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Last night we removed blood drenched underwear off my 4 year old. As you can imagine, we were truly horrified! I’d been told, at school pick up time, that she had fallen awkwardly and might have a slight bruise on her upper thigh…. Well it was actually an bad open wound in her private parts.
After a brief examine, gently as not to hurt her, I called the doctor for advice.
From the rapid response of the doctor and his insistence that we come in as soon as possible, I sensed he had concerns about what had really happened. Luckily, I had no concerns of anything sinister having happened- it was an unfortunate fall. That is all! It could’ve happened on my watch, just as much as it happened at school. So that wasn’t my and Oh-so-loving-daddy’s main concern, rather it was that Little Miss could have bled a fair amount of blood and no staff member had checked her.
A mixture of emotions rushed through us: I was very worried, more concerned at how this could happen than angry! My Little Angel was hurt and no one had attended to her, or so it seemed!
I asked Little Miss about what happened and why the teacher didn’t look at the painful place. Among other things, she muttered that “no one is allowed to touch her there and she cannot show that to anyone.”
Further alarm bells went off! Is the school or her former nursery saying touch to the genitals is just totally banned? Surely that cannot be the right message! It’s not that black and white! Or is it? Are we just saddling our kids with all sorts of inhibitions, while on the other side they are able to see explicit sex scenes in films and on TV?! (Not mine obviously, not under my watch!)
The doctor reassured me that she’d be ok, bruised and sore. Aside from some painkillers and a salt water wash once a day nothing further was needed. (This treatment reminded me of certain post delivery injuries and my heart missed a beat for my darling daughter. Ouch!)
This morning I went to the school and asked to meet the teachers present at the time of the incident and the headteacher. I was happy for this meeting to be arranged later in the day as it was convenient for all involved. I did also mention about the meeting request to the class teacher, as I didn’t want her to have the impression of me going behind her back.
Later in the day I got a call- I would be meeting with the Foundation stage coordinator and Ms F, the class teacher. I questioned why not the head and was told this is the protocol, but the head would be happy to meet with if I was not satisfied with the resolution. I reluctantly accept. I want to raise this, but not get a black mark against my name with the school. My children may be attending this school for over the next decade!
As school ended, the three of us sat down. First, I made my point, that I accept accidents happen and that I did not want the offending equipment off which Little Miss fell removed from the room. It gave the children too much joy to play on. Then went on to try to understand how it could be that they had not examined Little Miss and let her bleed.
This is where the story gets confusing: My understanding (from my daughter’s account) was that the class teacher was not in the room at the time of the incident, only the teaching assistant was. I was told different in the meeting. I was told that Ms F, who supposedly was present, had asked about the injury, but because Little Miss had not cried (?), she felt there was no need to examine her.
I cannot believe with the level of injury , however tough my little girl is, that she did not cry! … and she says she did. (She had said the same yesterday too, beside telling me about the teaching assistant looking for stickers in the other classroom, that weren’t there.)
There is no record of the accident as they had not treated it in any way- cold press, plaster, etc (the limited arsenal that they are allowed to apply), because they felt it did not need treating.
So if I am to believe the school teachers, my daughter fell, hurt a delicate part of her body quite badly, did not cry and told the teacher she was hurt on her upper thigh, but it wasn’t bad. This doesn’t add up! What are they trying to cover up? Perhaps the lack of adequate supervision?
They did try to reassure me that had my little girl told them that she had badly hurt herself or showed more distress, they would have called another member of staff and asked her if they could examine her injury visually. That is reassuring… if it is true. As this had been my main concern: if the injury is to the genitals, then they have so many constraints placed upon them, that they cannot examine it. They explained scenarios of how they would have gone about it, if Little Miss had expressed pain.
The conclusion of meeting? I need to talk to Little Miss that she needs to tell the teachers if something is wrong or something hurts. They will also consider implementing a written feedback to parents next year.
Am I happy? I have vented, I have given them something to think about, maybe even feel guilty…but NO, I do not feel we have resolved the incident and I have not understood how Little Miss could have gone untreated.
There are a number of issues this incident raised in my mind:
– Are we giving our 4 year olds too much responsibility, by putting them into a semi unstructured, yet under-supervised environment at such a young age? (In a lot of European countries children start school at between 5-7. Even a year further on is a huge difference at this age!)
-In an attempt to educate them against sexual abuse, are we setting them up for other problems around being comfortable with their bodies, especially their genitals?
I would really appreciate to hear your views.
… and once again let me express my gratitude to all those who reached out last night, when we first discovered what happened. That sort of support is priceless. Thank you!
I think you need to question the Schools response. Little Miss clearly has a different memory to the School. I think (My opinion only) that they are trying to cover their backs. I would raise it with the Head Teacher. Get Little Miss to say again what happened, and write it down as she says it. Then take this to the Head. tell her that you are not convinced that you are being told exactly what happened.
Find out what their complaints procedure is, what their accident policy is, what their Health and Safety policy is, what their reporting of such accidents procedure is once it is brought to their attention. Policies should be easily accessible on request.
Once you have established all of this, if you are still not happy, then go to the LEA and use their complaints procedure.
At the end of the day, they did not look after Little Miss appropriatley. I fail to see how a 4yo with that type of injury would not cry! Plus, the blood she was losing, it must have been noticable.
As to are we setting them up with problems in the future? yes, if they are not told that if it hurts they should tell someone. We need, as parents, to be more aware of what messages places are giving out to our children,and counteract with the message we want them to receive. So for example, yes you shouldn’t let anyone touch you down there, but some people may need to see if you have hurt yourself or if you are sore. Its very difficult.
I do hope that Little Miss makes a full and swift recovery (I too remember salt baths!) and that you get the result you want from the School.
Thanks!
The only reason I can see as to why they didn’t spot her bleeding, is because they didn’t even bother to remove her tights to check if she had bruised (even on the thigh as they had suspected).
Sorry to have missed this last night. How neglegant of the school, but unfortunately I fear this is the way they are going. Scared of being accused of abuse.
Regarding touching, I do not think it is the way to go. Mini loves fiddling and often has an erection, we just tell him that it isn’t appropriate to do. When other people are around. That it is needing the toilet, something normal and aural, but something to do in private
That is a horrifying story and I hope your DD has no lasting effects from it. I believe that this sort of injury is not uncommon in young girls. It happens to boys as well, but they are well trained in the art of showing pain as soon as they hurt themselves ‘down there’ aren’t they?
A few years ago, I used to take my then 6 year old DD, and her friend to gymnastics. During the class, the friend slipped and banged her ‘bits’ and came crying to me saying it hurt. She pulled down her knickers and showed me it was bleeding, and I’m afraid I didn’t look any further.
I took her straight home and told her mother what had happened/ what she’d done and what I’d seen and suggested she saw a doctor.
Her reply was that this girl had done the same thing before on her bike, so she wasn’t that worried but I had a sleepless night wondering if I’d acted appropriately.
It’s really hard to know what to do in this situation but I’d expect in a school they would have some protocols in place.
I agree with what your first reply said write down what little miss said and show it to the headmistress. Even if they did not attend to her with first aid the accident should have been documented . I know you don’t want ti cause trouble but if your not satisfied it will keep on annoying you. The main thing is your wee one is coping with her injury and thankfully did not need and stitches because that could have happened and if it did would the school sit up and take notice then? It’s hard for us to think of the many senarios that can happen to our children when we are trying to teach them to protect themselves like not letting people touch them in private places we do not think of them having an accident and being hurt there at least I never did. You’re a great mum just keep doing what your doing and kick ass at the school. X
I don’t like this. I understand that on one hand, they were concerned about being accused of abuse. It’s sad that this is how the world is, but there you go. I’m equally concerned about the lack of incident reporting. As *soon* as this happened, this should have had an incident report written up, and if there’s a school nurse on hand, the school nurse should have been brought in to do any sort of checking up. As a medical professional, the nurse would be a bit more protected from abuse allegations. If you’re not satisfied, I’d pursue it further.
While I take on board what you are saying about not wanting to rock the boat as your kids could be there the next ten years – do you want them to be if you don’t trust the adults concerned? I think the boat needs rocking. I worked as a Montessori teacher for a year, and in this kind of situation, I’d have got a second member of staff to come into a bathroom area with me, and yes, I’d have asked your daughter to take her tights off, explaining that I wanted to make sure she hadn’t hurt herself.
I can’t believe she didn’t cry either – strikes me that back covering is indeed taking place. Are there any other children you could ask?
Been thinking about all this over the last few days, and I have to say I’m not suprised your angry. The school have a duty of care to the children they look after, and although this was clearly a delicate area, they should have investigated. On the other hand, I’ve experienced an issue where a child fell at one of our work events and claimed to be fine & it wasn’t until 10 mins later when we saw blood seeping through his trousers that we investigated, so kids can hid pretty tough injuries very well. I have to say though, it’s just basic for any such inncident to be reported. We have to do inncident reports (where there is no injury) and accident reports (where there is an injury) these days, so I would expect the school should be doing that to. I really hope you manage to get through to them. It’s important to help them improve their processes for future too. Xx
It appears that the school were negligent and it does look like they are perhaps covering something up. The fact that you specifically asked for the headteacher to be at the meeting and for them to not turn up isn’t encouaging. We’ve had issues with our school where there were so many different stories flying around that it’s hard to believe what happened.
It’s so sad that it has gotten to the point that teachers and the like are more concerned about being accused of child abuse than of being concerned about a child’s wellbeing.
I hope your daughter recovers from this unscathed and that you get to the bottom of it with the school x