New Teacher keeps shortening DS' name

[Cjamm]

DS(6)' New year one teacher stared this half term, so has only been his teacher for the last two weeks.

DS is called Ulrick, it's a family name & because my Dad & Grandad go by nicknames, we've never shortened his name, he's always just gone by his full name.

First day of the new term, he complained that the new teacher kept calling him Rick & he doesn't like it as its his Grandads name. I told him to just tell her to stop & use his full name.

The next day he complained again but that this time he told her but she still kept calling him Rick and by the end of the 2nd week he was getting rather upset over it as the kids in his class had started calling him Rick & he really hates it, so at drop off last Monday I told her he'd prefer to be called Ulrick & she said "thanks for letting me know" so I assumed she'd start calling him by his full name.

Then that same evening DS complained about her still calling him Rick & I promised to have another word with her. I managed to speak to her at pick up on Wednesday & was pretty clear that calling him Rick upset him & could she use his full name. She seemed sorry to have upset him & said she would use his full name from now on.

Thursday the school was being used as a polling station & then Friday was a teacher training day, so no school until today. I got home from work & DS was upset as I'd promised his teacher wouldn't call him Rick anymore but she had

I don't know if she's just forgotten but I've mentioned it more then once now & DS has said that he's told her he doesn't like being called Rick multiple times

He was really upset by it & if it was just the teacher calling him Rick I might have just ignored it as she's only his teacher for a few more weeks but now kids in class have started calling him Rick & it really does bother him.

I don't really know what to do, would it be an overreaction to ask for a meeting? I've already told her he doesn't like her shortening his name, she's agreed not to do it but still does it.

I dont think its silly or something that you just have to accept because your son is finding it stressful and upsetting. An email to the head and class teacher is the way to go.

My name is easily shortened, but nobody has in 58 years, I would swiftly correct anyone who did shorten it. It is my name, by which I am called, YANBU!

YANBU

She sounds very unpleasant & deserves a stern word from the head.

My son was called a shortened version. He has ASD and hated it. We spoke to teachers Senco head but no one listened. It sent him wild. All the children used it and he ended up having no friends. It got so bad they even put it on his (rare) certificates! He is no longer at the school so no longer an issue but I feel your pain.

I had a teacher do this to me I've a common biblical name that she decided to shorten then add an ie on the end I hate it I asked and asked her not to do it but she kept on doing it because she wanted to, but then she was a nasty excuse for a person

How infuriating. You should email and cc the head.

My daughter has a name that usually is shortened. We were fully aware that as she gets older it will naturally get shortened, however, from birth we called her by the full name (despite my DH's family trying to shorten it) and she has now said (she's 4yo) that she doesn't want it shortened. She even goes as far to ignore her ballet teacher if she calls her by the shorten version (as the ballet teacher has been told multiple times but forgets) and will only respond when she is called by the full version! I didn't direct her to do that, she just started doing that herself... She does a very obvious 'i'm not listening until my proper name is used' pose.....

If you call him UL-rick, stressing the first syllable, and she calls him ul-RICK, stressing the last, it could sound to your DS that she is calling him Rick when she isn't.

This could be a possibility. I've just said the name about fifty times, and the way I would emphasise it, the 'Ul' is a bit less defined. If she's a fast talker, and he's not paying attention until he hears the 'rick' part, then it's possible he's not hearing the first part enunciated very clearly.

I agree that its likely to be a mispronunciation and the "Ul" is getting lost in the noise of the classroom.

I don't think you have to accept a shortened version of a name, or a nickname - my daughter is Isobel and I have corrected everyone who has ever tried to call her Issy - yes it'll probably come, but at 11 years old, she's known as Isobel to everyone.

My concern would be the reliance of your 6 year old's version of events before speaking to the teacher again. You seem to have decided that she's doing it deliberately knowing its upsetting your DS. I certainly wouldn't be emailing the headmaster or kicking up a fuss until I'd spoken to the teacher again.

I have a name, it is a fairly normal name. In secondary school 1 teacher always called me by another name... it was written pefectly correctly in her register, yet she never read it correctly.

I used to ignore her when she read it out. She used get furious at me for disrespecting her (I was a toal goody two shoes with an over developed sense of moral outrage )

She would send me to the head of year, every lesson, twice a week. He would walk me back, have a word with her and, the next lesson, it would happen again. She got angry and upped her game, she started sending me to the Head Teacher. Who woud walk me back to lesson, have a word and... nope, no change...

I was stubborn, that happened for a whole term... yes whole before and after October half term up until Christmas. Parents complained, promises where made, she said was sorry. But no... after Christmas it started again. I chose a different tack... when she called the wrong name I stood up, smiled, and started to sing... I didn't stop, I sang whatever it was we were being taught in Music at the time, I probably did the hand movements and silly faces too, I know I sang loudly, I was taking lessons, was already an AmDram drama queen. When I finished she asked me on earth I thought I was doing... singing... this is a biology lesson... Daphne is not my name!

She suddenly developed the ability to read my name and, for one brief moment in time, I gained some street cred

I realise your DS is too young for this, just yet, but, with a lovely name like Ulrick, you could start teaching him something appropriately Germanic and loud in anticipation

I agree that its likely to be a mispronunciation and the "Ul" is getting lost in the noise of the classroom.

Really? No infant classroom should be that noisy that a teacher's voice can't be heard saying a name each and every time.

We once had a child called Isobel. Her parents called her Belle and insisted that that was the name she should go by, even on reports (which are supposed to have the child's 'official' name) and kicked up a merry stink if ever it was got wrong.

The OP and her son wants his actual given name to be used. And so it should be. Teacher is being very very rude.

I simply can't understand adults who shorten people's names like this, I really do think it's some kind of stupidity. I would never, in a billion years, get introduced to a Margaret, say, and then start calling her Meg out of nothing at all.

I think it's only inevitable if parents bring up their children to think it's fine to do this. We've known a Margaret and an Elizabeth who have, by children and adults, always been called their full name. It's really not that hard.

Good for you, Blanche .

It's nearly July. I'd suggest you leave it for the rest of the year and speak to whoever will be his class teacher next year, explain the problem, and ask if he/she can help by a) getting the name right and b) helping his classmates to get the name right. They will be pleased to help.

Absolutely. Let it lie for now see what happens in September.

I find that odd - and very upsetting for Ulrick. In my experience, teachers are usually pretty hot on that sort of thing. My DD has a name that is shortened - think Elizabeth. We call her Beth, but she prefers Elizabeth at school. First day the teacher asked "Is it Liz or Elizabeth?". DD says "Elizabeth". No problem after that. Teachers are in the business of dealing with children; yours sounds bizarre and disrespectful, especially as you've been to speak to her about it!

I wonder about her pronounciation too.
I know the name, so know the UL needs to be a hard sound in order for it to sound right. if you soften it to a UH sound, all you hear is Rick.

Its almost two syllables ULLLLL - Rick,

Maybe he could ignore her when he thinks she says Rick,

Gosh she must be particularly thick skinned not to have changed what she calls your son by now.

My son has a similar problem - unusual 2 syllable name which can be shortened to a more familiar one syllable name. Only, that one syllable name is also short for another name I really don't like so I prefer my son to be called by his full name. All his life he has met people seemingly incapable of using the full name. It is not a hard name to pronounce (easier even than Ulrich) and I just know they use the one syllable to avoid saying a name they may not have heard before.

Last week, at parents' evening (secondary school) every single teacher used the shortened name. I said nothing until the second to last teacher, then casually mentioned it to my son in the teacher's hearing and she instantly said 'oh I usually call him '2 syllable name' don't I '2 syllable name'?' and then carried on using his full name during the consultation. I wasn't even complaining, just commented to my son how funny it was that everyone seemed to use the shortened name.

So if one teacher can pick up on extremely mild disapproval, I cannot fathom why your teacher is being so obtuse.

Nanny - stand by my opinion, my whole life I have picked up by my Dad for saying "cos" when I say "because" as he never hears the "be" part of the word because I speak so quickly. But I'm definitely saying "because" properly . That's what I meant, perhaps she's swallowing the "ul" part of the word / saying it so quickly / emphasizing the "rick" part of the word.

But OP has said it's not a pronunciation problem. Even if it was, the teacher should learn to pronounce it properly - basic respect, surely? Especially now she knows it upsets DS?

What if the teacher has been trying her best to remember to call him Ulrick but has slipped up one or two times? Do you want her to be concentrating on the lesson or stressing that she might make a mistake with a name and have a difficult parent/headteacher to deal with? Just ask your son to correct her every time - the other children will start correcting her then too (6 year olds do love to get things right when the teacher doesn't). Of course it would be different if the teacher was doing it on purpose but I like to think that is unlikely - especially as you are aware and have already complained about it twice.

You cannot expect a 6 year-old to have to correct the teacher every single time.

I'm really sorry,but it isn't that hard and she should be getting it right.

Just a quick update, I emailed the head & the teacher before drop off. It wasn't accusatory/angry etc just a request that we'd like DS' full name to be used, his feelings about the situation and our previous requests.

Then at drop off I told the teacher about the email, she hadn't seen it yet & she seemed pretty gobsmacked that I felt that it warranted the heads attention, brought up DS' feelings again & our previous requests and she agreed as she's previously done to call him by his full name, she clearly thought I was being precious but DS seemed delighted when she called him by his name and it's definitely not an accent issue, she can say his name perfectly fine.

Narky, DS corrects her every time & she still chooses to shorten his name, the other children aren't correcting her but are copying her & using a name he doesn't like & she wouldn't have a difficult parent if she'd just try and say his name.

I hope it gets sorted op! My name got lengthened by a teacher, I hated it, and she even told my next teacher that my name was the longer, different name so my peg, drawer, books, etc all had a name on that wasnt mine the next year too! Though that got corrected iirc.

How do you know he corrects her op? Or that it's any more than an occasional slip up? Are you in the class all day? And yes I would expect a 6 year old to correct someone saying their name wrong of it bothers them. Mine did at that age (though it tended to be incorrect spelling rather than pronunciation). Do you genuinely think this teacher has just decided to call your son the wrong name to upset him? You've said she's new and she's had a whole class of names to learn. I think you've completely overreacted.

Oh bullshit, Narky. If a teacher can't remember the names of the kids in her class, who she's teaching day in day out and at this stage of the year has been doing so for nearly 3 terms, then she shouldn't be a teacher quite frankly. It's incredibly disrespectful. Reminds me of that twat Jo whatsit (or was it Jade Goody's mother) on Big Brother claiming she couldn't pronounce Shilpa.

She thought you were being precious?

How rude

Narky, I've told her twice that it upsets him, DS says she's hasn't called him Ulrick since her first morning and that even when he corrects her she'll carry on calling him Rick. It doesn't sound like an occasional slip up, it sounds like she's chosen to call him Rick, regardless of the upset its causing.

She's had two opportunities to tell me if it's a slip of the tongue, if she struggles with his name etc, she hasn't. Both times she's said thanks for letting me know, I'll stop.

From our conversation this morning, she hasn't been calling him Ulrick at all, so it isn't DS not hearing etc, it just a blatant disregard for his feelings.