to think this TA was rude?

[confuddledDOTcom]

My 6yo daughter has a name that has a shortening that I personally don't like, it was one of the weighing factors to giving her this name but we decided if we stuck to calling her by her name until she was old enough to decide for herself what she would be called the others would and that has worked. My daughter also hates this shortening! Not because we've said anything to her, she just loves her full name (the whole thing, middle names and surname too). Her dad recently realised she hates it and will call it her if he's trying to play her up, which works, she'll start trying to beat him up.

At school there are two teachers who call it her and when they do she breathes in deeply through her nose whilst pushing her lips out. I've asked her why she doesn't say anything about it but she won't, it's not in her nature. I was talking to a senior member of staff recently and mentioned it, she said she'd noticed she hated it too and would make sure people know not to call it her.

About a week later she comes home from school and says "[TA] said she has to call me... because my name is so long and she has lots of children" her name is 6 letters long and "shortening" it makes it 5 letters and not much quicker to say. I'm not sure if this is in response to the senior teacher saying something or she's stood up for herself, but either way if someone doesn't like being called a name, isn't it rude to tell them their name is too long and they have other people's names to think about?

I'm hoping so! Mum told me I need to go in and tell them but their dad is the school runner and I'm supposed to be on bedrest after a walk to the corner shop set of contractions at 20 weeks. She's first to be dropped and goes to morning club so it's not easy to grab teachers. I'm going to see how we get on this week and if she is still doing it then I'm going to try to arrange something. The most frustrating bit is that I was talking to the senior teacher about constant low level bullying she's got at the moment so I don't think this TA is really helping issues.

My son detests one of the short forms of his name. He will ignore it or tell you it is not his name. Two members of staff at school dislike his preferred short name, so call him his full name. It's a good compromise.

If the TA has refused to comply with a perfectly reasonable request, I'd email the head and drop her in it.

I hate my name being shortened. My mum wouldn't let me answer to the shortened version as a child, but we had a form tutor at school that used to shorten it - I hated it. There were 2 of us in the tutor group with the same name, both used the full name but the tutor used to just add the first initial of our surnames, so Mandy D and Mandy F

I always introduce myself as my full name. I work with hundreds of people and I think there are 2 people that shorten it and I don't see them often so it's not too bad.

I've actually asked for the Nursery to use DS2's shortened for because it's easier to spell and write and makes phonetic sense; whereas the long form has a random "h" which makes our attempts to introduce phonetics rather difficult because they like to satrt with name recogniton.

What did I find on the work table Friday morning? A laminated version of his whole name for him to trace over. [hhmm]

YANBU, the school should support your decision to use the form of name that your child is used to and prefers.

Oh, and years ago at work when it came in that it was sexist to saying things like manning levels and you should use staffing levels etc a couple of people started calling me Apersonda. And there is a guy that calls me Amanda hug and kiss from the Simpsons where Bart rings Moes bar.

No problem with school just starting using a shortened pet form of a name; usually just a familiarity 'nice' thing. But once they find out a child doesn't like it they should stop immediately.

I actually think it's a little bit Madam-ish of your DD to do that thing with her lips (I'm assuming you meant a pout?) and to try to beat her dad up when he calls her the shortened version of her name. I would put a stop to both of those.

Yes, it is rude of the TA not to call her by her preferred name, but if you give a child a name that can be shortened then I guess it's par for the course that they may get shortenings that they don't like. One of my DDs has a name which has a couple of shortenings and a variety of spellings for one of the shortened versions, so she's been called allsorts and had it spelt all kinds of ways. It's just one of those things.

If you daughter has specifically said that she doesn't want her name shortened, then the TA shouldn't do it. I can't believe that anyone in school wouldn't realise or understand why it is important to respect a child's wishes like this!

I've only shortened children's names when they've been happy with it. Some children like to have little daft pet names, others are happy to have their full name shortened, others only want their full name and nothing else.

It's tough on the TA if she thinks your daughter's name is too long! She should make the effort and then apologise if she shortens the name by accident.

I used to have the opposite problem, at home I was always Star (Startail only if very annoying). None of my friends would have ever used it in full.

I was never backwards in telling people. The only people I never dared correct were the lower school head and my very old lovely, but quite feisty Great Aunt.
(I happily told are idiot of a head).

So few people use my full name that, if you do use it, I'll think your talking to someone else.

It's tricky isn't it though.

As a ta, and back when I was a teacher, I often use pet names - shortened names or even longer ones, sometimes pet names not linked to real name at all. But if a child ever said not to I wouldn't.

Dd has a name we never thought anyone would shorten. But discovered sometimes they do - Mollie to Moll. It's not a favourite really but dd doesn't really mind. And last year her teacher always did it, one if few people who ever did. Then he died suddenly not long ago and one of dd's comments was that she missed him doing so. Bless her.

I would be mortified if any of my children did the spoilt diva huffing thing.

I would find it hard to overly care about any of this tbh. As for contacting the head, a complete over reaction .

Our idiot HT, if I'm going to be rude I ought at least get it right.

I'd have loved the DHT to have got the job, he was really good. I believe he didn't have a degree or something and therefore couldn't apply [hsad]

we expected that people would do that, but not just start doing it when they don't have permission

Unless they have been specifically asked not to people will often shorten names. They won't ask for permission first! If you hate it that much I'm really surprised that you chose it as her name.

Also, why does her dad call her this name just to tease her? That sounds like he is reinforcing that it's not a nice name and encouraging her to have a bad reaction to it. I think he should stop doing that, it's damaging to her self-esteem to be made fun of like that.

Instead, why not look up the origin of her name, find good role models, scientists, athletes, inventors who share her name and make it into something really positive that she can identify with and be proud of.

The shortened version of her name is going to plague her all through her life, so you might as well give her the appropriate tools to deal with it, now that you've given her the name.

Arisbottle As a parent, you might not care overly about it. And you are perfectly within your rights to do this.

The TA, on the other hand, should be respecting the child's wishes in this respect. Schools do a lot of work on teaching children that their voice/opinions/feelings count. That it's 'ok to be me' and all that. The EYFS focuses on learning that everyone is different and has different ideas and just because you are ok with something, doesn't mean that everyone is. Etc. So clearly it is a sentiment that is very strongly promoted in education.

Children have very little control over their own lives in general so something as simple, easy and irrelevant (to the TA) as a child's name is a very simple way in which she can reinforce a message either positively or negatively. I know it seems quite OTT, but I would also contact the school. Your name is an incredibly important thing!

Both of my DCs have names that are often shortened, but we always use the full version. On arrival at secondary school DD had a few teachers try to call her by the shortened version. A simple "My name is Xxxxxxx. I don't like Xxxie. Thank you." stopped it.

I am now a teacher. Whne I come across chn with longer names I always ask either their class teacher or the child what they prefer to be called.

I have sympathy with this! There are two shortenings of my name. Neither is the name that is mine. While my family and old close friends can start making short and pet names out of my name, as an expression of affection, I find it intensely disrespectful if I meet someone who immediately goes for a short version, when it's not what I said I was called.

There's a lovely cringy Python sketch where the interviewer does this: mzonline.com/bin/view/Python/ItsTheArtsSketch/ .

YABU at all. DS has a name that works in the two languages that he is being brought up with and we have decided that we will use the foreign pronunciation which has a different stress and makes it sound unusual.

Occasionally people insist on correcting him and when he first started at school there was one teaching assistant who insisted on using the Anglo version. It's just rude and entitled on their part.

DS doesn't have any qualms about setting people straight though and I don't stop him

I don't think it's 'entitled' but it is definitely rude!

This will probably happen to your dd her whole life, so you should probably encourage her to be more good natured about it - she'll get upset and cross with a lot of people otherwise! I speak from experience as a Philippa, who goes by Pip, who endlessly gets called Pippa even though I don't like it........I agree that the TA was very rude though.

MrsD, I can't imagine how someone would get Debbie from your name!

MrsMangelfanciedPaulRobinson, her dad does it to start a rough and tumble session with her, she's not doing it to be violent as it's totally not in her nature, she, like many children, likes to roll around with her dad. As I said before my second child is ex-IUGR (so very tiny and not able to take a lot of rough play) and my third is only 16 months old and all of them join in on the beating Daddy up game. The response to it outside the family is because she won't say anything, it's a frustrated sigh. Doesn't come across to me when I've seen it as "madam-ish" and it's not something anyone would ever accuse her of.

We gave her her name because it's a beautiful name, my family has a few people who have names that can be shortened and never were, we have always said if she chooses that name for herself then that's her choice. If someone introduced themselves to me as one name I would find it rude to call them something else unless they said, pinching someone else's example, "I'm Samuel but everyone calls me Sam". My mum has a shortened name, some people insist on lengthening it to it's full name (although there's a few options, they don't usually bother to find out which one it is or if it is) that's rude too. I'm shocked that there are people here who would be that rude

We have given her tools to deal with it, we've told her she can tell people she prefers to be called by her name and as the shortening sounds like a question we've told her ways to answer the question. We've talked about how it's rude to call someone by a name they don't like, I compared it to her nanny how if she tells people her name is that then it's rude to call her by her full name, she has been told that it's not rude or naughty or going to upset people to tell them she doesn't like it. The TA obviously KNOWS that she doesn't like it to turn around and say "I have to call you that because your name's too long" I don't know if that's because she did stand up for herself or because the other teacher told her. To be honest I think explaining it like that is ruder than assuming you can call someone something other than the name they were introduced to you as. I wonder how many people would be happy and not find it rude if their boss said "Sorry but this is a busy office so I'm going to cut your name down to save time, those milliseconds add up"?

Arisbottle - I didn't contact the head, I was talking to her Y1 teacher who is a senior teacher (like deputy-deputy head) about a different issue and mentioned it to her.

3monkeys3 - other than with her dad (which is the game really) she is good about it, it gets to her and she never mentions it and it seems that only people who don't use it actually notice she doesn't like it.

I'm looking forward to my second daughter going to school next year, she has a Welsh name, not so uncommon that you don't know it (there's a few famous ones) but she gets some interesting spellings, masculine form and whilst we're trying to teach her to recognise her own name, everyone else uses the lazy spelling. My eldest could write both names before she went to school but I can see it being harder to teach her sister.

as the shortening sounds like a question we've told her ways to answer the question

That is exceptionally rude!

Mum told me I need to go in and tell them but their dad is the school runner

So? He goes in and talks to them about it . There is a good chance that the TA either didn't say that at all or your DD has misunderstood what was said. I certainly know my Y2 DD comes out with some nonsense about what's happened at school.