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.

@Secradonugh

That's absolutely appalling. I despair at society. The poor man.

Every time I go up the stairs behind my kids I pretend to be a crab and nip their bums just as they get to the top. They say “oh no don’t get me Mrs crab” I also blow raspberries, tickle and rough house them quite a bit. I think that’s all quite normal and I’m so sorry that what your child has said has been misconstrued ❤️

Righto. Better just never investigate sexual abuse then, in case a random mob beat up a man. Glad that the people who make these decisions prioritise vulnerable children and not the potential perpetrators.

OP, good news! It's stressful and awful but a system that is there to protect children. And hopefully you've learned that pretending to nibble a child's bottom is a terrible idea.

It's such a hard one because clearly kids talk a lot of shit. But every now and then you will get one that discloses something and it has come from a place of abuse. So they're not wrong to investigate I guess but the response seems incredibly harsh and I would be beside myself if it were me.

Feel for you op and hope it gets sorted soon.

Does seem rather overkill doesn't it?

She patently wasn't jumping up & down on her dad but on the bed & accidentally jumped on him!

This exactly.

One time would be chalked up to "kids say some crazy shit", but when it's a pattern of behaviour, it becomes a reportable concern.

It's obviously awful, but I'd be asking a lot more questions than just shrugging it off.

"And hopefully you've learned that pretending to nibble a child's bottom is a terrible idea."

This is so sad. Parents can't be silly and have a joke with their own kids? It's clearly completely innocent. Where do you draw the line? No blowing raspberries on their tummy either? No kissing on lips? It's such a sad state of affairs when parents can parent their kids with affection and humour because of over zealous teachers and SS. A chat with the parents, school and child should have been enough to rectify this providing there were no other issues. The world has gone mad.

Yeah, don’t be doing that. It’s very up for interpretation and a very weird thing to say. Tell yourself and your dh to quit making silly remarks about any private areas.

Imagine him saying somewhere: I said mum not to eat my penis.
which in his eyes would be true as he did said that to you.
I pray for you.

I have never said anything to my kids about nibbling their bums it’s just not something I’d ever say. It’s not sad to think it’s really not appropriate.

It is a really strange thing for a child to say. So they do need to investigate.

We didn't use that sort of silly language with our DC because we know it gets repeated and also it's utterly stupid and encourages dc to use potty language and to be idiots. Why would you?

And no when my DC were small I didn't read about Dinosaur's shitting a universe. Even if I'd bought such a book by mistake it would have been swiftly set aside. You do know that as a parent you don't have to read idiocy and poor fiction to yiur child?

As parents we need to be mindful if the nonsense that enters our children's brains. We decide what stories to read them. I hope you told your ds never to say that again.

Yes

Yep. It's that easy. The child didn't know "willy" has a sexual meaning. She was just repeating what she heard. Therefore it is understandable that adults have to investigate that this was a non-sexual incident. I'll bet he wishes he hadn't mentioned his willy and just said "Don't jump on daddy. It hurts."

Lucy Allan has an agenda and half of what she claims is that is just factually incorrect - she only talks about an assessment and not a plan - which means that they did not find her child was at significant harm, the record is not permanent - there are very clear retention policies and assessments closed with no further action as in her case are deleted after 6 years and social services involvement is never revealed as part of a CRB check!

The woman has a (very right wing, very anti-state involvement in anything) agenda and it is to the huge benefit to both her constituents and the country as a whole that she lost her seat in the election!

It was, nearly killed him. I hoped because this was 19 years ago, that things have improved.. but apparently not.

They often require a parent under suspicion to leave the family home whilst investigations are taking place in certain cases (eg SA , FII). I know of at least 3 families from when I was working and who needed support. The alternative is children going into care so it’s often decided that they can either choose to remove the parent in question from the family home and have no/supervised contact or a family member can care for the child / children instead. Sometimes it is very important to make sure any potential danger is removed as occasionally once something is uncovered - if it turns out to be a genuine concern the danger can increase once the perpetrator knows they are under suspicion.

Not saying it’s the case at all here but you need to trust that the social workers are following procedures and have your dd best interests at heart . They have experts and they will speak with her and I’m sure it will be resolved soon. Unfortunately they have to do this as there a sadly many children abused and they must cast the net wide to protect all - in the process innocent families do get caught up but it has to be this way to protect those at risk.

No but it's sad to think that people who do use 'silly' language or behaviour with their kids are anything but innocently playing.
Your view of what's appropriate is your business but others who differ are not wrong and any kid can repeat any old crap regardless of what they have or haven't heard from their parents.

You can't win can you.

When I was little I had to tell my class that morning about my favourite time of day. I told my dad on the way to school:

' I'm going to tell them that I like it at night when my daddy lies on top of me and kisses me!'

Well fortunately he persuaded me to go with something else.

But in my head I was talking about him lying next to me and reading bedtime stories and a goodnight kiss. Who knows what others might have thought.

Stop this! Lucy Allan has all the legal documentation and relevant services HAD apologised and admitted their mistakes in handling her case. So you are now accusing her in lying, go on post this to her personally. Also, she is not the only one in this documentary, there are many social workers ( including with the very senior position) and other parents,. Do they all have some agenda? Leave politics out of this!

Oh my god, the world's gone mad.

Yep but they took what she said as gospel and when talked to later with the police she was asked was daddy naked and she said he had boxers on. Was daddy under the duvet, yes. The police themselves didn't see any reason to prosecute but it was just after the holly and Jessica tragedy, and CPS were hounding. I get that all these things need investigation but common sense should prevail.

Absolutely. His first words to his wife were,' don't blame her, she didn't understand. '

Absolutely.
A girl at our primary used to say strange thing— none of the other kids understood her.

I don’t want to repeat , but along the lines of knowing what male anatomy does

The poor child described exactly what an aroused adult male does ,&c

We didn’t understand at the time.

In later years we knew she was being abused most horribly from other things she’d said.

(We were in same class at primary school)

This was probably a family member.

It's crazy that it took 3 months to investigate. I don't know if that was normal then. Hopefully it's not now. It's such a long time to be left in limbo.