to think teacher calling kids this is inappropriate?

Yeah, they used to hit the kids…

I agree. Context is all.

I knew a brilliant secondary teacher once with lots of charisma. He jokily rebelled against the macho sport culture of the school by having an (imaginary)’Wimps’ Club’ in which he gave students brownie points for nerdy activities and achievements but (again, jokingly) deducted points if anyone admitted to going skiing or scoring goals in football. It was all very lighthearted and was in no way seriously diminishing the sporty kids’ success.

But if taken out of context I can see how this might be misunderstood!

I had a friend who is a secondary school deputy. She said 'we just use sarcasm to control and belittle' and I thought... teachers are not what they used to be.

Depends on the context for me. Genuine, light hearted ribbing? Fine. Used as a dismissive response to a complaint of bullying etc? Not fine.

This.

If the children weren’t upset by it then I wouldn’t be either.

I couldn't get too bothered by this. It's not perfectly polite, but a bit of friendly banter from a good teacher is fairly harmless, as long as no child is feeling hurt or bullied by it. There can be benefits overall to teachers interacting with kids in a relaxed, natural way.

I'm not familiar with the expression at all so can't comment. However OP doesn't know tone or context. To complain about something you have no knowledge of seems to be a bit extreme. Why not ask the teacher in a friendly way about what the expression means in the context and how it's used, ask for examples. If it were me I'd ask other parents first. Going above the teacher is wrong IMO. It may be that the teacher found the only way to get the kids to engage is to gently tease. Maybe the alternative is shouting or disengaging entirely which no doubt will bring in more complaints.

Absolutely. I'm much older and have brought up several children, so I'm toughened to this sort of thing. It's good for kids to toughen up as well, the whole world is not going to pander to their sensibilities I'm afraid.

I wouldn't be particularly worked up about this. As a PP said, it's just mild teasing and hardly going to scar a child for life. While we don't encourage our kids to name-call, the reality is kids will say all kinds of things to each other and it's good to teach your kids to be resilient (and to develop a few pithy comebacks of their own!)

I’m going to give up speaking at all to my students. I will display pre-approved slides on the board and press the return button after a requisite number of minutes (carefully calibrated so students who struggle to read the board aren’t struggling, yet those who are as yet undiscovered geniuses won’t be held up). If any of them speak rudely to me, including swearing and threats of physical violence, I shall simply smile gently and incline my head. If the class refuse to wear correct uniform, refuse to sit down quietly, refuse to do the work set, chuck chairs about, fight each other, set fire to the carpet I will personally phone all the parents to tell them it’s my fault and I know I must do better.

Is that the sort of thing parents are after from teaching staff? It’s the impression I get from reading threads like this.

I think it totally depends on tone and context. If it’s said to a child who is genuinely afraid of something in an unkind voice, that’s one thing, but if it’s some lighthearted teasing aimed at a group or the whole class (“come on, these spellings aren’t THAT hard, don’t be wet wipes!”) it would not bother me in the least.

If you’re otherwise happy with the teacher and your DC isn’t upset I’d leave it.

Wet wipe or wuss, either fine, I don’t remember anyone at school having a nervous breakdown after being called it.i think it’s quite mild.

This is a good example. What would you expect a teacher to say to a pupil who had dropped a used tissue and refused to pick it up because it was 'yucky'

@OWetOne Oh that’s even worse then. It’s very easy for ‘banter’ to tip over into bullying in my opinion. How often do we see threads on MN where adults are upset by ‘banter’ at work? I agree that children don’t really get sarcasm. Parents and teachers need to absolutely be encouraging resilience in children. I personally don’t think that it is achieved by calling a nine year old a wet wipe.

As a teacher I wouldn’t do this, but as a parent, maybe.

I’m not convinced that raising a generation of kids who can’t cope with mild teasing without parents leaping in to defend them isn’t actually turning them into a bunch of wet wipes. Resilience seems to be through the floor.

I don't think it's a big deal, was probably over someone refusing to pick up a tissue or something.

DS1 (19) had a teacher who called the kids 'little squirts' in secondary school (Y7-9). I often use it, I love it.

😂

that would be a bit much for a bunch of primary school kids to be fair 😂

We were called a bunch of slags at secondary school back in the day.

People are so precious and love being offended about anything.

The over-reaction (and the talk of bullying, humiliation) are a sad sign of what is wrong with parents these days - and I do have kids in primary school. But the offended parents about nothing are exhausting.

It’s absolutely not okay - depending on the age/personality/confidence of your child, could you teach them a phrase to use if the teacher says it - “Don’t call me/X a wet wipe, it’s not a kind way to speak to anyone.” Some classes also have boxes for children to write things they want their teacher to know, if your child’s class has something like that could they write a note?

No way is that acceptable. It's teaching the kids to name call and mock someone when they are frightened, unsure, not confident or vulnerable. Horrible.