she must tell mummy and daddy.

There are actually several people who have commented that they do the same?

We do similar.
It's not a game as such, just a silly thing we do while they are running upstairs. But I'm one of these deviant lip kissers too so you better call SS immediately.
I truly think if you see anything inappropriate or disgusting or wrong about parents playing silly, innocent games with their dc then it's you who has a problem with the way your mind works. It's quite disturbing.