Desperate, anxious, and downright troubled by the state of her three-year-old daughter, a mother took to Facebook to bring some dreadful suspicions to light last Saturday afternoon.
Pictures posted by the mother, Claudia Kwan, showed a severe bruise on her child’s right ear — an intensely purplish welt that the parent believes to have been caused by abuse from the toddler’s preschool teacher. The swelling appeared after school on Feb. 14, accompanied by the daughter’s changed demeanor and signs of trauma.
None of the preschool teachers could explain what happened, and the child’s form teacher noted it to be a “mystery”. After sending the daughter for a check-up, the paediatrician was said to have diagnosed it as a form of traumatic bruising caused by “the exertion of great intentional force”, and not at all a symptom of drug allergies or insect bites.
Another doctor at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital also classified the bruise as a “non-accidental injury”.
According to Kwan, the bruise on the child’s ear has yet to heal completely after more than three weeks since the incident.
- Her post alleged that her daughter showed signs of trauma in the weeks following the injury.
- Every night the girl would have nightmares, crying out “I’m scared, I’m sorry, please, stop, pain!”, while also shouting out her form teacher’s name as well.
- The girl has turned temperamental and would often burst into rage or cry out of the blue.
- The girl is now “petrified” of attending school and seeing the teacher who was apparently responsible for the abuse. She has since stopped attending that preschool.
- When Kwan reads books to her daughter, the child would say that her teacher is the villain of the story.
- Minor renovations noises from a neighbor’s flat would drive the child into tears, as she would say it was the sound of her teacher coming to pull her ear again.
- Every time the name of her form teacher is mentioned, the girl would “shiver in fear and break into tears”.
Kwan has since made a police report and is currently awaiting the results of the investigation. The preschool’s supervisor, however, was said to have been indifferent to the case.
“Essentially, his message to me is all my daughter’s teachers are from the church affiliated to the preschool (implying that they are Christians), and that he fully believes and trusts that none of his teachers would abuse a child to such an extent,” Kwan wrote.
Speaking to Channel NewsAsia, the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) noted that it has already reached out to Kwan to “provide any assistance that she and her child may require”. The agency is also working with the preschool to ensure the safety and well-being of its students.
“I seriously can’t take it anymore and I’m at my wit’s end,” wrote the embattled mother.
“I’m very desperate to seek advice on what I can do for my daughter, hence I am resorting to this platform for advice so that I can have a closure on this.”
