AIBU about Ginger Ninja?

[Hakky]

My DS has beautiful, striking, ginger hair, I've consistently been very positive about his hair colour as I know it is a potential target for name calling. At school the male teachers have nicknames for the children, 'smithy' for a child called Smith, that kind of thing; except tonight my DS tells me one teacher calls him 'ginger ninja'...my son doesn't mind, but I'm just not happy, am I over-reacting? Should I say something?

Tim minchen sprang to mind too.

Cool nickname? Sounds bloody lazy to me. About only word that rhymes with ginger? And picking out his most obvious (?) attribute?

Not cool to me. Not cool AT all.

I don't think teachers should make up nick-names for kids. IME working in a school it's quite rare for teachers to do this.

Those that do tend to be the typically confident, jovial, strong personality (mostly male) teachers who are particularly popular and well respected by the kids. When i have seen it done the nick-name has always been seized upon gleefully by the other children in the class and used freely.

It makes me uneasy. OP is saying her son doesn't mind, and i'm not disputing that. However i've seen children put on a brave face and go along with the teachers fun in front of the class at the time, and then be quite upset when the nick-name calling carries over into play time/other lessons.

Children in big groups have a huge capacity for being cruel. By accident or by design. It doesn't need much encouragement. Teachers and other adults around children should step away from giving nick names.

around other peoples children i meant at the end. Parents fond names for their kids are fine :)

As a ginger who has been scarred for life by the 'harmless' nicknames, I'd take teacher to one side and ask him to choose a nickname that doesn't draw attention to something that other kids will take the @#£% out of.

My ds is a confident teen, always the first with a ginger joke, calls himself ginger ninja etc. he's like that because he has to be, he gets in there first before anyone else does. He was a very confused boy a couple of years ago, the teasing was dreadful

Since I originally posted all the children have started calling DS ginger ninja, my DH, now bald but formerly very ginger, is not impressed. Interestingly my older child is called by his surname with a 'y' on the end, not very original but fairly innocuous

My DD is a ginge and she has had them all, including 'ginga ninja'. She is now almost 18 and loves this one to this day. For the record, she is a happy, confident and successful student with a huge circle of friends.

As pp's have mentioned, it's only a big, negative deal if you make it one. Make it a choice to make it a positive identifying feature (embrace your differences and all that).

Perhaps your DH can only associate his own negative associations with being a ginge as a child in a different generation with your DS's ginger hair being an identifying point. I'm not trying to negate his (your DH's) feelings in any way but it's different now.

It's not different now, in fact I don't think anything has changed.