daughter really upset about forthcoming school trip

[Dieu]

Hello everyone
My 14 year old daughter goes to a private girls' school, and is in short a really nice kid. She doesn't have a nasty bone, and does well to navigate some of the bitching that goes on at her school.
The school also has a separate boys' high, and occasionally the two come together for trips.
There is going to be a week long residential trip next year, and I have just broken the news to her that it's compulsory (and not optional, as she originally thought).
Her reaction was pretty bad, and she's really upset. She is terrified of being put together with the boys for that long. To be fair, as with any school (and gender!) some of them can be extremely nasty and their attitudes towards girls just awful. I think my daughter has seen a lot of it on social media, and it's the lack of escape on the trip that's worrying her.
Apparently the showers there are shared, and they wear their swimming costumes in them. SOME boys will think nothing of commenting on the girls' body shapes, etc. Of course my daughter is beautiful in my eyes, and in her own, but she knows herself that as someone who is tallest, ginger, not the skinniest etc, she could be a target for them.
She's normally a very reasonable, lovely girl but her reaction has worried me. Of course I tried to say all the right things, that the thought will be worse than the reality, that the boys probably won't care, that she shouldn't care etc. It sounded hollow though, and like I was trying to minimise her distress.
I'm normally a 'chin up and get on with it' parent and try not to pander to too much nonsense, but she's really scared and upset. She says she won't eat in front of the boys, so as not to attract nasty comments from them.
Gaaah. How would you prepare your teenage daughter for this trip?
Thanks.

nooka indeed.

It was the suggestion of inevitability that I took issue with. The observation that all girls suffer constant harassment and this the OPs DD was right to assume she would suffer it in this trip.

But I was called naive and a bad parent. Apparently my DS and his mates are sexual harassers and I simply don't know. And my DD is suffering daily problems that she doesn't tell me about and when she does I don't listen.

Well last night I chatted to DD about this again and she was definite.

I think there is also a sort of tightrope that young women walk in order to protect themselves from the more overt forms of criticism and harassment. Wear these clothes, but not those ones. This amount of make-up. Do that to your hair. Smile a bit but not too much.Say a little, but don't hog the conversation. Talk but don't answer back.

And half the time you don't even realise how much you are policing yourself and suppressing yourself. (For some of us that knowledge dawns rather later on.)

There is also a real question about how much teenagers confide in parents - even when the relationship is a relatively good one. A lot of the time young people want to protect their parents, rather than have them fussing and fuming and breathing down their necks about things parents can't do a lot about.

Apparently my DS and his mates are sexual harassers and I simply don't know. And my DD is suffering daily problems that she doesn't tell me about and when she does I don't listen.

It's very, very possible. Boys at that age frequently don't recognize their behavior as harassment, and girls are pretty much expected to deal with it.

I can remember a couple of incidents from my youth. When I was 11 or 12 my picture was in the local paper along with three other - older - children from my school.

The evening the paper came out my mother said someone wanted to talk to me on the phone. I picked up the receiver and a man said he's seen the picture. He told me he was a photographer and would like to take pictures of me. Would I be interested in modelling schoolgirls' underwear. I found this request confusing so said that I'd go and find my father. I told my father someone had rung and I didn't quite see what they were on about. Of course when my father went to the phone, the man had rung off. My father asked exactly what the man had said, and when I explained my father then roared with laughter repeating the phrase 'Schoolgirls underwear!' There was no discussion about calling the police to report an obscene call. And no attempt to explain the situation or console me, (I think the really humiliating thing was my father's laughter.)

About ten years later I arranged to share a flat with a bloke who I knew had a girlfriend. This was a mistake as the bloke attempted to seduce me, and told me I was putting pressure on him. I got out of the flat as fast as I could and - rather later - told my parents in rather veiled terms about the man's behaviour and views. My father said, 'He was probably just trying to be friendly' while my mother later sent me a rather odd, uncharacteristic card - basically a piece of Indian erotic art - which seems to be have been her own 'joky' reference to the difficulties I had experienced.

I think my parents were inexcusably unfeeling and insensitive on both occasions. But it does for me raise the question of how parents can respond in a more sensitive and supportive way if a child does confide in them. A way that doesn't dismiss a young person's feelings or alternatively try and take over - but respects their experience and builds up their sense of self-worth.

I'm pretty sure my teenage ds doesn't harass girls- but I am not complacent enough to be completely sure.

Wonder if he does it in cinemas....no, you wouldv'e failed as a parent if he did that in a cinema wouldn't you?

*I'm a plainly dressed 56 year old woman who works in a situation where I deal with members of the public. Regularly male customers call me 'darling, 'love' and 'bab'. One man has decided to address me as 'trouble.' It is unlikely that a man in this situation would be addressed either by women, or by other men in this way.

I do not go home and tell my partner that I have been sexually harrassed.*

what the heck?? You are not seriously suggestingcalling you 'love' is sexual harassment.Both men and women call children , other women and (here in Yorkshire) other men 'love' 'sunshine' 'pet' 'sweetheart' etc all the time.It is a term of friendliness!

..and I call loads of people 'trouble' in a jokey way.

Here here brioche some common sense! Thanks pet [winks]

But it's interesting. I've disclosed that as child I received an obscene phonecall and as young woman was in a situation I found frightening - where the man I was sharing a flat with (who was in a relationship) nonetheless felt he had the right to sleep with me, and that my telling him this wasn't the case was a kind of unfair pressure.

I've said that in my current work situation male service users will often address me in a way that I don't wish to be addressed. It's not friendliness - I have no problem with that - it's a lack of respect. I do not address people who I meet in the work place in this overfamiliar way, and it would be regarded as inappropriate if I did.

The attitude of, 'Well I'm (they are) just being friendly. Why are you being stuck up' is rather similar to the attitude shown towards women who complain about, for example, sexist jokes or unwanted touching.

If other women, adult ones, say that my deeply held feelings are lacking in 'common sense' - how easy do you think it is for girls and young women to acknowledge and disclose behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable?

I think you've been extremely unlucky mariann. Those people you describe are deviants, not men in general.

You know, I have spent a lot of time in Yorkshire, and have many Yorkshire relations, and I have never ever heard one Yorkshire man address another as "love""sweetheart" or "pet"!

I would put odds on a gay Yorkshireman not addressing his partner by such endearments in public either.

"Wonder if he does it in cinemas....no, you wouldv'e failed as a parent if he did that in a cinema wouldn't you?"

Bloody right I would have done!

I'm from fookin Yorkshire, and I frankly don't see t'relevance o'that.

Marianne- some people just don't want to acknowledge it. Not sure why.

And nay lass, I've never eard owt like a man call another man 'pet' or 'love', neither. Tha daft apeth etc.

I don't think you have been unlucky Marianne, I think your experiences are absolutely normal and predictable as are the responses that seek to minimise the experiences.

Though I will confess I do demur less at 'love' these days as in my bit of Yorkshire my large and unlovely husband does get called love by other men, bus drivers especially!

NRTFT

Sounds like bullshit to me. On the schools part. Shared showers ridiculous, not being able to stop kids being bullied on trips ridiculous. Compulsory residentials, no way, you're paying, so no, it's not compulsory. Bullshit, all bullshit. Send her somewhere else.

Off to RTFT

My mother told both my older sisters when they were flashed at on the way to school that that was just how men are. When I was sexually assaulted I didn't tell her at all. However I did tell a family friend who was fantastic. She took me completely seriously and told the police. Her much older than me daughter shared her own experiences and talked to me about how to be more assertive (it was on a Saturday afternoon in a park full of people and I was about 12, not being able to yell 'I don't know you' or 'get away from me' because I'd be brought up to be polite was a problem). I felt validated and supported.

I've shared that experience with my children, and we talk about appropriate behaviour, sexism and consent a fair bit. Issues have come up for both of them and they have talked about it at home, sadly a couple of dd's friends have been sexually abused and so we've talked about that too.

My dd has had issues at school with a particular boy with a crush on her who was behaving inappropriately and we have talked about it lots, how she might respond, what she would like by way of support, when and whether she wanted intervention etc.

I am well aware that crap happens. I just contest the view that it always happens to every girl every day.

I am applauding your posts here Nooka.

The school can say it's compulsory but you are the parent and you are paying fees , so you decide. She might be sick during that week or you may be going on a holiday or some very important family event is planned etc. Fatmomma, i'll not be quoting you this time!

In my experience, I think it is a phase, a maturity thing !! I would not be worried about her so-called 'fear of boys' at this point.

I went to an all girls catholic school too so I understand where your DD is coming from, we thought all boys were rough and rude, and the boys thought we were all prissy.

I always swore I would never send my kids to a same sex school and they are both in co-ed. Lo and behold, do they have anything to do with the boys ? absolutely not !!!!

The boys hang out together and the girls hang out together. The boys annoy the girls and the girls get huffy. They don't want to sit beside someone of the opposite sex, they don't sit and have lunch with someone of the opposite sex. They barely acknowledge each other.

The girls think the boys are rude and rough and annoying, exact same story at exact same age as my experience.

Our kids school also have a compulsory trip coming up, they have a choice of where to go, one of the trips being an adventure camp, none of the girls want to go on this one, as it's the one 'all the boys want to go on'. Apparently this has been the case every year.

Her year (Year 8) have a WhatsApp group for sharing homework etc, it only has the girls in the group.

I don't think my DD and her friends have a 'fear of boys', they just find them utterly annoying at the moment, as I said it is a phase and it will pass. Mine certainly did.

I do believe you will find out the communal showers thing, is an urban myth ! can't imagine that would be allowed at all.

It's very usual for older Bristolian men to call each other 'my lover'. Only works with the appropriate accent though.

What a pity the girls learn that adventure trips are not for them, Tram.

That's really badly handled by the school.