Just need a few other opinions on teachers' comment to boy...

[LadyOfTheFlowers]

DS2 has long hair. About 3 inches below his collar, shorter towards front - can tuck behind his ears.
For PE it was requested he had a sweatband. I bought 2 he lost them, I forgot about it over summer.
PE has resumed and the PE teacher got mad, telling him 'If you don't have a sweatband next lesson I will cut your hair off!'
Now the boy is 7 and truly believes his mad PE teacher might chop his hair off.
It is my fault he doesn't have a sweatband. Why didn't he shout at me? I see him around school enough.
I am annoyed. DH is seething.
AIBU to want to complain? How do I address this?
Apart from get the sweatbands this weekend obviously.

[Turniptwirl]

I'm sure it was a joke

You need to make sure your child's long hair is tied back for school but especially on pe days regardless of the child's gender

[goldenlula]

Op you may not mind if they did tie it back but there would be plenty who would and staff in a school need to air on the side of caution! The teacher may well have told your ds in every lesson he has had so far this term (possibly 8 so far at 2 a week) so may well have been a bit exasperated with him and if that is the case then maybe he thinks your ds has not been passing the message on.

[Johnny5needsinput]

I couldn't give a stuff if it's a male, female, or a transgendered person. If the rules say tie it up for PE then he ties it up for PE.

What's the big deal? Get him a packet of hair elastics and be done with it. The teacher was making a dramatic point - good time to teach your child about a joke/dramatic licence.

[Norfolknway]

Totally over the top.

Forget the comment from the teacher, he's not really going to do it.

Assault?! Crikey! Why so serious?

[LadyOfTheFlowers]

Thanks. I think I have gleaned from this what I needed to.

[Jengnr]

Losing sweatbands mean he can't manage hair? Ffs. My hair is almost waist length and I'm forever losing bobbles.

This is about the teacher not liking boys with long hair. But it's not that big a deal. Buy him some bobbles and be done with it.

[HavantGuard]

Ridiculously exaggerated threats are often used to children and adults.

NB I have never actually meant that if you touch that again I'll chop your fingers off. And I won't really glue your lips together if you can't keep quiet for two minutes. Or glue your bottom to the chair if you don't stop wriggling.

[PansOnFire]

Oh come on, as if the teacher threatened to cut his hair off - obviously he didn't, it was a comment - you know, one of those things that people say without malice or intent behind it. Your reaction is ridiculous and your DH being 'seething' is unfathomable, in the process of this massive overreaction you're teaching your DS to take everything literally and to report every last little comment. You're creating a problem!

I'm guessing by your reaction you'd be one of the first to scream 'neglect' if your child hurt himself in PE because his hair was obscuring his view, I guess that would be the teacher's fault too?

This is not a debate about whether boys should have long hair or not, or a debate along the lines of 'the teacher would never had said that to a girl' etc, etc. you were told to provide a sweatband to keep his hair out of the way. Forgetting about it over the summer is inexcusable, if you allow your child a hairstyle which requires management then you have to manage it - end of.

Now get off the teacher's back for being exasperated, I'm sure most people would be by this point. The kids have been back about 4 weeks so I'm guessing this isn't the first PE lesson it's happened in this year. Sort it out.

[goldenlula]

Op you may not mind if they did tie it back but there would be plenty who would and staff in a school need to air on the side of caution! The teacher may well have told your ds in every lesson he has had so far this term (possibly 8 so far at 2 a week) so may well have been a bit exasperated with him and if that is the case then maybe he thinks your ds has not been passing the message on.

[Johnny5needsinput]

Plus, it's October. Not the first week back. You've had at least 4 weeks to get hair bobbles.

[SuburbanRhonda]

Which post of mine are you referring to, ilovemyself?

[Ilovemyself]

What's that LadyoftheFlowers? That there are many here that think it is fine to make a threat, even an idle one to a child that can't tell the difference. Nice bunch of people.

Go and ask the teacher what he said to your son, and tell him if he threatens your son again, even as a joke, you will take it further. And make sure that this conversation is logged with the school so they can't say they didn't know there was a problem.

You never know, this teacher my have form in which case the school needs to know.

[Pickle131]

As Thymeout says, the teacher shouldn't have to speak to the parent. Age 7, a good teacher would expect the child to take responsiblity for having the right kit. I've heard an excellent Head telling a Year 4 pupil not to blame his mother for him being late for school. Of course teachers know it's a little harsh sometimes to blame the child but they do it to get the child to take ownership, which is exactly what they should do. It hardly matters about the threat, provided your child never makes the mistake again. I'd support this teacher 100% if it were my child.

[Bumpotato]

...or one of those donut shaped jobbies that are fashionable just now, that will really cheer the PE teacher up.

He's too young just now, but when he's older, your boy can have a bit of fun with this teacher with some hairstyle wind-ups.

At my kids' school boys must not have hair below the collar and girls must tie long hair up. My brother went to the same school and his mate was asked to leave due to him refusing to get his hair cut.

[Ilovemyself]

Rhonda. I was referring to the comment about long hair being a freedom of expression.

[marriedinwhiteisbackz]

Week four of term. Your son has probably been reminded for three weeks and nothing has been done about it. Why didn't you replace the sweat bands? They are part of your child's PE kit and he should have taken them - end off. My DS would have been sent home from school at 7 if his hair had been 3 inches below his collar. End of. But we knew the rules when we accepted the place.

[SuburbanRhonda]

WTAF, ilovemyself?

"Form" for what, exactly? Applying the school's uniform policy?

[Pachacuti]

" Wuxiapian Fri 04-Oct-13 18:17:10

Exactly, ILoveMyself. The child is 7 - it's more likely they - his mother and father like his hair long."

Bollocks. DS is 8. He likes his hair longish. I like it shorter (not SHORT short, but shorter), DH likes it shorter, the GPs like it shorter . He's just had to have it cut for school (they have a "not longer than collar length" policy and I wasn't prepared to make him a test case) and is sulking. I think (a) he looks quite sweet, and (b) he doesn't particularly want to look sweet (plus (c) he's going to grow his hair long at the first chance he gets, although that won't be for a few years).

[FrogsGoWhat]

I'm a science teacher. I insist that all students with long hair tie them back during practicals. Get much more resistance from boys on the whole who don't like having a pony tail.
Anyway, the teacher should have a box of hair elastics for such occasions like I do. And then parents complain that I made their child have a hair elastic previously used by some one else, so you can't win!

[HavantGuard]

I find that kind of rule about boys' hair length as outdated and offensive as those that insist on girls wearing skirts.

[Ilovemyself]

Why are people commenting on the fact that to"their school" would have sent the child home?

The school obviously doesn't have an issue in general ( or the op hasn't mentioned it if the do)

[impecuniousmarmoset]

Ach, pickle, I hope the Head had good reason to know that the year 4 pupil was genuinely the one responsible for being late...I think such tactics to get the child taking ownership can be fine, but they can seriously backfire. I remember a girl in my class at school who'd have had strips literally torn off her if she'd dared to challenge her parents about getting to school on time:(

[HavantGuard]

The school I went to offered ordinary elastic bands if you forgot to bring a hair band. It really helped people to remember.

[Johnny5needsinput]

If you had a girl who had to tie her hair up what would you do? Would you expect every parent of a girl to march into school with super special sparkle bobbles just for their child and hand them to the teacher to mind carefully and remember to tell their special sparkly child to put on their special sparkly bobble?

Don't be ridiculous. The teacher doesn't have time to be doing that for all the other (mostly female I'd guess) children in the class. You can't hand the teacher a bobble specially for your child and expect him to supervise your son putting it on - PE would be over by the time he did that for all the girls (and any other boys who had long hair) as well.

Your child needed sweat bands and/or bobbles.

Why didn't you just put a supply in the kit bag? Or nag the child in the morning "it's PE today did you remember your joggers/trainers/sweatband/mouthguard/whatever?

[SuburbanRhonda]

My comment was in resist to impecunious' comment that allowing boys to have long hair was about allowing them freedom of expression.

I thought that post was bollocks, hence my post.