THis morning my 3 yo dcg told me that her mommy punched her daddy in the nose and made it bleed!
It took me about 3 seconds of thinking about it to realize that there was probably more to the story. Mom is a social worker for one thing, and although I know that it's not impossible for a social worker to also be an abuser, it seems pretty unlikely here.
I called mom and said "Hey...Brut"....mom is already making chuckling noises now...
Turns out, dad had a work accident and got a black eye and nose. When the kids asked what had happened, he told them "mom hit me", thinking that's funny. The rest of the family immediately got on him about how that NOT funny. DCM said "just wait...dcg is going to tell dcp"
sure enough....
I'm just trying to say that you do have to take whatever a 3 yo says with a grain of salt. You can have some very general conversations about hitting, but be VERY careful about doing any questioning of a young child. It takes a LOT of training to do it right, and you can do a lot of damage if you do it wrong! We are NOT trained to do this.
If you really truly suspect something, report it. That is your job as a mandated reporter. It is NOT NOT NOT our job to investigate!