Why is my child being called fat by boys..

[Chocolate2020]

My child is in primary school and she hasn't had any issues with female students and is a very kind soul and I've brought her up well enough to know how to be kind, she's always going on about helping the homeless and those less fortunate . .

The last year she told me a student was calling her fat and just being rude, I ended up having a word with the mother and it stopped .

Another boy in her class has started calling her fat and annoying her he's also told her he hates her and wishes she wasn't In the school and he's said some other really unkind things about her when she was off sick .

I will be having a word with the teacher and possibly head teacher as I can't stand bully's.

The thing is , my daughter isn't even fat , she is a normal weight .
I honestly worry what some of these comments are doing as she has told me she thinks she's fat , I had to sit her down and tell her she is fine and she can eat what she wants (she was concerned about how much she was eating ) .

It makes me so sad ☹️

I am not victim blaming. And no children should not be mean to others ever. I am very clear on that. I regularly speak to children about these things. Teachers do to. But children do often speak out what they see & are blunt.
One of my own DC gets comments as they are neurodiverse.
But I also don't think primary school boys do it to 'keep girls in their place'
Kids are just brutal at times

@UnbelievablySelfish we can agree to disagree. I work with hundreds of kids age 6-16 and have done for years in an urban area where kids are quite streetwise My experience is obviously different to yours. Yes we get the odd male child who had learnt ridiculous attitudes from his dad etc but rare

Boys absolutely have a concept of girls being inferior and wanting to keep them in their place. I experienced that at infant school in the form of "you can only have the pink counters, all the other colours are boys' colours" from a male peer.

Thin girls DO get called fat, by boys and girls alike. DD had a 26" waist, but big boobs and bum, an hourglass, at quite a young age. All the other girls were standard beanpoles. She had serious body issues for a long time. Kids are shits.

Re some boys 'keeping girls in their place' thing, my earliest memory of this was in reception class, so 5 years old. I won a daft drawing competition at school and the prize was a plastic rosary from the Parish Priest, kid (boy) in the class said directly too me:" You didn't really win that, girls don't win things."

Make an appointment to speak to the teacher. Lots of behaviours are misdescribed as “bullying” but this is exactly that.

You should also seek to address why your DD either does not feel able to raise this with her class teacher or another adult when it happens, or if she has done so, why nothing has been done to resolve the issue.

Do not speak to the other child's parents and focus your discussion with the teacher on your DD only.

You'd hope attitudes have moved on since then. Male attitudes towards females & sport can be years behind. Infant boys saying this stuff have learnt that from their parents often sadly

Primary school boys may not consciously know that's why they're doing it, but they've absorbed a million messages that girls' self-worth is tied up in how they look. So have girls, to be fair, which is why this particular insult cuts so deep.

My 2 best friends in primary school were naturally like bean poles and I was called fat regularly, I was a completely normal weight, just next to them I was bigger. My mum instilled a lot of confidence in me though so it never surprisingly caused any deep seated issues though I remember being hurt by it at the time. My mum would also be straight on it reporting it to the school.

Odd, I read a tweet today about a girl getting punched and told she was fat (she’s not) by a boy at school. Wonder if this is some tiktok thing.

@LaviniasBigBloomers and kids get a lot from their own parents. And I mean as much from own parents to girls as boys. I despair when parents talk as if their tiny girls are precious princesses who shouldn't get dirty / excel in boisterous sports.
The parents who take their girls to play rugby from age 3/4 are my type of parents 😂 teach the girls to be strong athletic team mates. But that's a whole different thread

I hate all the silly, soppy Be Kind slogans on clothes, stationery, etc all in rose and pretty pastels or glitter. aimed at the girls of course! My biggest piece of advice to my daughters, their friends and the hundreds of girlsI have taught over the years is “Don’t take shit off anyone”. Easier said than done of course. However girls must learn to assert themselves from an early age. And boys need to respect themselves and each other. Adults must teach them this and set proper boundaries. At this age it is important that you intervene and that the other trusted adults in your daughter’s life are active in stopping this. Children need adults to intervene. Hell, adults need other adults to intervene in matters like this!

My dd had this, I told her to retaliate and call names back. Apparently her primary school found being called fat and ugly ok but god forbid when she called a boy thick. Unfortunately some schools are awful at stopping bullying

Yeah, we never see dinosaurs and Rambo saying be kind. It's patriarchal propaganda.

The wee bastards learn early on that it's the 'go to' insult for girls/women

Misogyny starts in the home, these boys are learning it from their parents, maybe they live in an abusive household where the dad calls the mum fat. And they think it's normal to disrespect girls like this.

I think that's why it's really important to get to these boys early so they don't grow up to be abusive misogynistic men.

I was teased as a child for being very plain. When I look back at old school photographs, I see a quite pretty girl and the tormentors definitely had a bit of a weasel look to them. As an adult I was commonly called very attractive.

I also ended up in the slow learners class' at primary school - it was great. I could do the work in a fraction of the time of the rest of the class and spent the day reading novels and had secured a very cosy spot next to some peculiar wood burning device that heated the very primitive classroom knocked together at the back of the school. Eventually, they threw me out and back into regular school classes. I have two university degrees in tough subjects and was dux of my secondary school. I haven't got much idea about how I ended up in the slow learners' class. I don't think my parents knew anything about it.

So I have my doubt about the veracity of primary school bullies. I don't think ill-mannered brats are the source of ultimate truth.

I'm sorry to hear this op. Sorry I've just seen it, a similar thing happened to my DD, the I don't like you etc but she was called an 'ugly rat'. I contacted the school and it was dealt with and the boy apologised.

Speaking to a TA, she said it's best to nip these things in the bud as it can lead to longer lasting psychological issues ie eating disorders etc ...completely agree.

Hope it's all better now

I’d be teaching her to throw a punch and to accept that sometimes it’s worth taking a detention.

I was sexually abused at 13 by two 13 yo boys from the local boys' school. It was very much about misogyny and demonstrating who was in charge.

Yes.

And how about @Chocolate2020 some martial arts classes?

I was that skinny child who got called fat. Luckily I had good parents who made sure I saw that for the bollox it was.

It was always boys calling me fat at secondary school, never girls. Persistently, every day in Y10 and Y11. I was if anything a very tiny bit overweight, but really not very much at all, and rather tall and althetic with a proportioned figure.

It was a very confusing time as deep down I knew I wasn't bad looking and had a sort of inner confidence, and certainly got compliments outside school - some rather unwelcome and creepy. I was being catcalled and wolfwhistled at on the way to school and called a big fat cow when I got there. It just made me hate school.and I couldn't wait to get on to the next stage. I also never then had a boyfriend who wasn't at least slightly older as I didn't trust boys my own age at all.

I absolutely thrived at sixth form college.

Thin children don't get called fat.
The absolutely do. In DD's class it started at the end of Yr4 and through most of Yr5. Only the boys calling the girls fat, giving them diet tips, making comments about hairy legs etc. None of the girls in DD's class were overweight and their main target was the girl who was better at football than most of them.
It started about the time a couple of the boys were allowed out alone to the small park in our village and given a phone to take with them. The ringleader was the youngest of 3 boys and from what I heard was being left alone with them rather than in paid childcare. There was another boy who DD said distanced himself a bit from that group when they were being nasty, also the youngest of 4 but with one older sister.

I contacted the school every time DD was insulted and every time DD told me one of her friends has been insulted. They did a fair bit of work with the children in Yr5, including splitting them up boys/girls for a couple of sessions. It had settled down by Yr6 as most of the boys were busy beating each other up