Safe Guarding Teacher called with stories

[BlazenWeights]

Hi. So I’m asking on behalf of my sister.
my sister said the safe guarding head or teacher called her today to say that her daughter 4YO told her at school that the blister on her hand was due to her trying to retrieve her football that fell in the fire. My sister told the safeguarding teacher that the blister randomly appears every few months on both children’s arms. (Both kids have been having this fluid filled blister every couple months randomly , started when they moved to England) They’ve been to the GP who prescribed antibiotics and said they have no idea why and it might be some sort of reaction.
Now when her daughter came home she tried to find out what ball she was speaking about and her daughter said she told the teacher she slept and when she woke up the blister was there, no mention of any balls. Sister is upset and thinks the teacher made the story up.
do you think she should take it further I.e tell the class teacher or email saying her daughter said she never said anything of the sort or just let it go. It’s a 4YO word against an adult but she’s adamant her daughter doesn’t tell tales.
what do you all think . Thank you

I work with 4yos. These are the possibilities:

• there was miscommunication of some sort (possible)
• the child made up a story (highly likely, 4yos can be quite imaginative) and is scared to admit it to her mum (little alarm bell)

There is ZERO possibility a staff member would make up a story. They are not even allowed to ask leading questions. If anyone was that defensive to accuse me (as a member of staff) of lying, it would set off alarm bells with me and I would report it further. At this point it's a gentle enquiry from the staff not social services.

I would ask your sister to tell them she's been to the doctor about this before and it's all on the child's records that there's a recurring blister. There must have been a mix up in communication or DD was making up something interesting.

I can’t believe you are coming on a thread asking if a teacher is making up a story about a 4 year old…..fucks sake 🙄

Why on earth would a teacher make that up? They have plenty of actual safeguarding cases to deal with, without making it up. The child knows she been caught out in a lie, and is telling another one to get out of it.

The teacher did not make the story up. What is wrong with your sister?

Teachers have enough demands on their time without making up safeguarding concerns.

Words fail me with him incredibly ridiculous this is.

Both children have a recurring blister that appears at the same time? Seems incredibly unlikely

I’d be worried about some sort of abuse.

Ask yourself which is more likely...
A 4yo made up a story, then forgot or didn't want to get in trouble for telling tales.
Or an experienced professional made up a story and reported it to the parents.

My goodness ! Why would anyone become a teacher nowadays...

Take it further? What do you mean? Telling the teacher that the dd didn't tell the same story at home isn't taking it further. What do you think the teacher is going to say?

Of course the teacher didn't make it up. Why would she? And do you want to live somewhere where staff at schools don't ask the children in their care about blisters? I don't.

I love my own sister with all of my being and I trust her more than anyone. But if she told me that two of her children were getting blisters for absolutely no reason then I would be concerned.

My nephew at 4 decided he was a smoker, as, apparently his parents were heavy smokers too - and they let him smoke at home in his bedroom, every day when he got up and before bedtime.

Nephew is almost 30 now, not a smoker and never smoked, his parents had never smoked either, they also had no idea what their son was talking about because they didn't even know anyone/had no visitors that smoked!

Teachers do not do this. The 99.99% of perfectly normal sane teachers obviously would not make up a random lie about a 4 year old in their class.

The tiniest fraction of teachers who are actually awful predatory people have all the power and control to do or make up whatever they want. Choosing this thing would make no sense. What would the intent even be here?

There's clearly a valid explanation and it can be proven eg with GP records. There's no chance, assuming this is the entire story, that social services are going to have concerns and the teacher knows this. So if her intent was to get social services involved for her own sick entertainment then there are a lot more effective lies she could make up to achieve that.

If the intent was just to upset you or your child, again, I'm sure there are hundreds of ways she could do that that much more effectively.

Genuinely, can you come up with any scenario in which it would make sense for a person to make this specific thing up?

It's almost definitely either a miscommunication or the child was making things up. It could even have been that the child was confused and initially thought they were playing a game and making stories up and by the time she realised was embarrassed and didn't want to get in trouble.

I think it’s probably a whole lot more likely that the four year old made this story up to their teacher as it was a little exciting, but then when her mum asked her about it she denied it. Children that age don’t often tend to realise teachers and parents communicate, she probably was just playing make believe.

I think that would be a whole lot more believable than the teacher making it up, and I can’t believe you haven’t seen that for yourself and want to take it further. Christ.

Is the user who said that a teacher?

And I think they meant teachers can’t make up stories about children and then ring the parents and tell bare faced lies about the child.
That’s very different to this user speculating on mumsnet.

You says they’ve just moved to England? Do they have strong accents which might have got in the way of the teacher understanding hat she said?

Four year olds have incredible imaginations, teachers just want to understand the root cause and have neither the time nor the inclination to make things up. There is no logical reason why a teacher would lie but there are many reasons why children tell tall tales (and often forget that they have done so).

It's far more likely the 4 year old made up the story than the teacher.

Absolutely unbelievable! Ridiculous suggestion. OP, can you explain why you think a teacher would make this up?

Absolutely bizarre that your sister has jumped to “teacher is making things up”.

@PrincessOfPreschool is entirely correct as to what has likely happened here.

Honestly, teachers haven't got time to make up ridiculous stories like that involving time consuming home visits, phone calls and paperwork. Why would they do that? I can accept it was a misunderstanding or the child made up a funny story and couldn't back down but this has to be followed up to ensure children are safe.

Thanks for all your comments. I’ll let her see them. My question was if she should be finding out from the teacher how the ball story came about at drop off tomorrow or just ignore it ? When she mentioned the GP and gave her the GP’s information she was satisfied.I told her the chances of a teacher making up the story is next to zero and there would be some high imagination from her daughter. Maybe she started the story and then went off on a tangent as kids that age can be.
for the one person who suggested abuse, apart from being a clown don’t you think an abusive parent would would just move along instead of being annoyed. I guess the parent and the GP are now in cahoots.

Unbelievable.
You are so very very wrong.

I'm a designated safeguarding lead (the usual term fyi - not a safeguarding teacher) in a primary school.
I spend a huge part of my working week ringing parents about unexplained bruises & injuries. I also have to discuss disclosures of abuse and more commonly children sharing they've witnessed domestic violence at home.
My job isn't easy and idiots like you don't exactly make it more pleasant!

I have neither the time or inclination to 'make up' stories and barely have enough hours in the day to follow up all the referrals I receive from staff.

@BlazenWeights with regards to your most recent post, you would be surprised at the behaviour of abusive parents - it's not always predictable.

My question was if she should be finding out from the teacher how the ball story came about at drop off tomorrow or just ignore it ?

No it wasn’t, your question was “do you think she should take it further, ie tell the class teacher that her daughter never said anything of the sort?”

My 4 year old told his teacher he had rum for breakfast every day.

He didn't.

4 year olds have a very bad grasp of the difference between fact and fiction.

Very unlikely the teacher made this up.