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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think my daughter shouldn’t be called a bitch

159 replies

Fettuccinecarbonara · 09/11/2018 23:36

My daughter is 10 and in year 6 of primary school.

Lots of issues around friendships which teachers are aware of.

Today the girls of year 6 were taken into a room by a teacher and spoken to about how they interacted with one another. During this speech the teacher called them all bitches, then later said that this bitching had to stop.

Aibu to think there was no need to use this terminology. The message could have been gotten across without using such language.

OP posts:
Sethis · 10/11/2018 00:28

OP:

Nobody is defending calling students bitches to their face.

However there's a huge dose of skepticism about the reality of what was actually said.

I'm pretty sure we all actually fully agree with you that calling 10yr olds bitches is unacceptable IF that is actually what happened. But we don't know that that is what happened, so in the absence of any actual evidence beyond the word of two girls who were being bollocked themselves....

Feefeetrixabelle · 10/11/2018 00:32

Seems a bit of a mature word to aim at a ten year old be it bitch, bitching etc unless it’s a word the girls have been throwing around themselves. Then it would be appropriate as it’s in their standard vocabulary.

Looks like they’ve taken the approach of drawing the line under it for all year 6 girls in the hope that all the infighting will stop.

KittensAndCake · 10/11/2018 00:33

I'd be more concerned by why my DD was being told off than by what the teacher said, tbh. Why has your DD been bitchy?

AjasLipstick · 10/11/2018 00:55

Honestly. The fucking AMOUNT of times WEIRD mumsnetters jump on an OP like this with all their "Are you sures?" and "Hmm" faces pisses me off.

Why do people automatically doubt children!???

BumsexAtTheBingo · 10/11/2018 00:57

I dont automatically doubt children. Not do I automatically assume they never make mistakes or bend the truth in their favour when they’re in trouble. I prefer to find out the facts before I assume anything.

Grrrrrrt · 10/11/2018 04:09

When children are speaking they are lying.

That's the sort of attitude that enables child abusers.

And I don't know why people are banging on about DDs behaviour if it was a talk addressed to all of the girls in the year group. Presumably some of those girls are the victims of unpleasant behaviour.

PrincessConsuelaBananahamm0ck · 10/11/2018 05:13

Why do people not read posts properly? The OP has made it clear that the entire female population of year 6 were spoken to as a group about behaviour. Not just her daughter and a few others. All of them. So patronising her by telling her to address her child's behaviour before worrying about what a teacher said is irrelevant.

When I was at school, entire year groups would be spoken to about behaviour when there were high levels of bad behaviour - addressing the entire group does not mean every single person in that group has behaved badly. Has happened at work too, entire teams of people spoken to about lateness/dresscode when in fact it's a number of 'offenders' not the entire team.

OP, you definitely need to check with the teacher. Whilst on paper it sounds bad, I can see how a teacher might use 'bitch' or 'bitchiness' if it's a word that a lot of the girls use themselves. Maybe she was trying to relate to them to get through to some of them that their behaviour is unacceptable.

AjasLipstick · 10/11/2018 05:27

Princess All the same, the teacher should know better than to use words like that to describe young girls who are at a crucial stage of development in terms of their self-image.

EdisonLightBulb · 10/11/2018 05:38

I remember at 10 quite clearly a lady asking if my dog was a dog or a bitch and being mortified and upset and running home to tell mum....

Do you think she misunderstood? I do.

HoppingPavlova · 10/11/2018 05:48

I don’t think she should have called them bitches (if that happened) but I don’t see what is wrong with referring to their behaviour as bitchiness? Why would you need to use a ‘politer’ word? Surely the only politer words are ‘not nice’ but even so it doesn’t really cover the essence of bitchiness and the behaviour is factually being called what it is.

For what it’s worth they are all probably behaving like a pack of bitches. That’s pretty typical for that age but due to political correctness the teacher can’t call them that.

radiometer · 10/11/2018 05:49

10 year olds are automatically liars but they are inexperienced in the skill of when called out on their shit, re-writing the rationalisation narrative so they are in the right still.

Grown ups can usually walk the fine line of bending what happened without full on invention.
That's why we say "there are more sides to this story" because everyone is an unreliable narrator.

10 year olds are very unreliable narrators. 10 year olds will translate a teacher saying "this bitchy behaviour has to stop" or "you are behaving in a bitchy way" into "you are all bitches, every single one of you, stop being such bitches, you girls" because now no one has to examine their conscience about if they WERE indeed acting in a way that could be described as "bitchy" and should they have acted another way which is painful and uncomfortable.

It's a deflection.

FWIW, I wouldn't say that I'd make sure we all had a shared understanding of relational aggression in lesson time before problems and then talk about that instead. I did (at the start of my career) say a couple of times "the more practice you have at being bitchy that you have, the better at it you will get and before you know it, everyone is calling you a bitch" but I didn't like how that sounded, so I stopped. We sometimes say clumsy things, being human beings and all.

radiometer · 10/11/2018 05:52

"aren't automatically liars" oops

Antigon · 10/11/2018 06:15

When children are speaking they are lying.

You've got real issues @Walkingdeadfangirl.

FittonTower · 10/11/2018 06:16

Bitch or bitchy are horrible sexist words and shouldn't be used to 10 year old girls.
It's a bit scary how many people on here wouldn't believe their own child if they said something about a teacher - teacher's aren't infalible. Its not like the OP's daughter was told off and is covering up, this was a teacher talking to the whole year group.

Thymeout · 10/11/2018 06:24

This is the old 'label the behaviour, not the child' idea. It sounds good to a mature adult, but, in practice, the subtlety gets lost in the undeveloped mind of a child.

It's not so much that children are likely to lie as that 'When you do this, you are behaving like a bitch' is very likely to be heard simply as 'You're being a bitch'. It's all a bit philosophical for a 10 year old - and quite a few adults.

There are plenty of threads on here about dds having a miserable time because of the behaviour of a group of girls at school. V common in Yr 6 when some of them are getting too big for their boots. I'm not really in favour of sugar-coating the behaviour with 'nice' words. Everyone knows what 'bitchiness' means. I don't think 10 is too young to be called out on it.

Unicyclethief · 10/11/2018 06:25

dd wouldn’t lie about something like this. She’s a good kid 🙄

Amammi · 10/11/2018 06:38

Can you let this lie for a week or two and see did the talk have any wider effect? In fairness the purpose of the talk seems to have been to benefit your child and others who are suffering, if you row in now will the net effect be to undermine the teacher who is the advocate for your daughter? The talk was not directed at her from what you have described so might be better to sit back now and not keep the spot on your family. If the inappropriate language was used other pupils (the bullies perhaps) will have told their parents as well. Why not let this one go and see if it reoccurs or better still the bullying stops.

Amammi · 10/11/2018 06:39

Spotlight

ifoundthebread · 10/11/2018 07:02

Last school year my neice and her friends got called into a similar meeting regarding their behaviour outside of school. Any child that was named because of being in the area they hung out was taken into the meeting, so some kids wernt involved they just frequented the same place. If the teacher had referred to them as bitches I would of agreed but there was some atrocious behaviour going on, to the point the police were nearly involved. Just ask the teacher what was said, 'hi miss xyz, dd was telling me about the meeting. She's took the bitch comment pretty personally, could you clarify what was said and why so I can discuss it with her.'

lalaloopyhead · 10/11/2018 07:03

Why on earth on these threads, does everyone assume the child is a liar and the teacher can do no wrong?

What kind of message is this giving to children? Young people are always to be disbelieved if they say they are treated by an adult??

OP I think you would be right to raise this with the teacher to establish the facts of the situation. If the children were called Bitches, then I think that is inappropriate.

masterandmargarita · 10/11/2018 07:13

Most of us exaggerate our side of the story to put ourselves in a better light, so i think something went down but probs not quite as extreme as dd makes out. But I would definitely investigate. I think children should be heard. I do get tired of hearing how awful girls are, how bitchy they can be. Its just sexist bullshit.

Hideandgo · 10/11/2018 07:24

The teacher maybe didn’t use great language here but the lesson is for your daughter. She needs to treat others better. And the other lesson for her is that sometimes other people, even teachers, use language badly and inappropriately.

Shirleyphallus · 10/11/2018 07:30

Why on earth on these threads, does everyone assume the child is a liar and the teacher can do no wrong?

Why on these thread does everyone assume that a child gets the version of events 100% accurate and the teacher always deserves a kicking?

TableSalt · 10/11/2018 07:34

I'd let it go OP. Really not a big deal.

masterandmargarita · 10/11/2018 07:34

If a teacher 'uses language badly and inappropriately' - that should not be ignored. That's not a great life lesson for a kid!

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