AIBU regarding PE teacher, DD and her period?

[Tink2007]

My DD is nearly 13. She’s been having periods for 8/9 months. She came on yesterday. She said it was quite heavy and she didn’t feel comfortable doing PE today as she was worried about leaks and it being so heavy just left her feeling uncomfortable.

She’s never missed a PE lesson, she has done PE whilst on her period but it has always coincided with the end so has always been lighter. I said it was fine and I would jot a note in her student diary (as required) especially seeing as it was the first time she has come to me and said “‘Mum, I don’t feel comfortable with this today.”

So imagine my surprise when she came home from school and told me how PE went today. Her actual PE teacher was fine with her not doing PE but said the final decision was with the head of PE.

Now given she didn’t have her PE kit, she had a note and expressed her discomfort with doing PE I wa surprised that the head of PE tried all manner of ways to make her do PE, telling her a period couldn’t be “that bad”, she wouldn’t accept it as a reason again. Then said if she had a spare PE kit she would have made her do it, asked the other PE teacher to make her do it in her school uniform (which the other teacher refused to do) and pulled her by the arm to a standing position to bat a shuttlecock back and forth towards the end of the lesson. She simply couldn’t accept she wasn’t doing it this lesson.

AIBU reasonable for being annoyed? In an age where we are supposed to be empowering young women to have their voices heard, be confident in what they feel comfortable and uncomfortable with and voicing that but yet this teacher seems happy to ignore it and physically pull my DD to her feet.

I should add I do know the teacher in question - she was my PE teacher 22 years ago and it does sound just like her to be honest.

If you gave to take 2 or 3 days a month off of school or work then that is going to cause big problems in life.

I don't agree that we should be telling girls and women that they have to just deal with it and get on. Schools and workplaces should make allowances and by just 'carrying on' when you feel like you could faint etc it just allows schools and businesses to keep the shit attitudes to girls and women having bad periods. If women didn't feel the pressure to 'just carry on' because 'it's not an illness' then attitudes would have to change.

I had no major issues until I was 30 ish. I then got diagnosed with endometriosis, adenomyosis and an autoimmune disease in a very short space of time. I no longer 'just carry on'. I do the minimum amount possible when I feel ill. It means I recover sooner as well as not feeling worse.

My trigger at work is more than 4 days or 3 periods of absence over past 6 months

well that's a shame for you, but its not like that everywhere.

I get 20 days off per year, paid. Generally unlimited for anything serious.

They don't question it unless you're taking the piss, ie every Monday off after having a heavy weekend.

We shouldn't be teaching people to suck it up because employers wont tolerate it, we should be educating employers on how debilitating it can be.

Thank you 2019

I kinda thought other people were explaining their periods and what they did but i thought the thread was still pretty much on missing a single PE lesson

I know threads evolve....Thats what i get for not paying enough attention

Interestingly, if you do pain management courses they are all for encouraging more of a "can do" attitude rather than giving in

I've spent the last 20 yrs as a regular visitor to pain management clinics and that is a massive misrepresentation of anything I've ever been told. "Be positive but listen to your body" is a much commoner message.

Oh and also, avoid people who take the view "I suffered so I'm damned well going to martyr everyone else alongside me".

Of course, as a participant in a pain management course you are de factor under medical treatment and with a diagnosis. Something most teen girls don't and won't have for many years to come because of attitudes to women's health. (there was an excellent thread on here recently gathering women's experiences of misogyny in health care - I think @Graphista started it).

As pp said - rather than focusing on policing girls attendance at PE from the position that they are a bunch of skiving liars, look at the reasons they don't want to do it. Possibly because its a curriculum modeled on PE for boys rather than developed for girls.

I had my period for 6 months while at school as i hated swimming!

brittany

You got out of having a shower at PE if you had your period on at school

It was amazing how many girls had almost constant periods...teacher used to mark it in the register though

I had a note from my mum at least til id been to the doctors

maybe the school needed to address why so many girls wished to 'get out' of having a shower at school.

Using phrases like 'get out of' are pretty unhelpful for schools to use. 'Viscerally hate because I felt so humiliated by communal showers' might be more accurate. Stop the assumption that it's all about girls wanted to skive.

but expecting women to suck up what can be excruciating pain that, if it were for any other reason, there's no question about you taking the day off, isn't right.
But that is exactly what does happen. My employer treats all sick leave exactly the same.

They don't discipline you only if you are off with period related sickness but give yiu free reign if it's anything else.

I have a hugely debilitating illness. Not only the illness itself but the medication that I take to control the illness makes me feel like death warmed up for 3 days a week. The same absence policy still applies to me.

Are you saying that women should have different rules applied to them than say a man who has the same illness as me?

Hopefully, as a by-product of flexible working and people working from home more this can be dealt with better.

A large number of jobs don't have flexible working or work from home options though. What do women working in shops, hospitals, transport, service industries do?

At some point surely you have to accept that you do need to get on with it or accept unemployment?

Honestly, loom at pain management - that is a prime example of patients being expected to learn and accept pain, to learn how not to let it control your life.

I'd live to hear suggestions of how schools and workplaces should be in your view.

I've always had the most awful periods, heavy and painful, and often had to miss PE because of them. Luckily my PE teacher was sensible and sympathetic.

I wouldn't go to the gym or an exercise class on my period now, as I would just gush through any sanitary protection as well as be in a great deal of pain. So why do we expect young girls to suffer through it?

Most of the time it's fine and doable but every girl is different and periods are different on different days. We must have empathy and show care and understanding.

YANBU. I had periods where I could barely sit at my desk let alone play a sport. There should be some flexibility with schools. Understand some people skive etc but with a parents note that should be allowed

Ps I now take cerazette and haven't had a period in 2 year and it's bliss - know it doesn't work for everyone but might be worth exploring

maybe the school needed to address why so many girls wished to 'get out' of having a shower at school.
In our school it was because they didn't want to get their hair or make up wet - I kid you not!

We did have individual showers, separated by curtains so some privacy, but the changing rooms were communal which a lot of girls hated. Not sure the answer there though - schools aren't going to be able to put in enough cubicles to enable students to get changed quickly enough are they?

river

Just to clarify it was a long time ago at the school i went to

You didnt dodge PE...just the shower and a PE teacher would stand at the other end to make sure you were wet

So some of us just shoved our arms under and wet our chests as you couldn't see anything under the towel

It was a lot of effort though...easier to just shower in hindsight

(But yeah....naked in a communal shower, not nice as a young teenager)

My childrens school dont have showers

well, weetabix, it sounds to be like you've got a very fixed mindset about this and aren't even prepared to criticize your employers' sick leave policy - as pps have said, not all companies work like yours. One size fits all doesn't work and not just with regards to periods.

I don't have all the answers. But you seem to think that the questions shouldn't even be asked. I'm sure that there were plenty of managers around with fixed mindsets when flexible working and working from home was first mooted in office environments. When maternity cover was first discussed. 'Can't be done.' 'Well, how do you think it should work?'

and why wouldn't they want to get their hair or make up wet? Because they're silly airbrained girlies? Or because their sense of self worth was so tied up with their appearance thanks to the messages that are pummelled into girls from toddlerhood on?

Rufus yeah, I got that. I just think that schools or workplaces starting with such a negative point of view isn't helpful. None of us are in a vacuum.

It's important to try to stay in work even though you're in pain. Research shows that people become less active and more depressed when they don't work.

Being at work will distract you from the pain and won't make your pain worse.

This is a paragraph from a PMP I attended C8H10N4O2. Being at work and listening to your body are often competing demands. If I listened to my body 90% of my life would be spent in bed.

Absolutely river

well, weetabix, it sounds to be like you've got a very fixed mindset about this and aren't even prepared to criticize your employers' sick leave policy -

I am full of criticism for the sick leave policy, believe me, but having spoken to ACAS about it would seem that it is pretty standard especially given that it is paid in full whereas some don't pay for the first 2 days or something. So yes, some are better, some are worse I suppose.

and why wouldn't they want to get their hair or make up wet? Because they're silly airbrained girlies? Or because their sense of self worth was so tied up with their appearance thanks to the messages that are pummelled into girls from toddlerhood on?

Well that's a bigger societal problem isn't it? How do schools address that in the here and now or should they accept that girls just don't want to participate in PE?

again, I don't know the answer - but I would like the problem to be acknowledged and discussed rather than dismissed or ignored or downplayed, and simply trammel girls into 'the system'. It's so easy to dismiss girls and cast them as airheads for worrying about their appearance - and highly misogynistic to boot.

I also think that whilst both issues need addressing it's not helpful to conflate chronic illness with period pain - though possibly (I don't know enough about this) both are feminist issues in that they affect women more than men? I don't know the stats.

RiverTam

Surely what you are advocating for is some sort of menstrual leave? But how on earth is that implemented? How do you manage it and what stops all women taking a few days extra off each month? You would never be able to prove or disprove it would you?

Maybe we need more generous sick leave across the board but then that would need to look like if you consider some women taking time off every month, and that's without "normal" sick leave on top?

that's why something incredibly radical needs to happen - my original point is what would workplaces look like if they had been designed by and for women. Yes, they would be very different indeed - almost impossible to imagine, I think.

I also think that whilst both issues need addressing it's not helpful to conflate chronic illness with period pain

Why not though? I think they share similarities - both cause physical and mental distress, both have to be learned to live with to some extent, the main exception I suppose is that periods aren't life long, nor even constant whereas pain is a daily issue.

I'm not trying to be a martyr. I'm just trying to explain how sometimes changing your mindset can help. You can experience something without suffering from it is one of the best messages I took from pain management.

Why cant you just trust other women and girls? They are the experts on their own periods.