Anyone had a child who said that nursery staff hit them?

[prozacpopsie]

I have a dilemma and would welcome any advice.

My son is 4 yrs and has said that two of his nursery teachers hit him (and other children). My husband thinks our son is inventing this (as children often do make things up) but I'm still really disturbed and don't know what to do. He thinks I'm worrying too much and that I'm the oversensitive mum.

I don't want to go in to the nursery, guns blazing, accusing them of something so serious, but equally I'm seriously disturbed by the possibility that there might be some truth to what my son says.

WWYD?!!

Thanks, in advance, for any answers/thoughts...

(Worried emoticon - why isn't there one of those?!)

I would ask you son a bit more about it but not as a grilling! He might be over-exagerating (i.e. they put their hand on his back to encourage him through a doorway) or he may have an issue with them and knows that hitting is naughty and saying they have hit will get them in trouble.

It could also be that he is telling the truth and you do have an issue.

Encourage him to tell you the full story - where, when, who was there etc. Try not to do it as a grilling.

There is obviously a problem of some sort that you need to get to the bottom of whether he is telling the truth or not - either they are hitting him (massive problem) or he is not happy there and mking up stories.

Good luck!

My son did, he was 4. He said he swore, the worker took him into the toilet, sat him on the sink and tried to make him eat soap. He spat it out and the worker hit him across the face. I reported them to social services who contacted Ofsted. I don't know what happened other then that Ofsted removed their details off the site for 6 months. I head from another parent who's son was there a year or so after, she removed her child because he also said that he was hit by the same staff member.

Talk to him calmly just don't assume he's making it up. Ask him the circumstances, if they don't sound plausable (I went into a space rocket etc) then question him another time. Only you know your son. Does he normally make things up? Is he mature? Does he understand what's happened?

It does happen

I would advise caution with this. Don't discount it immediately, as it could be true, but again it definitely could not be. It is unlikely that 2 separate nursery workers are child abusers who hit children, though not impossible.

I am now a teacher, but used to be a TA in my very good friend's Reception classroom. One day a mother came in and said, 'just thought I'd mention, Eric said at home that Miss A (Teacher) hit him and that when he didn't cry Miss B (me) hit him harder!' That was completely untrue, which we told the mother, who thankfully said she hadn't really believed her son but thought she'd better mention it, and we all kind of laughed it off. But, if she had gone straight to the Head for example, things could have been very bad for us, and I have to say that if an allegation of child abuse was ever made against me (which would never, ever be true) I don't think I could work with children again. I don't know why, but kids around that age do sometimes make that kind of thing up! I remember being at a family do once, when my then 4 year old cousin got a bit whingey, and a relative jokingly said to her, 'Awww, what's the matter? Has someone been hurting you?' To which my cousin, obviously wanting the attention, replied 'yes, Uncle J (my dad) smacked me!' My dad had been sitting next to me all day, would never hurt a child, and my cousin absolutely adored him! But for some reason she said it. We all laughed it off, but sometimes things that children say have to be taken seriously and then innocent people can get into trouble.

I think I would go to the teachers and just calmly repeat what your son told you, and play it by ear as to how they react. Also, ask the other mums if their children have ever mentioned themselves or their friends being hit.

Thanks so much for all your replies - HUGELY appreciated. I think I need to think about this a bit more, before doing anything (if, indeed, I/we do anything at all).

My son hasn't been very happy at nursery lately (which makes me nervous) but that may be because we recently found out that my husband has Aspergers (and my son has strong traits too). And we've got building work at home which seems to stress DS out a bit. It may be that he's feeling insecure/unsettled and is 'acting out' by inventing problems at nursery. He's been very clingy in the mornings which might be because he's unhappy/disturbed himself or because of problems at nursery - I just don't know.

Oh god. I JUST DON'T KNOW. And that's the problem.

It's a good idea to talk to the other parents, I think. I might try and do that.

Thanks again ladies - I owe you all one!

PP
xxx

Perhaps the other thing to mention is that I have quite often seen staff shouting and/or dragging children along quite roughly.

I don't want to exaggerate these things but now I'm starting to worry that there are other things going on that I'm NOT aware of. If they shout and drag children around when I'm there, what's happening when I'm not there.

Am I overreacting? Oh god, I don't know.

Not in any way in the same league, but when my ds was at nursery he told me he was put on a time-out in the reading corner. I asked the nursery about it and they were completely perplexed, as they never even did time-outs in the reading corner - and had never given him a time-out at all. They thought maybe he'd seen one of his friends given a time-out and was sufficiently sensitive that he'd thought it was for him (when he first started school, the teacher admonished him gently and he was utterly devastated about it).

Definitely question it with the nursery but in a very non-confrontational way. You're absolutely right to ask why he might have come home with the story, but it doesn't necessarily translate to being literally true.

You can usually suspect that something isn't right by a sudden and severe deterioration in their behaviour at nursery.

It may be that the staff handle the children too roughly (sounds likely from what you have said!) - so although the teachers didn't hit your ds, maybe they grabbed or shoved him?

Why are you sending him to a nursery where staff shout and drag the children about though? That sounds completely unacceptable to me (and I work in childcare too).

my 4 yr old spoke to me a few weeks ago when we were driving along and said " mummy, you know you said that if somebody hurts me then i have to tell you and you'll sort them out" to which i start to wonder what on earth hes going to say and then he tells me that he was knocked unconcious but he was ok!!!! dont know where that came from. he wasnt and is ok. he does have spates of accidents though and i do seem to be forever signing accident forms. although i know he will jump from the top of the slide or climb on the table and jump off and is generally a little bugger!! but his teaachers never said anything and i know they would have rung straight away and told me if he had banged his head, also i went to school with the nursery teacher and trust her 100%.

MoonUnitAlpha is right though about the dragging and shouting, can you chat with the room leader or a manager about it?

Thanks again for all the posts ladies (and gents, if any dads).

I followed someone's advice and spoke to another mum this morning (one I know quite well). I told her what my son said and asked her to keep it to herself and asked whether either of her kids (she has two at the nursery) had seen similar things. She said that she hadn't seen or heard anything to make her uncomfortable but she'd do some very careful/gentle questioning of her eldest and let me know if she discovered anything.

Someone here said about the shouting and dragging being 'more' of a problem and I think that's right. I should have addressed it when I saw it but was too chicken (I find confrontation very difficult). I think I might talk to the nursery manager informally and say I've seen a few things that made me uncomfortable.

There's one member of staff, particularly, who bellows at the kids. (My son finds her difficult, as he has Aspergers and doesn't like lots of noise.) Now don't get me wrong, I lose my temper with my son sometimes, but I don't think the staff should be yelling at the kids often or as a matter of course. Putting aside any 'moral' objection, constant yelling at kids simply doesn't work (it doesn't affect their behaviour), IMHO.

Thanks again folks!!

PP
xx

It sounds like you're doing the right thing.

If your child is making things up and you do take it further, there will be a right fuss but it will get sorted out in the end. You will need to trust the investigation and result though.

If they're not making it up and you don't take it further, then staff's bad treatment of children (Assuming it's true remember) will probably carry on and could have very very serious results.

You should always assume a child is telling the truth.

It's absolutely not on for staff to be bellowing at a group of 4 year olds. Just completely not ok.

Hi there prozacpopsie
I have worken in a preschool for 18 years as well as being a nanny.I have to say when I read your post about shouting staff and dragging children around I was stunned if I saw any of our staff shouting at children or pulling them around there would certainly be consequences for them.Children do misbehave we talk to them quietly and explain how their behaviour is inappropriate.We do have time outs if we have persistantly challenging behaviour from a child but this is after discussion with the parents.I would rather a parent told us what their child had said had happened rather than discussed with other parents what may have happened.talk to the Supervisor about the shouting and the pulling around and mention what your child has said.You dont know whether there are already concarns about a member of staff but perhaps not much to back it up. O n the discipline question I was telling a story to a group of 20 or so 3 and 4 year olds when a boy came up to me and spat in my face ,children can be lovely cant they!!anyway I looked at him and then asked the other member of staff to take over the story and took the boy outside.I got down to his level and spoke to him in a very quiet voice not to ever do that to anyone again and to apologise to me which he did ,we then went back in and continued the story,he didn`t move a muscle hee hee.My colleague said to me after God I wondered what you d done to him he was so quiet.The naughtier children are the quieter I am no one in a pre school should shout.sorry for my waffle.

Hi pp I have a dd who is 12 now, she shows many symptoms of aspergers although it is difficult to get a diagnosis but one of the striking qualities of aspergers children and one she exhibited strongly is the lack of lying and the factual honesty snd literal way they view the world. Although dd had a very good imagination and would sit for hours talking to herself about imaginary situations, she never got confused with real events or felt the need to embelish the truth or lie. unlike other children she didn't go thru the stage of lying until she was way too old for it prob 8-11, aspergers kids are usually imature and tend to go through social things like that later cos they are learnt responses rather than natural. I know he's young and it takes a while to work kids out but just try and think wether he normally tells little fibs or wether he's quite literal and doesn't feel the need to make things up. I find my dd goes through all those social stages like lying later after she realises they are going on with other kids and then feels the urge to copy. if he doesn't normally make things up and is quite definate about whats right and wrong maybe you should look into it further, hope this helps, i knew for years that my dd always told the truth cos she didn't see the point in lying then when she started when she was 8 she caught me out every time cos i didn't expect it!

We've just had a similar situation with DS, 3yr 9mths, at his nursery. He was quite specific about some of the details which made me believe there could be an element of truth to it. I initially spoke to the nursery manager, told her what he had said and told her I would gently question him further. Part of my reasoning for talking to the manager before I had the full story was to gauge her reaction - had there been a similar situation with the same member of staff which as a parent I probably wouldn't be aware of but she would.
In the end we established a member of staff had held his arms to ensure he was paying her attention - according to the nurseries' rules she shouldn't have held him at all. I was happy with how it was dealt with at the time and subsequently resolved.

It's a horrible place to be but if I was to give any advice it would be to go with your get reaction.

I'm a teacher at a day care and as of the moment a 2 year old told his mom I slapped him in the mouth (I never would. I have worked with children since I was 9 and have two of my own) the mom called my director and I'm now being investigated which there is no cameras at the daycare so there is no evidence on my side other then is morning g teacher whom knows he likes to make up stories when he doesnt get his way. So I'm hoping I dont lose my job I love working with children and helping them learn and grow. It brings me joy to watch them learn and get excited about learning so it breaks my heart to think that I'm about to lose that. At the same time I understand but if she would have came and talked to me we could have figured things out. :/

Really?

This thread is nearly ten years old.