Hi everyone,
I always see such great advice on here that I wanted to ask everyone's opinion on this before acting.
My 5 yr old has been saying over the last few months that another girl has been hitting/kicking/pinching her. There is some history between them (our dd became friends with the other one's best friend at nursery). Anyway we encouraged her to shout no and to tell a teacher as soon as it happens. On a few of the occasions, I've spoken to the teacher but the response has always been the same, that they haven't seen anything (shock - horror, bullies don't hit and kick in front of teachers!) but they'll keep an eye on it. As there weren't any witnesses to the incidents we thought this was fairly reasonable.
Then last week dd said after school that the other child had kicked her (there was a bruise) but a parent helper had seen it and sent the other child to another room. I, naturally, got angry at this but didn't want to go in yet again to the teacher with what might be a story, so I rang the parent helper (who I didn't really know that well) just to verify if she had seen anything. She responded that she hadn't so I thought..phew.. good thing I checked first and didn't go in guns blazing demanding that something be done. The next day at school and the teacher takes me aside and says that she had received a report from the parent helper and that I had "stepped over the line" by contacting her after hours and intimating that she and the teacher hadn't been doing their jobs. I didn't think I was trying to do this, on the contrary I thought that I was doing the right thing by checking the facts before accusing anyone.
So do you think I did right by attempting to check the story beforehand ? What were my choices? Ignore the incident? Report it to the teacher again without verifying it?