SOCIAL SERVICES

[KiArA01]

okay, so a few days ago over the school holidays my 1 year old daughter hit my 4 year old in the face and cut his eye from her nails. My 4 year old has gone to school and they asked what had happened and he said daddy pushed me. Then he said punched. Then he said pushed again. The school then rang me and ask what happened and I explained that his sister hit him which caused the marks on his eye however yesterday (Monday) at the time I was cooking a big meal for my family with my partner and after being told multiple times to leave the kitchen as I’m in a flat and it’s dangerous for my son to be messing around near a hot cooker and hot pans he refused to leave so my partner raised his voice as we were very cautious we didn’t want my son to hurt himself and then my 4 year old started sweating at my partner and I said ‘don’t speak to your dad like that’ and my son replied ‘I hate you’ and my partner then had enough and he said this and went to go and put my son in his room for some time out however he ran off into the living room and tripped over the safety gate and my partner tried to grab the back on his clothes to stop him from falling which I think my son has took that as he’s pushed him as he couldn’t stop him falling in time. Now the school have rang social services and they have removed my partner from the house and said they are going to be having a meeting today with the police and school and possibly health worker to see what is needed. My partner had to sleep on a park bench last night as he had nowhere to go and my son has said this before and it got NFA’d as he was lying and my son has been telling me last night he was lying and 2 of his friends from school told him to say this. I’m unsure on what to do as it feels like the school are just out to get my partner as it’s not the first time my son has lied about something like this.
any advice would be much appreciated!

I'm not sure how whether it was open or closed is relevant to me pointing out so many people are not reading the original post properly?

One of my dc told terrible lies and had the head ring a few times to ask what the adult version of events were but his were so far fetched it never came to any SS intervention (through school) luckily but my friends DD told a cracking lie and she was placed with her grandparents for a few days. It’s one of those “we can laugh now” 20 years later but at the time is utterly devastating for them. I did however after another incident of telling a lie somewhere else have a Social worker visit me. She was almost bemused at this interesting lie my son told (same son. Dreadful liar, turns out he has autism and didn’t have much imagination so he was making conversation from things he had seen on tv etc) anyway she was fab, they’re not daft, they know if you work with them and are honest there isn’t a problem. Good luck

You’ve clearly decided to completely move past your post where you came on to a thread about potential child abuse telling everyone how much you were loling about two parents not being able to serve dinner, then derailed on people’s reading comprehension.

Social services ask leading questions and sometimes they'll keep on asking the same thing because they want to get the truth. Stick to what the truth is and try not to get too het up in front of them because they'll think youre lying.
They called me, which would have been totally useless if we had been abusing our son, after my stupid husband put him on his shoulders and didn't hold on to his legs - he was 18 months old. He had concussion unsurprisingly and spent a night in the hospital. Then a few months later he was cleaning his teeth on a chair, while I was packing up for us all to go out for the day, and he slipped. The toothbrush went through the inside of his cheek. Cue going to hospital again.
Silly things happen sometimes, and kids lie sometimes. It does sound as though you're having the right sort of assessments for him.
Try not to worry.

They were in a kitchen in a flat, not at the other end of a mansion wing. Deeply inappropriate to lol at how utterly ott people are being? It's not inappropriate to lol at that. If I lol'd at OPs situation it would be inappropriate but that's not what I said I was lol-ing at, although you know that.

Ok can I politely ask you maybe don’t derail the thread further with all your loling at people.

Blooming Eck, there's a lot of judgemental people on here.
Why do they sound dysfunctional, because her little lad swore and lied, she lives in a flat with too many children and her partner shouldn't be helping her with the dinner? FFS.
I never swore in front of my kids but my son managed to say f..k in front of his grandad. God knows where he heard it but he did.

OTT for thinking a 1yo baby and a 4yo child with evident erratic behaviour, with a previous incident between the two of them that ended up in injury should be supervised whilst cooking was going on in the kitchen.

🤷🏼‍♀️

you can ask, but no. If I wish to point out the ridiculousness of people who are quite literally making stuff up to suit their own agenda I will. You don't control mumsnet.

Jeez, if we were all as perfect as you eh.

When did I say I was perfect? I didn't say anything at all about myself. But if you're interested, I wouldn't keep having children when I knew I had inadequate housing for the ones I already had.

No one has eyes on all their children every second they're awake.

The previous incident between a 1 and 4 year old when the 1 year old caught the 4yos face And they had a little scratch? They're 1 and 4, it's perfectly normal for things like to happen sometimes and they happen even when supervised.

If you were cooking for your family is there anyone else who can witness what occurred?

To be honest regardless of whether or not your son is lying about your partner he has raised an allegation to school twice that your partner has hurt him. School has a duty to report that concern and now social services have a duty of care to investigate it and follow up. Considering you say this isn't the first time social services have been alerted to this type of abuse allegations against your partner they're right to be concerned

Plus another child who must be 2/3?

Immediate red flags all over the place. Your partner sounds like he's a risk to your son. Proceed on the basis that you need to protect your son from him, is my very clear advice.

I think that people are mainly trying to let you know that your 4 year old is probably trying to communicate something to you that you aren’t hearing but other more experienced people are. At 4 years old, your child won’t have the appropriate or specific language needed to explain exactly what’s happening to make him feel the way he does or say the things he does but there are a lot of red flags in your post and your duty is to your children. They need to know you hear them and you believe them over anyone else no matter what they say. If your little one is really that unhappy with your partner around you need to question why, no matter how painful that might be. Has your child ever suggested you’ve ever done anything like this?

I've not read ALL the comments, but the ones on the first two pages seem to have decided that the father is guilty or something here and that OP is hiding it.
OP has said she saw her son fall and her partner try to catch him. At 4 children are experimenting and learning what is the truth and what is a story, and many don't understand the difference or the implications. I worked with a 4-year-old who was adamant that he had a pet lion at home. The story went of weeks and weeks, the other kids started saying they had been to his house and seen this lion. Obviously, he didn't have a lion that shared his bed and had eaten his mother... and his mum had no idea where this tale had come from or why he was doing it.
If the kid had bruises that OP didn't know the source or had seen her partner causing, then it would be a very different post. Why would OP bother reaching out for support and advice, saying she had seen her daughter hurt her son, and seen her son trip and fall? This is an anonymous forum, she might as well admit the truth or not bother posting at all if she's just gonna lie about things.

OP I hope you haven't been scared off. I hope your DP can find somewhere else to stay while SS investigate, and while you know your DS is safe at home, not every child is and SS get told the same sort of things, by very convincing people who are abusing their children. It's not personal to you or DP, they just need to make sure the kids are safe. DP and you both need to show you're working with them. If it's ever been reported anywhere that your ex and DS birth father was abusive then that wont be helping. Often those who have been abused in the past end up in similar situations and relationships again, I know that sounds judgemental and awful but it's unfortunatly the stats and true.

You don't need to be perfect to realise having children in this situation isnt a good idea.

To be fair me neither, and money is clearly tight if he had to sleep on a park bench, 3 kids in quick succession and the op mist have fallen pregnant with her second child very early into the relationship with this man,

dhes been with him 4 years, the youngest is one, so she had thay baby at the 3 years mark, so was pregnant with them in the second year, and had already had a child with him before this.

so now they live in cramped conditions, likely skint, and have social services, school and police involved, and what is clearly a traumatised little boy on their hands,

I really hope with every ounce of my being this is not a woman covering up abuse of a child, for the man, and even joining in, by seperating him from ghe family. And if it is, I hope the police and social services remove those children,

So how did the school learn about your son falling over?

The cut to the eye will be obvious to see but was there any marks left after he fell?

Absolutely this. 11 years ago I was in too deeply in a situation where I was being gaslit at every turn by my ex, and the father of my kids. My gut told me I was right but I had been so hammered by him over the years I didn’t trust myself at all. I came to MN for advice, sort of expecting some woolly maternal fluff that I was missing in my real life and who would tell me he’s right and I’m wrong. While many posters were kind and soft hearted in response to my post, it was the harsher posts that made me see the reality of my situation and got me and the kids the hell out of there. I will be forever grateful to the women of MN and it’s why I will never shy away from being as honest as I can, whilst trying my best to be kind. Not to derail but it’s also why I’ll never buy into the ‘nest of vipers’ crap some like to portray MN as.

OP i work in safeguarding and yes this situation could ring alarm bells in a sense, however could also be completely innocent.

4 year olds do fabricate things....my daughter told her dad once I hit her then told me he hit her- neither was true!
She also said the F word afew times at 3 years old (as she heard me swearing once or twice under my breath at an object and copied this afew times) She didn't understand the language was just repeating.

Thing is OP, if social services are concerned you don't really have a choice but to work with them and hope they can assess there is no risk, it is all just a confusion, and close things down with their involvement (obviously if what you say is true)

Respectfully, I don’t think the swearing is the point here.

No. It more likely was because of this:

"so my partner raised his voice as we were very cautious we didn’t want my son to hurt himself and then my 4 year old started sweating at my partner and I said ‘don’t speak to your dad like that’ and my son replied ‘I hate you’ and my partner then had enough and he said this and went to go and put my son in his room for some time out however he ran off into the living room and tripped over the safety gate and my partner tried to grab the back on his clothes to stop him from falling which I think my son has took that as he’s pushed him as he couldn’t stop him falling in time."

Or at least I would think it's this and the previous accusations he made against his stepdad.