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While I'm a "don't believe in spanking", mama, everyone parents differently and reasonable spanking is a personal choice. I would document the date and words said for future reference and just keep an eye on the situation. Look for new AND fading bruises in the same area which points to repeated injury to the same area. Spanking should never leave bruising anyways. Just be alert to what you heard, document and report future findings if you begin to see a pattern.
I agree with the spanking thing. It could have just been that. Also, kids really exaggerate sometimes. You never really know. I wont honestly leave it, MAYBE mention it to mom as in "he said the funniest thing today" or something like that, but otherwise leave it unless you see marks or bruises. Then I would annymously call CAS
I agree with Momma_Mia. You can't rely on a 2 year old's story and if there has been no past history of abuse then it was simply a case of a parent ACTUALLY disciplining their child for a change. Like a pp said, you don't know if it was the 40th time the dad had to put him back to bed or not. I think after that many times I'd probably do the same thing to my child. Bedtime is bedtime...end of story!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mamma_Mia
So, I'd leave it alone and just write it down to keep track if there are no marks that say he was abused and not just disciplined.
Yup, just document word for word and keep it on file. Sounds like it could have been anything. It could have been a dream! Who knows. Kids are funny, and without visible marks I wouldn't worry about it. He may have seen something on TV. I wouldn't even mention it to mom.
We have to remember, it's not our job to teach parents how to parent.
I wouldn't get involved in this one. Sounds pretty minor. But really praise this little guy for telling you and make sure he feels safe to tel lyou anything. Fact of the matte ris... if he told you, he'll probably say it to someone else too.
But, wait a minute, my first thought was: does he have any bruises? Maybe a spanking on the diaper is what happened? You know what I would do? I would tell the Dad and see his reaction. It is part of our job to make sure the children in our care are safe. And it affects our liability if a child arrives with bruises or god forbid was shaken. I read about that happening and the child died at daycare. That's really scary for the children of course, but also for us. We have to make sure the children are healthy when they arrive. Oh, I'm sorry you have to deal with this.
I would leave it for now. My own son tells me that daddy hit him (daddy walked by and my son got brushed hubby passed him, same contact you'd have with someone in a mall lol) or tells daddy I hit him (touching the back of his head as he walks by me). Without repeat instances, or physical evidence of being hit (btw spanking should never be done hard enough to leave a mark.. that crosses the line) you really have no idea what happened. Dad could have simpily picked him up and placed him back in his bed, or yes he could have got a spanking. With kids, what they see as the truth is sometimes not what actually happened.
Document it, don't forget it, but I wouldn't act on it.
Not related to "hitting" but funny way of "how kids see things"...I once had a child tell me. "we had a dog once, but Daddy hit it with a shovel and we threw it in the woods" of course I was like WHAT!!? so I mentioned something to the Dad. He said he had no idea, they did find a "lost dog" once, and Dad said he was working out in the yard at the time...with his SHOVEL! They didn't do anything with it, it just went on its merry way, through their yard and onto the next!:laugh:child painted this horrendous picture of beating the dog with a shovel and throwing it in the woods. (they live in the country the dog probly ran into the woods to his next stop) kids will say some crazy stuff, can't take it too seriously. ;)
I agree while we are legally obligated as professionals to report any signs of physical, emotional, sexual or neglectful abuse to Family and Children Service for investigation ~ this does not sound like a disclosure of physical abuse but rather a spanking the child received for getting out of bed ... we have to take disclosures in context for sure!
If we think of the size of a child to an adult ANY form of physical contact is going to feel 'hard hard hard' to them in comparison ~ we are big and larger so even our 'gentle smack' is going to come off hard and if the dad was frustrated at the time of the spanking it might indeed have been HARD or it could be that the spank was gentle but his VOICE was hard you just never know for sure with children ~ so unless the child is under the age of 2 or stated that he was hit in the head/face for misbehaving which are both illegal as spanking conditions are clearly defined to prohibit it before 2 and after age of 12 and not to the face/head area .... so if it was to the bottom and left no bruising or marks than I would just 'document' the disclosure as mentioned and just continue observing the child / family dynamic for red flags and if none just let it go.
I would also likely ask at pick up to the parent 'was Johnny having hard time at bedtime last night he was telling us a story today and I just wanted to confirm if it was imagination or real' and wait for their side of it and than share whatever the child actually disclosed ~ if they had to spank him than your conversation can go from there and see if they might want some advice on bed time rituals that's worked for you in the past with success?
Also have to take disclosures with a grain of salt ~ I have had children who have 'disclosed' that their parent pushed them down the stairs or hit them or did not feed them anything for a month and so forth when it was nothing of the short that happened just the child's perception of events was skewed.
For example with the one kid what had happened was the child was fooling around and the parent 'yelled' at them to knock it off and the kid startled cause the parent rarely yelled and lost their balance and the kid tumbled down and got a black eye and scraps from it ~ children are 'literal' thinkers and after some conversation the child elaborated that ' mommy pushed me down the stairs with her voice' and follow up with the parent to determine it was an 'accident' the parent had indeed been upstairs at the time and hollered down to the child to knock it off and get upstairs and the kid fell ... if I had gone on the child's initial disclosure and reported it to CAS when there were no other 'indicators' of abuse I would have caused so much trouble to that family :(
I have also been on the receiving end of a child disclosing something at home that was taken out of context ... for example one of my daycare kids once was obsessed with the fact that her sibling was born by cesarean she kept role playing this in the dolly centre and so forth .... another child went home and was role playing but actually went into the kitchen and took a knife and cut open her doll and well the mom came into the room and FREAKED and was upset because she saw 'violence / purposeful damage' of an object not the inquisitive play behind it that she was trying to get the baby out of the dolls belly ... when confronted as to 'why' the child told the parent that she did that because X tried to do it to her at daycare (leaving out the to get the baby out of my belly and the fact there was no KNIFE they were using their imaginations in the program) and when the parent prodded for why would someone try to cut your belly open that is just wrong the child did not know what to answer cause she thought she was in trouble and the mom than planted the question 'was she angry ~ why was she trying to hurt you' and so forth and the child told a tale about yes she was so angry and so forth and she got a knife out of the kitchen and tried to cut me open cause I had a baby she wanted hidden in my belly cause that is what she thought the mother wanted to hear and she was trying to get out of the trouble she thought she was in .... and well the mom thought someone had 'assaulted' her child in daycare when in reality it was just a innocent child role playing the joy of the birth of her sister in the program and the child was retelling it with 'versions' of the truth but with imagined components as well. We really do have to be CAREFUL in how we approach children to make sure we do not plant ideas that become their 'reality' for them because they often cannot tell the difference between what they experienced in their real life and what they imagined as actually having 'happened' to them .... this is why some children can be so passionate about sticking to their 'version' when having told an obvious lie.
No one wants to be responsible for a child having been 'at risk' and doing nothing but at the same time if we reported every 'disclosure' to CAS they would be bombarded with cases of children's warped sense of reality taking away from children who are truly in danger.
My daughter once told my husband that I hit her on her face, hard. She was about 2.5 years old at the time. She said it three times to him in the space of about 24 hours. It never happened. I have ZERO idea where her little brain conjured up that image.
These things happen. Maybe it was a dream? Maybe it wasn't, though. Either way, unless it's repeated reports of hitting from dad, or unless you start seeing marks on the kid, I wouldn't say or do anything. Unfortunately, spanking is legal.