"I'm Scared, I'm Sorry, Please, Stop!" - Mum Recounts Her 3-Year-Old's Pre-School Horror
"My daughter is petrified of the pre-school and teacher now."
By Sadho Ram — 11 Mar 2018, 07:14 PM
"I'm very desperate to seek advice on what I can do for my daughter, hence I am resorting to this platform. What can I do? Could someone please advise me?" reads a viral Facebook post by a mother of a three-year-old girl, who last month came home from her pre-school with a horrific bruise and swelling on her right ear
While the incident happened on 14 February, the mother only took to Facebook yesterday, 10 March, to write about it because after rocky three weeks she still does not have any "meaningful updates"
"Ever since this incident, every night, my girl would wake up suddenly from her nightmares, crying out, 'I'm scared, I'm sorry, please, stop, pain!'
"She has been shouting out her form teacher's name too," the mother wrote.
"This has been going on every night for the past few weeks, and it pains me deeply to see my daughter in such trauma. She is tormented day after day by the incident and her behaviour has even undergone drastic changes. She is now very temperamental and bursts into rage or tears at times, sometimes even out of the blue for no apparent reason," reads the lengthy post that has over 1.6k shares at the time of this story.
According to the mother, Claudia Kwan, it was her husband who was picking their daughter up from the pre-school on 14 February when noticed the bruise after sensing that something was wrong
"Her messy hair covered part of the ear and she was sweaty after a whole day in school but what he saw was a horrific bruise on the top of her ear.
"When they reached home, my hubby asked me to check what had happened to her ear and to my horror, her ear was badly bruised to such an extent that it was swelling badly.
"My heart bled and when I asked my daughter about what had happened, she lost control and just broke down into tears and cried," Claudia wrote in her post.
She also added photos of her daughter's bruised ear, showing how the little girl's ear had turned a deep purple colour, with some peeling of skin.
When she called the pre-school, none of the teachers could explain what had happened. "The form teacher said that it was a mystery," she wrote, adding that she then took her girl to a paediatrician
"Long story short, the PD, upon seeing my girl's ear, was shocked too. He diagnosed it as a form of traumatic bruising that was caused by the exertion of great intentional force, and not a result of insect bites or drug allergies," read Claudia's post, where she also added that after informing her daughter's pre-school principal about the PD's diagnosis she proceeded to lodge a police report.
However, when she called to update her daughter's form teacher about the police report, Claudia claims the teacher sounded "utterly surprised and shocked".
Claudia also sent her daughter to KKH (KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Singapore) for a re-diagnosis and second opinion where the bruise was classified as a "non-accidental injury" that was "suspected to be inflicted by a teacher."
In her Facebook post, Claudia claims that when she visited her daughter's pre-school to seek assistance, she was only "met with loads of excuses and indifference by the supervisor of the school"
"I'm writing here to ask for help from fellow parents on how should I handle this... I still have to seek help from a psychiatrist and a counsellor for my daughter. They have told me that my daughter is indeed traumatised badly.
"As a mother, seeing my daughter suffer day by day renders my heart to shreds and it puts a heavy strain on me emotionally and physically.
"I'm extremely stressed and exasperated by the inefficiency of the police, disappointed with the preschool that it's not taking any responsibility or action to solve this case. In fact, the pre-school is still allowing the suspected teacher to continue teaching while risking the safety of many other young children under her care," the mother wrote, adding "I seriously can't take it anymore and I'm at my wit's end."
She has reported it to the Early Childhood Development Agency
"ECDA has commented that as this is a police case, they could only determine their next course of action pending the outcome of the police's investigation.
"The police have reverted that they can't reveal any CCTV footage to me. Neither did they do anything to reassure me that the investigation is progressing well, leaving me in the dark and constant fear day after day," Claudia claims.
Following her post, ECDA has confirmed that they are aware of the case, adding that the police are investigating the matter
According to The Straits Times, the police, while confirming that a report was lodged on 14 February, said that "investigations are ongoing and the investigation officer has updated Ms Claudia Kwan on the status."
Meanwhile, the mother claims that her little girl is so traumatised by the incident that she has now stopped attending the pre-school. Recounting how it has left an impact on her daughter, she writes:
"Back home, when I was reading storybooks to her, she would suddenly say that her teacher is "the evil wolf” in the story of the Three Little Pigs and that she was the “wicked queen” in Snow White or that her soft toys would help to protect her from her evil teacher. Even when she heard minor renovation noise from my neighbour's flat, she would say that it was the sound of her teacher coming to pull her ear once again and she would break into tears!"
Her post has since been flooded with comments from concerned parents.
