How can I find out the Truth?

Last Friday, while at work, I got a call from MIL. She asked me to listen to what Sze Yi had to tell me. Then she passed the phone over to Sze Yi. She was crying and she told me in between sobs, “Mommy, wo de pi gu dong dong. Miss X tuk wo de pi gu. Wo bu yau qu Miss X de school liao”. Then, MIL told me that she poo poo in her pants, so the teacher punished her by poking her private part. She’s in pain and wouldn’t let her check or washed that part. Horrified, I went back right away to check on her. On my way, I called hubby to check with him if Sze Yi was behaving any differently when he picked her up from school earlier. He said she was fine, but she told him that she had a fall that day. However, she was ok.

Upon returning home, I saw that Sze Yi was lying down on the bed, sobbing. After much persuasion, she let me check, but she couldn’t lie on her back. It was too painful. She lay down backwards with her bum bum facing up. I saw nothing wrong, no redness. Then, when I asked MIL again, she said that Sze Yi poo poo in school (not in her pants as I was led to believe earlier), so when the teacher washed for her, she was angry and punished her. I then asked Sze Yi if her teacher was angry with her. She said no, the teacher was smiling. And the teacher loved her, she also didn’t show any dislike for the teacher. She even said she loved that teacher too. Puzzled, I went on to question her why the teacher would want to poke her buttock, was she naughty? She said no. She didn’t know why either. So I told her I would bring her to see the teacher and asked her why. She suddenly got scared, and asked me not to do so. Now I was worried. I asked her why? Was she telling lies? She looked at me for a long time, and then she nodded. So I thought that was it. But upon further enquiry, I realized that she was confused herself. She was worried that the teachers would scold her for bringing this issue to us.

Sometime back, she told us that her toe was painful, someone accidentally knocked on her toe. So I enquired at the school, asking them if they were aware because I wanted to know what knocked her and was it serious. She was limping and kept complaining of the painful toe. The teacher followed up for me, and when the principal rang me back, I was told that Sze Yi told them she got it from home. I was surprised to note the switch of story because before that I had already asked her – where did her toe get injured – from our house, Amah’s house or the school. She said she got it at school – that’s why I asked the teacher. But after they questioned her, she told me a different story. She got it from our house. And she even asked me not to ask or tell her teachers next time because they would scold her. Now, I didn’t know who to believe. That time, her imagination was running a bit wild, so I didn’t pursue that further.

Now, I was worried if I took her to see her teacher, she would change her mind and tell me a different story. I wanted to make sure of that before I took her there. This time, she was persistent. She insisted that the teacher really did that to her. I followed-up by asking her to differentiate between poking and slapping the buttock. She could differentiate it very well. She said she poo poo in school, and when Miss X washed for her, she poked her buttock with her finger. And she’s in pain, couldn’t really walk and would scream when we wanted to check on her.

Not long later, when hubby returned, she told him, “Daddy, can you bring me to see Miss X and asked her why she tuk tuk your princess’ pi gu?”. Hubby laughed when he heard that. And she even requested me to carry her when we talked to her teacher, as if asking for protection. So we took her to her school, but the teacher was not there. We talked to the other teachers, and they said that it’s very unlikely that Miss X would do such a thing. When they called her, she confirmed that Sze Yi fell down 3 times in school that day (but that was because she was playing with the stool – sitting on 2 legs instead of 4). She then checked with Sze Yi if she’s ok, and patted her buttock to ask if she’s in pain or not. Sze Yi said she’s ok. When we further asked if she poo poo in school that day, the teacher said no, that day she only washed 1 student’s buttock, and she could remember it clearly because there’s no water supply that time.

So, how would I know whose version was correct? Sze Yi insisted that she poo poo in school that day. But her teacher said she didn’t. And she’s really in pain, she couldn’t walk very well. One of the teachers explained that for children this age (3.5 to 4), they would tend to mix things up. Maybe her bum bum was painful, and Miss X scolded her for something at the same time. So, she associated the pain with Miss X. But she was puzzled because from what they observed, Sze Yi had never been scolded by Miss X before. Moreover, she and another student were normally very quiet in class and didn't cause much trouble, so they were never scolded before. Therefore, nobody knew why Sze Yi said that. In school, she still said the same thing to the other teachers – at least this time she was consistent.

Worried about her condition (since she couldn’t walk), we took her to see the paed. When I carried her, my hands would be touching her buttock. She would adjust my hand so that I held her lower at the legs, not at the buttock. The paed examined her, and found some red scratches at her buttock. But it was not serious, and it could be caused by constipation. I later checked with MIL, she said that Sze Yi poo poo twice the day before, but the stool was not hard. I also checked with her teacher if she poo poo the day before, but she couldn’t remember because she washed a lot of buttocks everyday. But she’s very sure that she didn’t poo poo on that particular day which Sze Yi claimed she did.

Well, surprisingly, after the paed checked her and gave her stickers, she was ok, no more pain. She could walk very well (I doubted that she pretended she was in pain earlier). And we monitored her the next few days, she didn’t show any phobia of going to school, nor afraid of the teachers there. I later managed to chat with Miss X, she told me she was surprised why Sze Yi would accuse her of such thing. She said that Sze Yi was especially ‘manja’ with her, and she would rather she accused her of beating her rather that did such a thing to her. Anyway, we let the matters rest, because Sze Yi was alright. Well, I was VERY surprised when Sze Yi suddenly told me the next day that she wanted to go to full day (before that, any mention of the word full day would cause her to cry right away). I asked her why, she said because she got lots of friends there. I was still trying to figure out why, and when I kept on asking why, she then changed the subject and said she didn’t want to go to full day anymore.

Now, it happened that my babysitter came back, and we let her take care of Sze Juin. When Sze Yi learned that her sister would be going to Aunty’s house for full day, she immediately said that she wanted to go to full day right now. We managed to convince her to wait for awhile, since she’s still having flu. But after a few days, she asked again. When MIL told her that she would go back if she went to school full day, she didn’t cry like last time. Instead, she told MIL, “Ok, you go back and rest, then I come and see you ok?” I wonder what’s getting into her.

So, if you’re in my situation, what would you do? How could we find out what trigger her to say such a thing?