To think its unacceptable to tell an upset little girl to "grow a pair"

[MyBeautifulSquid]

Especially if you are a teacher / TA.

My seven year old DD suddenly burst into tears over dinner last night. She had been quiet since she had come out of school. Turns out that her "friend" wouldn't play with her yesterday lunchtime so she went and sat on her own then was crying in her first lesson after lunch. Her TA asked her what was wrong and when she told her she rolled her eye, huffed and said "oh grow a pair!"

It is actually hard to believe but I know that she would not make this up....she just wouldn't have heard this horrible phrase anywhere else. She doesn't even know what it means.

AIBU to be furious? I also have to add that last year DD had a series of bullying incidents so serious that she ended up quite ill with anxiety she couldn't sleep or eat. The child responsible was dealt with eventually but DD struggled to cope at school for a long time because of it and still sometimes gets very anxious about school and her teachers are all fully aware of this.

I will obviously be going into the school on Monday to discuss it but I just wanted to put it out there and see what people thought x

Glad you've spoken to the head.

Whether you want to complain further is up to you. I probably wouldn't but only because I'd want to save my powder in case similar rubbish happened with this TA. Might be an idea to have an email exchange with the head just to round it off and have evidence.

My focus now would be helping my dd build resilience. My dd was blanked by her previous "bff" at the beginning of this school year. Tried to encourage dd to expand social circle and generally not to "need" this friendship. Not easy but more worthy of focus. Some success too.

Don't doubt yourself OP. Of course they don't want an official complaint. But that's up to you. Personally I would.

My focus now would be helping my dd build resilience. My dd was blanked by her previous "bff" at the beginning of this school year. Tried to encourage dd to expand social circle and generally not to "need" this friendship. Not easy but more worthy of focus

Sprung, I am really trying to. She does need to build her resilience and she is quite sensitive. She goes to a gymnastics club and is good friends with the little girls next door who go to a different school...I think it helps when they have other interests and another social life outside of the school. I have told her time and time again to never to chase people or show that you are upset in these sort of circumstances. And that its better to have no friends than fake friends. However I remember being a shy 7 year old and it feels the end of the world when your mates wont play with you :,(

Completely unacceptable. The TA would have to ' grow a pair ' pretty quickly if that had been my child.

Sprungout "Glad you've spoken to the head."

Where does it say she had? She said she spoke to her daughter's teacher.

I posted earlier that I was shocked.
The only thing I can think is that phrases like the one the TA used are very commonly used it has become just an everyday sentence to her.
If so your complaint would have given her a shock (maybe). If you feel that is the case I would close the matter and keep the incident not to far from the back of my head to see how things pan out.

When ds1 and his friends was being bullied by a gang of girls at infant school, one of the bully girls' mum said the boys 'ought to man up'!!! They didn't retaliate as they were girls, they told the teacher. Did she want them to hit the girls or what? I was too angry to respond to her.
Awful, please complain.

What else would you want to happen if you made an official complaint? Sounds like the school is already taking it seriously and have taken steps to address the issue with the TA and you seem reasonably happy with their response.