To think that this boy's mother was wrong to let him go to school wearing a dress.

[uglypotato]

Boy A is 4, in reception. Likes wearing dresses and skirts. I think that's fair enough and I have a tutu and several lovely swishy cloaks in the dressing up box for my DSs (Y2 and YR) too. Who doesn't?

But A's mum bought him a school dress, and let him go to school in it. While I think the world should be a caring, tolerant place where no-one bats an eyelid at this sort of thing, it's not. In reality, small children will laugh and tease. Other infants may look small to us, but to 4yo boys they are life-size and can be terrifying. And they will remember that A went to school in a dress and label him.

I can see that this is fine for a 10yo say, who feels that they're in the wrong gender body. At this age, peers can think things through, empathise and accept. But not a 4yo who likes dressing up. He's just meat for bullies now, surely?

A's mum is very nice, and I'm sure if the world was full of people like her, it would be a great place to live: she has a generous, open personality and is very kind and friendly. But she seems to have set her son up for bullying. He's seen as a bit of a loner by others in our kids' class and this hasn't made him more popular. Now she's marked her and her son out as odd in the eyes of the mothers at the school. I want to live in a world where it's ok to send your son to school in girl's uniform, but I don't think that's reality. AIBU?

They like to fit in (always the exception) and this is why on a non uniform day they all look similar. I taught at one school without uniform and they all adopted very similar clothing.

I remember reading the blog of a HE mother and one of her upsets that led to HE was the non uniform day, she sent her DD in a beautiful smocked dress with bow at the back and down to mid calf (the sort of thing that I might have worn as a DC and I am older than the average on here) and she got teased.
'You could say this is utterly dreadful, why must she follow the herd' but did the DD get a choice, the mother was set on what she deemed suitable but couldn't she have followed the trend which would be trousers of some sort?

This was why I was very grateful for school uniform as a DC because my mother didn't follow the trend. One of my best pieces of advice with school uniform was 'look at what they actually wear before you buy'.

Some DCs can pull it off. e.g. when you have a baby you can't tell what you get in the way of personality. It always seems risky to me to go for names like Ethel or Cuthbert. If you have an outgoing,popular DC they can carry it off -but imagine a shy, retiring DD who finds making friends difficult having to cope with Ethel.

People misunderstand the playground. A DC needs to learn to deal with situations, disputes and different emotions and the playground gives it. Imagine the DC who goes through childhood where all is sweetness and light and then they have to deal with a boyfriend who breaks it off, not getting picked for a job, a difficult boss etc etc. It is much easier if you have learnt to handle minor disappointments like not being picked for the school play or falling out and making up with your best friend. They have to learn what makes a good friend. Many DCs come to school from a home where they rule the roost and can wind mum and dad around their little finger, they can have a strop or sulk and they get their own way. Suddenly they are in the school playground and they have to learn the lesson that they can't get their own way, they can have a strop and no one cares or they won't be friends because they don't want to be bossed about.
One of the things they learn is to fit in socially. We do it as adults and we act appropriately for the situation. We can be completely individual and refuse to conform but we may well be shunned or we find a way to be different and yet accepted-such as humour. Those who are aggressive and say 'this is me-I can be as different as I like-it is my right,' can of course do this but people will avoid them.

YANBU and its highly likely he will be picked on

Exotic Many of us were agreeing with you even before LeQueen came along!

Though it has to be said, there are a large number of people confusing an ideal world with the real world.

And as I said before, I'm sure it's easy to tap the right words onto a keyboard...but would any of them really send their own boys to school in a dress?

I doubt it

Well said Amor.

This guff is many things, but commonsense? PMSL.

well said AmorYCohetes.

Exotic Many of us were agreeing with you even before LeQueen came along!

Sorry-you did indeed-it was just that LeQueen came in and didn't mince words!

I was tempted to look at people's profiles if they thought it was OK, because I bet they are sitting there telling other people that it is quite normal to send a DS in a dress knowing that their DS wouldn't.

I am very, very relieved that I'm not called Enid-as a shy DD it would have been very difficult for me. I know a Hilda my age and it aways sounds strange.
My mother had a difficult name to bear and when she started school she insisted she was called Jane-they had to send a note home to her mother asking for clarification!! Sadly for her she never got the Jane.

unkind attitudes in children come from grown ups.

I agree with LeQueen here-knowing a lot of 4/5 yr olds they are often not fair minded, open minded and accepting-and many of the worst have parents who are all of the above!

I agree, Amor.

DS's inner city S London state school is very multicultural - all the children are very used to names that they are not formerly familiar with, the sort of names that regularly reduce adult MN-ers to much sniggering on 'the most ridiculous name you have heard' threads where people often list perfectly normal Nigerian or S African names, for example. The coolest boy in the Yr 6 class, football captain etc, has a pony tail, he's been growing it since Reception and no-one comments, but it is the sort of thing I have seen derided on MN and condemned as a provocation to bullying.

I don't happen to think that parents should deliberately make any kind of fool of their child in order to prove a point of their own, I don't like 'performance parenting' in the 'look at me I'm so creative and liberal' any more than i like 'competitive faux negligence' parenting as in 'ha ha, I feed my kids chocolate sandwiches and never cook fresh food tee hee'.

But I am absolutely confident that a 4 year old in a dress at DS's school would not cause anything in the line of an upsetting reaction. Not in Reception. And I don't see how my interprtation of what would happen in DS's school is any less valid than those who insist that the poor child would be bullied.

So you would send your DS in a dress if he asked?

I don't find, in all my supply teaching that multicultural names cause problems. Enid wouldn't cause a problem to a confident, outgoing DC-it would cause problems for someone like me.

Exotic - At 4, if my DS had wanted to go to school in a dress I would have let him, yes. But there is no uniform at his school - if there was a specific school uniform which involved trousers for boys I would have said he had to go in school uniform.

If he got teased then he could make his own decision as to whether he wished to wear a dress again. I wouldn't be out shopping for a range of new dresses, but I wouldn't make a fuss about a wish to wear a dress for a day.

And no, I agree with you, children don't seem to fuss about names. But i could point you to any number of MN threads where there is much hooting and jeering and supposition of teasing.

YABU - If he wants to wear a dress he should be able to. I'd rather see a boy in a dress than a little girl in a thong and bra top any day of the week.

Ffs, put your child in a dress and it will get bullied, if not at 4 then later on as children will remember the child wearing a dress, I'd hate to think what will happen when he goes to secondary school if it gets out

Over the years my children have been picked on for having brown bread, having ham sandwiches, not having ribena in lunch box, for having sticky up hair ( calfflick) because they think his name is unusual. One boy at ds2 school was picked on for wearing skinny jeans on none uniform day

My nana remembers some boys at her school having to wear their sisters hand me downs ( just after ww2) she says they were bullied verbally and physically even though it wasn't uncommon in those days as many couldn't afford clothes, shoes.

I always think that those who can't stand uniforms because it produces robots, clones etc have no idea! They probably had a mother who let them be the same as the crowd-if you had one like mine you were terribly thankful for it.
You go to any school without uniform or on a non uniform day and you will find that what they are wearing amounts to a self inflicted uniform. If you want to be different you have to have bags of confidence, be very popular and have street cred-I doubt very much whether any DS could carry off wearing a dress.

If he got teased then he could make his own decision as to whether he wished to wear a dress again

I don't even think it fair to do that. I know what the reaction would be and then the poor, unsuspecting 4 yr old has to live with it until at least 11yrs old.

And I don't see how my interprtation of what would happen in DS's school is any less valid than those who insist that the poor child would be bullied.

It would depend on how many schools you have experience of, how many classes, how many of the DCs you have seen without any adults in the playground and how many playground disputes you have sorted out.

I have taught in small 2 class village schools, large 3 form entry schools, schools in rough areas, schools in leafy suburbs and everything inbetween.
There are DCs that can carry things off, but they have to be very popular (with both sexes) and leaders. I don't think that even they could cope with a dress if they were a DS.

I also dispute this idea that all 4 yr olds are accepting and open minded etc. I know that you can get the most kind and caring DCs from very disadvantaged backgrounds and you can get mean, spiteful ones who appear to have lovely parents and every advantage. I have known a 5 yr old boy manipulate all friendships in the infants (until stopped)-it took a while to work out what he was doing because he was clever, popular and 'butter wouldn't melt.......'. He was extreme but there are many who do similar on a smaller scale.

because the vast majority of children like to feel that sense of belonging, that they are part of the group

The very unfortunate truth of this is that some get this sense of belonging by excluding others.
It would hopefully be stopped, but I would avoid any school that tells you that there is no bullying, it is how they deal with it that matters. (and this includes 4 yr olds).

Blimey obviously no Brighton posters here! Plenty of boys in dresses down our way

I admit to not having taught in Brighton!!

Kids at DS's no uniform primary school just wear clothes, a perfectly ordinary huge range of clothes.
Jeans, trousers, skirts, scruffy, smart, style conscious, style-oblivious, some of the girls clearly make choices and try hard, some don't. None of the boys give a flying monkeys. Some wear loads of bling, some wear Sainsbury's own brand, some wear whatever was good value in TKMaxx, some wear islamic kurta, a couple of girls actually wear school uniform items - in the absence of an school uniform, red gingham seems to be the school dress of choice.

But I bet no one stands out like a sore thumb.

I also bet there are lots of girls like the ones I know who consult all their friends first to find out what they are wearing.

Sorry-forget the last one, I was thinking non uniform day. If it is non uniform entirely then they know what friends will wear.