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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to not expect my son to be exposed to so much shit at school?

133 replies

HadenoughnowFFS · 27/09/2017 21:52

Son is year 1.
Sick and tired of him coming home with swear words the other kids have taught him, terrorism facts the parents have allowed them to watch on the TV, hitting each other as they're allowed to at home - the list goes on.
Teacher thought it nice to create a dog and diary.
Dog comes home with you and in the diary you find something from the newspaper to stick in and write a little about.
Comes home and the previous kid has an entry about the ivory tusks of elephants being taken off and more elephants being killed to death than being born.
Surely the parent can't have deemed this appropriate for a 5 year old to write about? And the teacher has just ticked it so clearly she does.
Aibu?

OP posts:

MiaowTheCat · 28/09/2017 10:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mummag · 28/09/2017 10:08

Talking about it with your children, when you decide is one thing but having to talk about it because some other parent has decided to encourage their child to "educate" other children is not on really. All my children would have been really upset at that age, they are all older now. My youngest who is 10 has been very upset by the terrorism recently, so I make sure he doesn't watch/listen to the details. Does that make me the worst parent ever? Don't think so.

MargaretCavendish · 28/09/2017 10:08

I agree OP totally ridiculous to put that in the book that comes home and is supposed to be about what the dog did in your home for his visit

If you'd read the OP you'd see it says:
Dog comes home with you and in the diary you find something from the newspaper to stick in and write a little about.

OP isn't complaining about the fact that they included a newspaper article; that's exactly what they're supposed to have done. They're complaining about the contents of the article.

I actually think it might not be that easy to find an article that matches OP's child friendly standards. I just flicked through our crappy free local paper (the only physical paper we get) and everything is either unpleasant (murder, robberies) or unutterably boring and really hard to get a five year old to write about (eg. a long and tedious article about some new out of town shopping centre). I suspect even the 'happy news' stories about people raising money for charity wouldn't be ok for OP since one of them was in memory of a young child that died and the other was for breast cancer. I suspect there were much, much less suitable things that could have been chosen than ivory poaching...

MargaretCavendish · 28/09/2017 10:10

Ps. swearing surely a joke given thread title?

HateSummer · 28/09/2017 10:10

What's wrong with telling a 5 year old about elephants being killed?! My ds watches elephant documentaries with me and knows full well that elephants are killed for their tusks. It's not something you can shield them away from. Same with terrorism and natural disasters. My children know what's happening in the world because you know, they live in it. Think of the children in war torn countries, where parents can't shield them from anything bad.

As for the swearing and hitting, you can nip that in the bud by parenting him properly. Tell him it's wrong. Tell him again. Discuss the reason why it's wrong.

mummag · 28/09/2017 10:12

Apologies i did miss that bit. I think I would have put a feel good story in. Perhaps I'm still traumatised from my pshe lesson at age 13 where they showed a video about inside an abattoir. Been a veggie since, but it totally gave me nightmares for years and years.

Wheresmytaco · 28/09/2017 10:16

Hell Mossy the dog on Topsy and Tim dies on almost a monthly basis with the amount of repeats for it.

Explains a lot about that family..

IggyAce · 28/09/2017 10:17

Last year my DS was in year one and the whole school had a focus around refugees, they learnt why it had happened and they saw a short film which featured bombing in Syria and child refugees. Well a few of the snowflake parents were up on arms because their snowflake had been distressed. I'm sorry but you can't wrap them up in cotton wool, it's part of growing up and I believe children should be aware of world affairs in an age appropriate way.

notsobeachready · 28/09/2017 10:19

I think it may be part and parcel of school unfortunately. DS is also year one and came home the other day talking about how Trump was going to "nuke us all and we'll all be dead". I'm all for educating about current affairs but that made me feel a bit twitchy.
Ditto the hitting too. Same DC came home explaining that he can hit his younger sister because X, Y and Z all do it at home. Just gentle persistence on good behaviour and how just because one person does it doesn't mean we all can etc.

PurpleTango · 28/09/2017 10:21

I think it's possible that some 5 year olds know, and think about, World events. And I can totally see that a 5 year old would be interested in elephants as wildlife documentaries would appeal to them.

What I am trying to get my head around is posters saying their 5 year olds were reading BBC news... crikey mine had only just been given their Chip, Biff and Kipper books at that age!

brasty · 28/09/2017 10:30

I don't understand how a child could get to 5 years of age, and not know about death. Pets die, grandparents, even bugs and spiders die.

Mummyoflittledragon · 28/09/2017 10:33

It all depends on the child. What is age appropriate for one child is not for another. I wouldn't have wanted my dd learning such things in yr1.

My dd is 9. She's a deep thinker and very sensitive. I don't tell her about everything that happens in the real world, because it would trouble her deeply. Other children can cope much better with the facts as they have a different outlook. I remember finding out about the IRA and terrorist attacks at her sort of age from the news. It really scared me so I choose to shield her from this as much as possible. That doesn't make me a snowflake parent. That makes me a parent, who knows my child.

brasty · 28/09/2017 10:43

But schools obviously can't take that approach, they are teaching a group. Also I remember from my own school days hearing all sorts of things from other kids. I knew about the Vietnamese Boat people, because a child joined my class who had come over on a boat. Pretty sure I would have learned about divorce from other kids as well. You can't stop this happening.

wasonthelist · 28/09/2017 10:46

killed to death

Eh?

tehmina23 · 28/09/2017 11:15

When I was a small child I had nightmares about the Lebanon war because my parents watched the news.

It's normal at 4 or 5 to soak up the info & things that go on around you, both good & bad - part of growing up.

Unfortunately swearing & fighting are part of playground life, the teachers should be keeping on top of it but in bigger schools it's not easy.

steppemum · 28/09/2017 11:33

When I was a small child I had nightmares about the Lebanon war because my parents watched the news.

I do actually think that 5 year olds should not be watching the BBC TV news, as it is not age appropriate. Hearing radio news is different.

That is what newsround is for - presenting world events in child friendly, appropriate imagery and language.

On the news there can be traumatic pictures and comment. 5 year olds are at a conceptual development stage which means they struggle to understand that the war they are seeing is 3000 miles away.

and while it is a nice idea ot chose a newspaper article, I think it would be hard to find one that a child that age could understand and relate to - even assuming you have a paper copy in the house.

saoirse31 · 28/09/2017 11:33

Think yabvu op. Surely as a parent part of your job is to explain the world to your child. Not doing that is bad parenting IMO. Never letting a 5 yr old hear anything upsetting is also poor parenting IMO. Do you change the ending of sad stories you read to them?

Posters above esp one re hurricane have given perfect ways you can explain things to 5 year olds.

And every child is different , so your D's may write stories about cuddly teddies while other kids will write about aliens, wrestling or whatever.

You may be amused yet at how 'write a story set on a farm' can start with the spaceship landed on the farmhouse and aliens had big guns etc etc

Incitatus · 28/09/2017 11:45

I used to spend my school run pick ups explaining what each swear word meant to ds2 so that he didn’t get bullied for not knowing and having to explain pornographic related language meanings too

This was at a naice school in a decent area.

Bloody marvellous.

I can fully sympathise.

brasty · 28/09/2017 12:11

My sister took the approach you do OP. By the time DN was 10, the teacher spoke to her and asked her to buy a family newspaper, as DN knew nothing about the world around him.

SeaEagleFeather · 28/09/2017 12:25

Only a 1/4 of the class has done the book so far so goodness knows what else will end up in there and to be honest given the ages of the children I really don't see how it's appropriate to pick out an article for a 5 year old surrounding death of anything to be quite honest.

If you child ever comes across any of the really hard things in life young - sudden death of someone they love, for instance - they are going to be completely and utterly adrift.

Actually you're letting them down. "age-appropriate", sure. "denying bad things happen" - really unhelpful unless they happen to live charmed lives.

Also, learning that not everything is rosy for everyone in the world can help them develop empathy.

user789653241 · 29/09/2017 08:40

Ps. swearing surely a joke given thread title?

@Margaret

Tallulahoola · 29/09/2017 09:41

OP people are giving you a really hard time. I have never discussed death with my 4yo either (although yes I know I'll have to at some point) but I guess if she brought a book home like that I'd just have to explain it in the best way I could think of.

As for the hitting and swearing - DD has just started reception and I can't believe the way some of the parents stand around watching at the end of the day while their darling offspring walk up to other kids in the playground and punch them, kick them, swear at them. We're talking 4 and 5 year olds. If mine did that they'd get a bollocking.

MaisyPops · 29/09/2017 17:25

Tallulahoola
They aren't giving her a hard time. Most posters are rightly pointing out that shielding children to that level is a silly thing to do because you can't police every interaction a child will have.

brasty · 29/09/2017 17:42

Tallulahoola It is not a criticism, but I don't understand why it hasn't come up naturally. Do you simply say an animal is sleeping if you see dead bugs, etc?

kali110 · 29/09/2017 18:03

This isn't 5 year olds " just coming across it " as someone said - it's a parent, picking out an article for their child to write about.
From an early age i could tell you about certain animals and was very against fox hunting.
NOTHING to do with my parents.
I watched the news, i read articles ( was an advanced reader).
You may shield your kids but why should other parents?
You think 'it's a silly book' simply because you've decided the other parents are wrong and you are right.
Shielding kids from life isn't a good thing.
Yabu, very.

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