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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask this reception teacher to back down?

374 replies

kathryng90 · 07/05/2015 20:46

My son will be 5 in June. He is in reception. They are having a teddy bear picnic tomorrow. Text message yesterday warning parents 'bring your child's favourite bear to school'. My son loves his build a bear toothless dragon bear. He told his reception teacher how excited he was to bring this toy to school. He was sobbing as he came out of school and teacher said to me 'DS is sad as he has said he wants to bring toothless to school tomorrow. He can't. It's a teddy bear picnic not a dragon picnic. Our theme is goldilocks and the 3 bears not 3 dragons. Find a bear'

He is so upset, toothless is his favourite bear. I have suggested that we take toothless plus a teddy bear. AIBU to ask teacher to let toothless sit on desk and watch while bear joins in? Or am I undermining teacher? Another compromise? He's 4 ffs.....

OP posts:
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Number3cometome · 08/05/2015 14:16

At DD's school, they have a bear which each child takes home on a Friday and they do a write up of it's weekend adventures. It's not a bear, it's a Rhino.

But you see my point?

Send Toothless to the picnic (which has probably already happened by now).
Explain that he has no teeth, so won't be eating any of the food and there is no risk of fire as he isn't fire breathing.

purpleapple1234 · 08/05/2015 14:22

Has it occurred to anyone else reading this thread that 4 is too young for school. And that some kids will have problems understanding rules exactly because they are ONLY 4 years old! There has been a lot of horribleness about the OP's son not doing as he is told. Surely kids crying because they don't get their way is totally normal at 4. DD does it all the time at 3. I don't expect that to change in the next year or so. Starting school at 7 doesn't seem to have harmed scandinvia at all.

ApocalypseThen · 08/05/2015 14:24

Name calling a 4 year old you've never met "princey" !?

Calling him the princey is not about the child, it's about the nothing-must-upset-my-baby mother.

SirChenjin · 08/05/2015 14:26

Thing is - he is doing as he's told, he's bringing in his favourite bear ( it's a bear to his 4 year old brain, it came from BAB...). By not bringing in his favourite, he's essentially telling a big fat lie.

OnlyLovers · 08/05/2015 14:28

The teacher's being a mini-Hitler. About a fucking toy dragon. For a fucking five-year-old.

Jesus wept. Let him take the dragon and report the teacher if she tries to make a thing of it.

SpinDoctorOfAethelred · 08/05/2015 14:31

HeyDuggee MN has a thing about parents being over-indulgent. In order to differentiate themselves from "precious parents", many posters go a Bit Too Far The Other Way.

It's all a bit Four Yorkshiremen, only it goes like this.
Mumsnetter 1: Wet wipe warmers? What an extravagance! I used wet wipes and just hurried up with the nappy change"
Mumsnetter 2: "well, I bought a wet wipe warmer to warm the nursery as I didn't want the baby getting too used to warm rooms."
Mumsnetter 3: "You used wet wipes?! I scraped the meconium off with scouring pads from Poundland! And washed them afterwards!"

Personally, I can send a child with a toy dragon to a bears' picnic and send them in as a proper historical character for Historical Character Day, and discipline my child when the teacher says s/he's been in the thinking chair, but... Grin

HeyDuggee · 08/05/2015 14:35

Oh yes apocalypse it makes perfect sense that a grown woman is insults a small child to indirectly insult his parent. You do that to people in RL, do you?

Happyyellowcar · 08/05/2015 14:39

OP is being VU. Some people just need to learn to do as they are bloody well told. Poor teacher trying to arrange something nice and getting all this grief.

jeee · 08/05/2015 14:39

In a recent Show off and Tell, one child brought in his build-a-bear birthday toy. I admired his lovely cat. He looked a bit Hmm at me.

I now realise that he was clutching a toothless dragon Grin

HeyDuggee · 08/05/2015 14:43

Spin, only on MN would there be a thread...in my little reality, if a teacher said
"DS is sad as he has said he wants to bring toothless to school tomorrow. He can't. It's a teddy bear picnic not a dragon picnic. Our theme is goldilocks and the 3 bears not 3 dragons. Find a bear"

Parent would reply, "Thanks but DS doesn't own a bear, so we will be bringing in his dragon."

The end.

Not very exciting.

ApocalypseThen · 08/05/2015 14:44

Oh yes apocalypse it makes perfect sense that a grown woman is insults a small child to indirectly insult his parent. You do that to people in RL, do you?

You are really reaching. I'd dial it down a notch here, it's not worth a stroke. It's not insulting a child I've never met to say that his mother is acting as though the rules don't apply to him. And yes, "princey" is a common enough way to describe this kind of behaviour where I am.

SpinDoctorOfAethelred · 08/05/2015 14:47

Wouldn't run to 12 pages, though. Done and dusted in less time than it takes to post a thread! Grin

SirChenjin · 08/05/2015 14:48

There's no reaching or imminent stroke Apocalypse - what are you on about?

Insulting a child via its parent is pretty low. Princey? FFS.

senrensareta · 08/05/2015 14:53

Just imagine the life of a teacher if you have a class of 30 with parents who all think their little darling must always have their own way! It's no wonder teachers are leaving the profession in droves

SpinDoctorOfAethelred · 08/05/2015 14:56

Apocalypse
I appreciate that for many of us, today has started off in the most rotten way. But I thought your post was unnecessarily mocking and derogatory towards the OP's child, too.

This whole thread has been "reaching" with slippery slope claims about the Op's parenting all over the place. She has complained about a teacher being unbelievably rigid about which soft toys can attend a picnic in Yr. She hasn't killed anyone!

steff13 · 08/05/2015 14:56

I'm completely perplexed by the notion that someone would refer to any stuffed animal as a bear. Only a bear is a bear. A dragon is a dragon, a rabbit is a rabbit, a pig is a pig, etc.

I think the teacher is being a bit ridiculous in insisiting that all stuffed animals brought to the picnic must be bears. However, if she wants to have a teddy bear picnic that is only attended by teddy bears, I suppose that's her prerogative. I think I would have taken this as an opportunity to explain to my child that we don't always get to do what we want, sometimes we have to follow other people's rules. If a child doesn't have a teddy bear, they don't bring one. It's not the end of the world. I have a 4-year-old daughter, I know that they can be a bit dramatic, but this isn't an something worth making a fuss over.

SpinDoctorOfAethelred · 08/05/2015 15:19

Steff Imagine there is a six year old in front of you. She is carrying a small plastic humanoid in a pink evening dress.

Do you say "that child has a Barbie", "that child has a Barbie or a Sindy" or "that child has an 11 inch tall fashion doll"?

That is sort of what happened with soft toys. If people walk in and see a pile of soft toy bears, giraffes, cats and bunnies, many say "there is a pile of teddies". And they wouldn't much appreciate pedantry on the point!

MERLYPUSSEDOFF · 08/05/2015 16:02

Can I bring my Lego. I'm not much into teddy bears (BEARS, not random cuddlies). We could diversify and talk about the three little pigs house of Lego. Confused

Yarp · 08/05/2015 16:07

I would have thought the point of the teddy bears' picnic is not the teddy bears, but the picnic, and for that reason I think the teacher has lost sight of the value of this exercise and is being inflexible

Yarp · 08/05/2015 16:11

... Plus there's the emotional point of the picnic (not the educational point), which is about a 4 year old bringing his best mate, who happens to be a dragon, not a teddy.

I might not make a fuss. But I'd reserve the right to think the teacher was being a wally

Yarp · 08/05/2015 16:14

I agree SpinDoctor

(about going too far the other way so as to avoid charges of being 'that' parent)

Dressingdown1 · 08/05/2015 16:16

I wonder how the teacher felt when the child arrived at school with the toy she had specifically asked him not to bring? Talk about undermining her authority over something really unimportant.

No wonder teachers are leaving the profession!

OnlyLovers · 08/05/2015 16:22

something really unimportant.

Why is it 'unimportant' to the child but important enough for her to insist on? It must be either a big deal or not a big deal; you can't have it both ways.

LilacWine7 · 08/05/2015 16:37

I don't think this is really about how people interpret the word 'bear'. The teacher clarified the interpretation and made it very clear a dragon toy is not appropriate. The picnic is apparently part of a learning exercise, not a fun end-of-term type event.

OP I think you need to respect the teacher's wishes. She clearly told you the dragon is not appropriate this time. Her class, her rules. I don't understand why bringing a bear is such an issue. It's not 'bring your favourite cuddly-toy to school' it's 'bring a bear for a bear-themed lesson'. Why the confusion?

Whatthefucknameisntalreadytake · 08/05/2015 16:38

I think everyone is being especially grumpy today because the troys won the election and depression is sweeping the land.