To expect the school to do something about ds being laughed at for wearing a Hello Kitty onsie?

[lecce]

He is 4 and wore it yesterday for Children in Need. The bloody thing is mainly white, and, for that reason mainly, I had tried to steer him in the direction of others, but he was adamant that was the one he wanted. He already has a plain pink lunchbox and pink Peppa Pig wellies and tells me he has had the odd comment about these being 'for girls', but he insists he doesn't mind. He is very shy but tells me he has told these children, 'Pink isn't just for girls!', though I do find it hard to imagine him saying this to a child he doesn't know well.

This morning he tells me that yesterday a few children laughed at him so he took off the onsie and spent most of the day in pyjamas. He had no dressing gown or slippers, as the onsie had covered feet, and tells me he was cold. He had to put the onsie back on to play out at lunchtime and more children laughed at him then. He has named two children from his class as being the main laughers when he was inside the school. He is 4, ffs. Why can't he wear what he likes? However, he does not really seem upset as such, and he says he didn't tell the teacher what was going on.

I am annoyed because the teachers didn't seem to be aware of what was going on. I know they can't help it if he doesn't tell them, but they should have been aware, imo, if the comments were enough to make him want to take it off. He is very happy with his wellies and lunchbox, so I feel there must have been quite a lot of comments this time. I teach in a secondary school and, of course, sometimes things like this go on without the teacher being aware, but I am sure 4 yr olds are a lot less subtle than teens! Also, I would expect a parent to bring something like this to my attention if I didn't notice it myself.

I am also a bit annoyed, though less so, that they didn't contact dh (they know he is a sahd) to bring in an alternative for him, to save him being cold and having a miserable lunchtime. I just feel that ds has had a bit of a pants day, when it should have been fun and he was so pleased with the onsie, and that I should do something about it.

On a similar topic, ds2 (yr2) tells me he regularly has, what he calls, 'mean comments' about his packed lunches - especially the fruit and Greek yogurt. He is capabale of standing up for himself, but says it's getting 'annoying'. I'm starting to feel this should be addressed too.

Dh thinks I'm being silly, but is starting to come around the more I go on. Tbh, though, I can't rely on him having a quick word with the teacher about this, as he will probably 'forget', so, if we do raise it, it will be me who does so, making it more formal as I will have to make an appointment.

AIBU to think it worth mentioning these issues, and to think that part of the role of primary school is to encourage kindness and tolerance amongst pupils?

My DS wore dresses and other sparkly items throughout playgroup and nursery at home and in public. He had dolls, prams, a toy kitchen as well as cars, puppets, trains, etc. I neither encouraged nor discouraged any choices, the choices were just there - equally.

He outgrew wearing the more girly items in public himself around reception age. I did not encourage him to wear them anyway, because then it would have been my wish and not his.

You may find that your DS naturally moves away from the "girly" choices. Please don't stop him, as it is part of him finding his own way in the world. I think (and I think you do too) that the world is wrong, but it is how it is, and when he is a small child finding his feet in it he does not need to be the one fighting it.

I found at this stage that what my DS was actually craving was the sparkle and colour of many girls clothes. We found lots of fabulous sparkling waistcoats and bow ties and orange/red/yellow/bright green clothes and wonderful hats to fill the gap. Boys clothes can be very dreary.

If it were me, I would pre-empt any teasing from wearing a princess dress to school by finding something fabulously colourful and sparkly now which is for boys or gender-neutral. My DS had some truly spectacular wise man outfits. Would your DS like this one?

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Boys-King-Costume-Wise-Men-Christmas-Nativity-Play-Childrens-Kids-Fancy-Dress-/200987206710?pt=UK_Clothes_Children_sFancyDress_RL&hash=item2ecbc56436

As an aside, I work in a school. I do not condone teasing at all, and I do spend a lot of time listening out for it and confronting it. If I had heard your son being teased I would certainly have stepped in. I just think as a parent that preparing your child for success is important too. To that end, I would never have chosen a "onesie" as anything I send my kids into school in has to pass my easy play/easy toilet test.

In that case you need to work on accepting your sons individuality and boosting him for this. If you want to nurture this then you need to be as comfortable with him as he is in his own skin and it does not appear thestre you are.

Ok but then I don't understand as you say you'll remind him about the onesie incident but he won't care, but he did care didn't he? He took it off as he was teased.

If he does want to wear the princess dress maybe suggest he takes a change of clothes/different costume just in case he changes his mind half way through the day like he did with the onesie.

I only made it to p6, but just wanted to chip in that my DS (4) wore a clearly "girl"-marketed bright pink top with spots on for CIN day, and was happy as larry. Damned if I'm stopping my child wearing what he loves for fear of "what some people might say". That way lies madness. I wasted too much of my childhood trying to pretend to be things I wasn't.

Good on you OP, and yes, I would mention it to the teacher.

The thing is that at 4 he didn't know what he was getting into by choosing the Hello Kitty onsie.Using your 4 year old (and exposing them to ridicule) to make a point about gender equality is wrong. If a 14 year old wanted to wear a dress he would be able to understand the likely responses and mentally prepare himself - then the parent would be 100% right in supporting them. A 4 year old is a bit of an unwitting pawn in the battle for gender equality though!My personal opinion that a 4 year old needs parental protection, where a 14 year old can make up their own mind and needs parental support for their decision.*

^^ This

I tell DS1 that pink isn't for girls etc. However, I was bullied at school so I try my hardest to prevent this for DS. I dissuade him from taking anything deemed "girly" or 'babyish" to school (reception). This is quite sad. But I'd be more sad if he was bullied. He can use what he likes at home. At school I'm sorry but I like him to fit in.

I would think it fair to say this incident has upset me more than him. His account of it was matter-of-fact.

There's the point entirely.
I have a ds who likes to wear 'what he wants to wear'. He chooses to do it, knowing he will get a bit of stick and ridicule from some people. Indeed, I think he does it specially, in order to stand out. That's fine. His decision. He's a LOt older than your ds, and is capable of making those decisions. A 4 yr old may need guidance if you think they are going to be upset or they may be thick skinned enough to genuinely not care. Your posts report that he told you quite matter of factly and was not upset by the comments.
What you need to do with your ds, is take opportunities like this to talk to him about "what will you say if....." "what will you do if...." and let him develop his own responses to what is very likely to happen if you decide he has the right to wear whatever he chooses, even though any right thinking adult will know he will get stick for it (whether that is theoretically right or wrong is irrelevant).

Of course he has the right to wear what he wants, but you need to make sure he is prepared when that choice isn't 'mainstream'.

I don't think it is a normal state of affairs for 4 year olds to point out a child and say 'they shouldn't wear that, its for girls'

Mrs DeVere , have you read the OP? According to her they didn't say he shouldn't wear it , they just said 'it was for girls' which is kind of true, that wis who it is being marketed at.
The OP is to blame for not explaining to her son that people at school might say it was for girls, and then let him decide foer himself whether he'd rather wear it and face a few comments that is was a girls outfit, or wear something different.
Instaed she chose to send him like a lamb to the slaughter!

Ffs- I have talked to him about likely comments and he has got responses he has used as come-backs, certainly on other occasions and maybe on this one, too (he's been ill today - I haven't quizzed him.) Why do people ignore what is written, or just not read it in the first place?

So where did you say that in your OP? Or is in the 10 pages of your drip feeds?

I think because OP you are contradicting your self, your responses and your own attitude to this. Maybe because it's not clear in your own head how you should respond and support your ds, understandable but I d think you need to be very clear your self how you nurture your ds individuality before you can support him with other people particularly childrens attitudes and responses to his individuality.n

I say this also particularly because giving him come backs and coaching him around this is teaching him hostility. Why be hostile? Why not just understand their responses and gently educate rather than battle them particularly at such a young age it just seems a shame he is pulled and torn between these expectations from you as much as others.

No, it's 10 pages of, imo, some very interesting, thoughtful points, none of which are from me . I haven't been on it much until this evening as ds has been ill. I grant you that my OP does give the impression that he was more upset than he really was, but I think I corrected that in my second post. I always find it hard to strike a balance between writing a ridiculously long and waffly OP which no one wants to read, and omitting stuff which later turns out to be relevant. I don't blame you for not wanting to trawl through 10 pages, but, if I come across a thread like that, I tend to assume that the thread may have moved on a little in 10 pages, so I avoid posting, especially in a way that accuses the OP of doing/saying/ believing something not made crystal clear in the OP.

I think YABU for putting your son forward as cannon fodder.

You are being wholly unreasonable for allowing him to be in that position & then expecting teachers (who I think have enough on their plate) to then sort out the ensuing situation.

But good on him for feeling confident enough & for being so blasé about the comments.

Canthisonebeused I think much of what you say is perfectly reasonable, but, at the risk of contradicting myself further, I don't think I have trained him to be hostile - come-back probably sounds worse than it is. We have just, in a low-key way, discussed what some children may say, and then he himself, as I have said, suggested what he would say back. I don't think there's been any anger or hostility involved.

It is probably fair to say that I haven't been sure in my own mind how I should go about nurturing ds and his individuality, but I really think this thread has helped me clarify that - MN at its best!

"she chose to send him like a lamb to the slaughter!"

"putting your son forward as cannon fodder."

Wow. Who knew wearing what you like was such dangerous business.

If he didn't care then I don't think you need to talk to the teacher or do things differently next time :) I wouldnt worry about it. I am a bit confused about why he took off the onesie though.

(Maybe pack some non-fancy dress clothes in his bag next time so he can change if be chooses to)

I'm glad about that and your honesty will support that but my main concern is that sometimes parents support these ideologies with little thought and then children at the brunt of it are wholly affected far greater than the adult realises.

It's sounds like you share sensible thoughts for your ds well being, I just hope you make sure you keep it about him.

First of all your son sounds fab.

Second of all if he wasn't bothered then I wouldn't worry about it.

Of course he should be able to wear whatever he likes when ever he likes.

But, if it was my child, I would have preferred he wait until he had some good friends around him and he was confident and happy and able to stand up for himself. If I ever found out my kids tormented some other poor kid about his clothes believe me they wouldn't see day light for a week. But at primary schools we aren't just talking about other four year olds, we are talking about kids up to age 10/11.

Depending on the school some of those kids could be nasty pieces of work. Lost count of how many times I've seen primary school kids swearing, being disgusting and generally just vile. Those are children I would want to protect my child from until I was damn sure he had a good few years of feeling safe and loved and confident amongst family and good friends behind him. And I would be happy and proud and behind them all the way of that is something he wanted to do.

Should anyone have to think like that? Of course not but that's just not how the world is. And whereas at home of I had a four year old Ds he would be free to wear whatever he wanted. Inside and outside the house while he was with me or other family. But I just could not at four , having seen and heard what I have from scarily young children feel happy sending them somewhere where they had only been a few short weeks and I didn't yet have an Idea of how the school and the children were.

My ds loved pink esp sparkly pink until he went into year 1 in September. Now it's pink is for girls and won't even accept the pink spoon out of the ikea set I have.

I haven't read the rest of the thread but I think you were a being a little unrealistic that he wouldn't get teased for a hello kitty outfit - it's sad but that just the way it is

And also, I have two girls. I have never coaxed them into choosing something girly. Up til pre school dd1 wore jiggers and any colour top. Watched Dora but Diego and Thomas and bob the builder or whatever she wanted. I have never told either dd that something is for boys/girls. They have both just naturally veered towards hello kitty and pink and glitter so the influences aren't always from parents. It's just there no matter how hard you try to tell your children to choose what they want.

I think that you have to bring up your children to fit the world they are in and not the one you want. I wanted mine to fit in and be comfortable and therefore I would have encouraged them to wear a different costume, unless they knew exactly what they were letting themselves in for, and were happy and confident to deal with the reaction.
This was a 4yr old who didn't understand and that is a world away from the confident( and most likely very popular) year 6 boy who wore the pink and orange striped onesie and was cheered by his classmates. He knew exactly what he was doing and, no doubt,could have got away with an entire fairy costume. A shy, unconfident, year 6 boy couldn't get away with it.
My boys are fairly quiet and reserved, they are not extrovert enough to do it.
I can see that outwardly you can ban teasing but you can't stop what they privately think and you know your child- if they can carry it off and be confident with lots of friends then fine, if they can't I would protect them.
You may not like it but it is the way it is.

I said earlier that MN were far worse than any 4 yr olds in the school playground! and I would certainly warn a new comer that a post was going to be ridiculed or worse. If they chose to go ahead, they have to be happy to take the consequences, it is no different with a 4 yr old. Give the facts so they can make an informed decision, don't just leave them to find out and then complain.

saggy if you bothered to read the thread you'd see that quite a number of teachers have commented (including the OP) that this is exactly the kind of issue they want brought to their attention.Specifically, see FrauMoose post at 20.29.

You might say he is 'choosing' but at 4, that's simply not true.

My dd chooses to wear Thomas stuff. She chose to have a Thomas lunch box. She would go to school in her Fireman Sam onesie or her Thomas pjs when & if they had pj day at her school. She wears Thomas pants (and yes, she did choose them). I am not going to say no to her, she is expressing who she is, learning her individual style. It isn't up to me to stifle who she! But I do help her steer through other people's daft ideas about what is suitable for each gender.

When she told me that a girl in her class said she couldn't like trains, because it was a boys toy, I explained how sometimes others people don't understand that we can like whatever we want to like. That they haven't learnt that yet & how she can help them learn by telling them that we are all free to like what we want. So she did just that, the very next day!

But I refuse to stifle who my daughter is, because people refuse to accept that there is no such thing as boys toys/clothes/colours.

I wanted mine to fit in and be comfortable and therefore I would have encouraged them to wear a different costume

This is what is wrong with the world. We are all too concerned about 'fitting in' and not concerned about challenging behaviour that should be challenged.

Stuff fitting in, I want my girls to be who they are, not some drone of what is considered 'fitting in'

It's funny that whatever their 'individual style' is, it's all mass-marketed plastic tat. How individual is that really.