To think dd was not silly to get upset

[Verycold]

They watched a documentary about the Titanic today. She is 10.3, year 6. She found it very upsetting and was told off by the teacher for being "silly". Aibu to think it is not silly for quite a young child to find this subject matter upsetting?

Maybe eofa if she was allowed out in the first instance she wouldn't have needed to get up 3 times! Everyone deals with emotions differently and this teacher had no excuse to call your daughter silly OP.

Eofa, your posts are sounding more and more exasperated as if we are all missing your point. How do you know definitively that the teacher wasn't calling the kid silly for being upset? You have no way of knowing that from OP's posts.

What happened to the people on the Titanic was tragic and heartbreaking. I would say that your dd was showing a certain level of maturity to be able to empathise with those people.

She was not being silly. Teacher was being a bit unreasonable.

"Argh! The teacher clearly wasn't calling the kid silly for being upset! She was calling her silly for disrupting a serious lesson, not following instructions and insisting on leaving the room!"

The child was asking to leave the room because she was upset. That is what caused the disruption. As a teacher, I would never (safety concerns notwithstanding) insist that a child who has indicated that they are upset and want to leave remain in the room.

"Eofa, your posts are sounding more and more exasperated as if we are all missing your point. How do you know definitively that the teacher wasn't calling the kid silly for being upset? You have no way of knowing that from OP's posts."

Because unless the teacher is a sociopath, she/he is not going to tell a child off for having emotions. She/he might, however, tell off a persistently disruptive child, which is how this DD was behaving. And nobody has yet addressed the key point, which is how are schools ever supposed to teach about anything which has even the faintest potential to be distressing if they have somebody on call every time they do it to supervise any child who insists on not participating?

Presumably the sort of parent who doesn't find it acceptable for their child to be exposed to any distressing content would be the first on the phone if their child was allowed out of lesson, left unsupervised(because schools don't have endless unoccupied staff) and injured themselves.

And if a child has specific issues, or has had a difficult history which triggers emotional reactions and the parent has talked to the school about it (as MrsDevere mentions) then of course that should be taken into account. The school has been given time to plan an alternative for that child.

Maybe she has more empathy than people who are unaffected?

If you evey watched 'Who do you think you are?', many seem to get upset over things that happened over a 100 years ago, to people they never knew.

If she has so much empathy that she is unable to participate in the lesson, then maybe she needs to learn (with the support of adults) how to channel it so that it becomes a useful tool rather than a burden.

MrsCakes People are learning all the time. 10 is still very young. The Titanic was an awful disaster. I actually am not that surprised. Unless her day to day life is too difficult to cope with I would not feel there is anything too wrong with being overcome now and again.

I agree that people are learning all the time. I have no problem with the OP having a quiet word with the teacher if she feels that would be helpful, perhaps the teacher will learn new ways of handling a distressed child.

But the OP also needs to talk to her child about strategies for coping with similar situations in future. Because it would seem that it is not a lesson which can delayed any longer.

"Maybe she has more empathy than people who are unaffected?"

I doubt any child was unaffected. They were studying a very sad event. But real empathy in this situation involves also having empathy for your fellow students who are trying to watch the documentary, realising you are not the only person in the room, and understanding that your immediate demands are not always the most important thing in the world.

eofa These children are 10. There will be differences in how mature they are. For some the gravity of the situation may not sink in, some will be very affected. Some will be somewhere in between. I was mooting a possibility. Which still stands...

YANBU! I do not think the teacher shouldn't be showing the film, but I do think they should be aware that some children might find it distressing and deal with them appropriately.

Both mine might have been distressed by watching something about the Titanic. Infact, DS will not watch the film as he finds it so distressing. He is nearly 13 and as tough as old footy boots in most situations.

The teacher should have appreciated that she was upset and taken her out of the room sympathetically, so supporting your DD whilst also ensuring that the other children were not affected by her getting upset.

Eofa, you're making an unsubstantiated assumption. But no matter what the circumstances I don't think the teacher should have described either the behaviour or the emotional reaction as silly. It sounds like the teacher became exasperated and lost her cool and control. Even if the OP's daughter was being disruptive, there would be other ways and terminology to handle it given the context.

The OP's daughter was distressed and crying when she was asking to leave. It could have been a potential learning opportunity. Pause the film and acknowledge that the subject matter is tough and distressing. Take a moment to discuss emotions, show flexibility and a holistic approach to teaching. It could have been turned into a more positive outcome for the whole class rather than getting pissed off and humiliating a distressed child.

"The teacher should have appreciated that she was upset and taken her out of the room sympathetically"

You think it's acceptable for a teacher to leave a class of students unattended? You don't think there might have been rather more pissed off parents if the teacher did this and an accident/injury happened, as is quite possible in a group of unsupervised children?

And I really don't think being called silly can be described as humiliation. Maybe not the best response, but such hyperbole is, err, silly.

If, in addition to not being able to watch a documentary that is upsetting, the child finds being called "silly" an unbearable humiliation, there really needs to be some work done, sensitively of course, on proportionate responses.

I feel sorry for your dd being so upset and having her feelings dismissed by her teacher.

My dd is also 10 and has been studying WW2. She has been very moved by the plight of Jews, as have many of her peers. The difference being that she has a teacher who understands and respects the children.

I also think it is mature of your dd to empathise with the victims rather than view their horror as entertainment.

Who was viewing their horror as entertainment?

eofa1 - I did address your "key point" in my post.

I said that there was no need to avoid teaching "difficult" subjects, such as this one - but just to be sensitive about how it is taught. Lots of children are willing and able to study these subjects as long as they are not shown a graphic film or documentary to illustrate them. This child may well have been able to cope with learning about this event by being taught verbally by the teacher and using books. She was just not ready to be faced with watching a documentary on it, with photographs and footage of the event.

It was the teacher's prerogative to choose the method of teaching, of course, but she had to be prepared for some of the more sensitive children to be overwhelmed by it emotionally.

Dd loves history and has read up about the Titanic, but this programme was a drama documentary which showed scenes from the disaster, and this is what really got under dd's skin.

That is precisely my point, OP.