Daughter says she got smacked

[Namechangedanxiousdaisy]

I'm a bit shaken so please be kind

My 4 year old, at bedtime ( when she usually chats) said my husband smacked her in the bum yesterday evening. She said he did it in the living room when the door was closed so I couldn't see it. I feel asleep afterwards as it was late and the room was dark.

They were indeed both in the living room yesterday, reading books together. I saw them doing that, I didn't hear any upset or crying. She did at one point came into the kitchen asking me to tell him off but that was because I think my husband was winning at a game and she said he snatched the remote of a toy off her.

I'm not sure what to think or what to say. I haven't spoken to my DH - he has always been an involved dad, woke up this morning to him already cooked today's dinner and prepped snacks for school. Always doing bedtime, playing with her etc.

What should I do?

Ask him!

Well ask him of course, was it a discipline smack in which case what is the agreed rule for you both, no smacking/hitting at all?

Or was it a bit of a playful swipe on the bum to say 'come on now'.

Ask him if he smacked her!

Ask him?

Ascertain want happened, and if it was indeed linked to smacking reinforce the approach to discipline you have agreed on (which presumably involves no smacking)

Ascertain want happened, and if it was indeed linked to smacking reinforce the approach to discipline you have agreed on (which presumably involves no smacking)

Ask him

It may well have just been playing, 4 year olds not being very reliable narrators, but it's important that you find out what happened

Hi thanks for the super fast replies, he's gone to work now, so I didn't get a chance to ask him. I don't think it would have been a 'discipline' smack - we agreed no smacking and no physical actions before and it's something I feel quite strongly about. My daughter started off the chat by saying I don't like Daddy, it went on to because Daddy made me sad, because Daddy snatched the toy and continued to the smacking.

I will speak to him tonight.

he's gone to work now, so I didn't get a chance to ask him.

Why didn't you talk to him last night?

I'm really confused as to why you didn't mention this at all yesterday evening?

Because I put her to bed and then feel asleep in the same bed. I don't know what time my daughter slept, but jt was past 9.15pm..I was tired and the room was dark of course so I fell asleep...

Do you think it’s remotely possible that he hit her?

I appreciate it was dark and you were possibly tired but surely something this out of the ordinary you would want to discuss it immediately to get all the facts? It would have made more sense to tell your daughter you needed to talk to Daddy and then you'd come back to check on her.

Surely by this evening any conversation won't actually garner much accurate information because it's been so long since the event supposedly occurred.

Yep, just ask your DH to get to the truth of it.

It’s an awful grey area. I have a friend whose child, when nursery age, was adamant my friend had stabbed them really hard in the stomach with a knife, and all of their blood had come out (several older siblings may account for such knowledge at that age). Obviously this didn’t happen and there was not a mark on them.

One of my own kids claimed I punished one of their siblings in a certain (unacceptable) way. Supposedly, the other siblings were there and also watching. It never happened. I tried to tell them that. The sibling it supposedly happened to tried to tell them that. The siblings supposedly watched this imaginary event tried to tell them that. Nope, it happened. The really scary thing is, even as an adult, that child is absolutely adamant it happened and when everyone had said it didn’t (including the person they said it happened to, and the others watching) they really spit it, get genuinely upset, and accuse all of us of gaslighting them🤷‍♀️. It is a very real memory they have. Only problem is it never actually happened.

I don’t think kids lie in these situations as such. I think it’s more a case of their brain ‘short circuiting’ for want of a better term. It does make it really problematic though as you never want to discount a child who IS actually being abused, but sorting through it all is a minefield. It’s a horrible area.

At that age, my DD had a really unfortunate habit of coming up to stand as close as she possibly could to me in a shop while I was paying for things, often resulting in my (obviously accidentally!) elbowing her in the face when trying to put in a PIN or remove a credit card from the machine. I remember her telling someone “Mummy always hits me in the face in the shops!” and I was very grateful that she was laughing while she said it, as it really would have sounded awful otherwise. Could well be something of this sort - but do speak to your DH.

I was wondering this, my youngest is 4 and can be a bit clingy, a few times now I’ve stepped back from the kitchen counter not realising they are directly behind me and bumped them. Last time he told daddy “mummy pushed me on the floor and I landed on my bum”

he’s also told me Daddy lets him ride on top of the car while it’s moving (to prove I’m a stick in the mud for making him sit nicely in his car seat) 😂

if you were in the next room and heard no kerfuffle at all I would be inclined to assume something like this rather than a smack

Obviously you need to speak to him - no one can give an opinion on something a 4 yr old has said. My children have both said things like this that weren’t true but that they believed. And they said it about me so I know it wasn’t true! My now 6 yr old once insisted that “mummy shoved me over!” What had happened was I had tripped (over her toy 😒), stumbled, half fallen over and in the process, knocked her. I once watched my 3 year old snatch a toy from her older sister, and because she grabbed it with force she pulled it back and hit herself in the face with it - this became “sister hit me in the face with that toy!”

You need to talk to your husband. You already think if it happened it wasn't a "discipline smack" (and that sounds right, she would likely have wailed at the time of it was). It might be a bit of a tall story - not on purpose - my eldest used to wildly embellish when telling me something with a grain of truth, I think he just loved the storytelling process.

I'm wondering if it was a playful jokey thing. When mine were toddlers still in nappies I would pat them on the bottom and sing along "smack that bum" and they'd giggle. One of them once repeated it in a room full of people and patted his own bum for emphasis (with a grinning face) and I was mortified, hurriedly explaining that I did not in fact smack him.

This has just reminded me of when I was looking after my grandkids some years ago. They were aged about 4 and 5 at the time. One started saying to me 'you pushed my head against the wall and hit me' I absolutely had not! It felt weird and surreal because they seemed adamant that it had just happened. It seemed so detailed, too. I was worried that their mother would believe them, so I told her immediately when she came to collect them.

When I told their mother, she laughed and said 'oh they were saying similar things last week, that I broke a mirror and I was cross, and it didn't happen!'. I am all for believing kids in general, but it goes to show that maybe some go through a phase of mixing up reality and some kind of fantasy.

@Luxio I don't know why you're going on about why I didn't speak to him last night, it's not being helpful, I already explained twice and I can't go back in time to change the fact that I fell asleep! By the time my daughter said that, the lights were already off and bedtime with her usually takes 1-1.5 hours ( another issue entirely). If I had left the room before she slept, she would just rouse again and it would take another hour before she sleeps which doesn't benefit her at all as she has to go to school today. I didn't plan to sleep, but I just did as the room was completely dark.

@HoppingPavlova @honeylulu thank you, yes I will speak to him tonight. She wasn't in tears or crying or wailed or anything yesterday evening - I would have thought if it was a discipline smack, she would be crying! In the past even when I slightly raised my voice (' can you please come sit down for dinner', she would start getting upset and say that I made her sad...

Smacked her in the bum rather than smacked her on the bum?

If its not a discipline smack, what is it? Sexual?

My daughter started off the chat by saying I don't like Daddy, it went on to because Daddy made me sad, because Daddy snatched the toy and continued to the smacking.
Is it possible you weren't giving the reaction she wanted to the initial things she said, so she embellished it to get the reaction she wanted?

Sorry but I don't know what you mean? I can't remember whether she said in or on?!

@Booboobagins as opposed to some playful tap or some accident? I don't know but it wasn't done in anger as otherwise I would have heard if anything happened!

@ApricotLime potentially. The thing that caught my attention is because she said the door was closed so I didn't see it. It's the detail that got me concerned. I don't have worries that he is hitting her, or at least he hasn't given me worry that he is hitting her intentionally, or being abusive physically.