Neighbours angry at DS for snapping back and daughter’s homophobia - hypocrisy??

I agree that no one comes off well.

I do think that your DS holds more responsibility here because he is much older than the girl is - and it’s a huge difference between a 13 yo in yr 8/9 and an 8 yo in, what, yr 3?

A 13 yo calling an 8 yo a bitch is never going to be acceptable, and I also think the two older kids should have been more careful than to talk about crushes where an 8 yo could overhear- straight or gay.

Yes the 8 yo said something very unkind but she is too young to understand the full impact of her words. Whereas I’ve made sure my 12 yo DS knows that I regard using the word bitch as as offensive as using racist language.

A two way apology would be ideal but definitely with your DS apologising first and meaning it.

Since he's having general friendship difficulties OP, have you considered that your son might be ND and this could be why he's having friendship difficulties more than anything? I'm aware that diverse sexualities and identities are more common among the ND community.

I have coffee with a woman every week who is lesbian and I don't even consider our relative sexual orientations. She's just who she is and a lovely person. I think the reason we click so well is that we're both low key ND and have a lot of ND in our families. Sometimes conversation isn't so easy for me if the person isn't ND, whereas I click with people who are.

Wow…overreact much?! “I think X is best” is not nearly the same thing as “I think people should take authoritarian measures to enforce X.”

I think modern culture doesn’t do well with ambiguity and uncertainty as a whole, and I think it’s a good idea for parents to tell their kids that it’s fine to just take their feelings as they come and not feel pressure to declare a sexual identity.

hes a teen boy who’s told an 8yo girl to fuck off you bitch, he wasn’t sipping his tea saying that’s a great movie while existing as a teen boy so don’t pretend you’ve made a point here. There are very few scenarios I can think of where I wouldn’t assume the teen is wrong, and that’s not because I’m super critical of teens.

Christ. The homophobia in this thread is depressing.

Of course what was said to the wee girl was wrong. And the poster chastised her son for that. Told him that it was unacceptable.

I'd be curious to know if the other parents told their daughter that the language she used was also unacceptable.

Yeah, I mentioned earlier in the thread that I came out as bisexual when I was fifteen.

the younger girl, 8, overheard her sister (the older daughter), 11, talking to DS about their crushes.

the older children were talking about their crushes.

I’d imagine this anger and attitude is why he struggles with friends too, not his sexuality.

Yes. You imagine.

Rude, when addressed to a non good friend, but not unacceptable. I’d say friends call each other weird all the time in primary school from about that age. ‘Ok weirdo’

The… 8yo? He needs to grow up. Put him back in football, be supportive, and tell him to not go into any detail on liking boys, just shrug and say sorry mate not my type, im gay don’t you know (the 11&12yo boys I know do not sit at footy and talk about girls so this wouldn’t come up) Point out to him that you all change together in the locker room so him going into detail about his sexual attraction to boys is much more awkward than talking about girls, they don’t want to feel like they’re being checked out, especially by someone they’re not attracted to, and that’s a good reason to keep it minimum.

I say all this because we cannot tell if he’s joining in normal conversation about boys or if he’s wanging on uncomfortably. You don’t have to join in every topic, every kids friends group has that topic that bores some people, my son has adhd and can be pretty boring, his friends are lovely and let him go on a little but they aren’t joining in or encouraging him. Best to keep the topic pretty light without hiding his being gay, I’d be having some strong words to my sons if I heard them being disrespectful about girls or overly fixated.

It sounds like he is making his sexuality his whole personality. That may work as an older teen or adult, but being as young as he was when he came out (and still is!) is going to make most children uncomfortable. My DD is 14 and she is uncomfortable when her straight friends talk too much about sex and sexuality.
Him being gay is absolutely fine, but lashing out with venom like this at children because they are not responding to him like adults would, is not ok.

Would your daughter not know that calling someone weird was unacceptable though?

My daughter is 8. I imagine the girl is too young to even understand what that meant and its something that she has picked up from older children. Wildly over reacting to call an 8 year old homophobic. Your sons choice of words was disgusting

its pretty 8yo though isn’t it?
i have an impulsive 11yo boy and if he reacted that way to anything less than a bigger kid punching him in the face I’d immediately remove him from the event. Guarantee his attitude will get bigger kid punching him at some time unless he changed it, and he’ll blame homophobia rather than his aggressive immaturity. If he were able to apologise we’d come back and apologise or we’d leave and apologise another time, but zero chance he stays at any event after speaking like that. Gay boy from a little kid is something he must learn to laugh off, that’s what I’d tell my son. He’s not going to make friends or not without lots of difficulty until he can handle his emotions better and you need to stop giving him a free pass there because of his sexuality. Also, he’s 13, and needs to find things to talk about that aren’t other boys. ‘Yes ds we know you’re gay what else have you thought about or done today? If you were a girl I’d be unhappy with this focus on boys, let’s go through your homework’

My 8 year olds class very much are aware that "gay boy" and "weird" are unacceptable language the same as they knew that some racist terms that slipped through during discussion of their faith trail trip were not acceptable. They know this because their teachers have taught them. My children's primary school is excellent though and have an excellent bullying policy. Some parents are obviously passing things on to their children though. They're hot on misogynistic language as well and "bitch' or even "stupid" would not fly either.

Yes I agree, but I do think that a parent of such a child needs to incorporate an element of coaching about dealing with these things. Everyone I know has always taught their children about LGB relationships alongside het relationships, but you can't assume that all families are like yours/your friends'.

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one that hadn't heard that phrase before!

I would be absolutely horrified if one of my ds’s ever said that to a young girl, or any female in fact.
Even though at lower ks2 young children learn about puberty, gay, straight … for many children who live in a nuclear family these concepts feel unusual (or ‘weird’) as they are not ones they have come across & may well laugh innocently when hearing about a boy liking another boy.
Having taught ks2 for many yrs it is usually by yr5/6 that teasing about this is more likely to begin at the very earliest.
As for the term gay boy, I am another one that has never heard it. For an 8 yr old it would very likely be a description of a gay, boy, ie the boy who was saying he had crushes on boys.
I wouldn’t wish my dd to be near your son after the way he treated her & if he hadn’t apologised I wouldn’t have wished to have stayed either.

To be fair, depending on their surroundings, they probably know. Being different and knowing you are different even if you aren't 100% sure why comes with that knowledge. There's so much we absorb without realising it and that straight is the default and homophobia, racism and all the other stuff exists is learnt early. Probably before you have realised you've learned it. Ultimately, the only thing anyone different can do is live it and hope for the best it's not like people can change how they're different when it comes to it.

That isn't what I said, though. I said that grown adults should know better than to have those attitudes. But I am talking pragmatically about being a parent. I have a child who is somewhat gender non conforming and we have practical conversations about what might happen, what the right response(s) might be, who we might tell if we need to escalate, etc. I mean I view it in exactly the same way as having conversations about what they should do if the house was on fire?

haha, I get exactly what you mean. :-) I'm not really that old (early 50s) but the world is such a different place and has moved so fast from when I was their age.

And how do you stop them labeling themselves? Ban it? Ground them? Swear them to secrecy until they’re 18?

If a kid is trying to act cool and different by declaring themselves gay when they’re not, then having to clear that up at some point is just a natural consequence

When you are not straight you are well aware that even know the world won't be kind...

You sound dangerously close to saying "you have to just accept people will be mean to you if you're going to announce you are different to the perceived norm" though...

Thank you for being so open to learning. It seems a bit of a rare thing these days. I, like you, like learning new things though with teenagers I'm not sure I need to know everything they've taught me 🤣

I think if you have a child who "comes out" at 10, you have a responsibility to coach them about the world and the attitudes they may face, both from younger children who don't know any better to grown adults who absolutely should know better. It's not the ideal world, but it's the world we live in. The child was unreasonable in a silly, childish way. Your son was unreasonable in a somewhat different way.

Bisexuals exist and often think we may be one way before realising we actually are both