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.

YANBU.

as a teenager I didn’t have to opt out, but if what happened to your dd happened to me my mother would have kicked off. As would I with my daughters now.

I have to take one day off college if I have a bad one. Simply because I don’t know where and when I’ll be caught short.

How utterly insensitive of the school.

I feel sorry for the daughters of some people on this thread.

Perfectly1mperfect
Appropriate sanitary protection plus a trip to the bathroom (with note if it's needed depending on school) and it's reasonable.

As I've already said in my post (the bit you conveniently chose not to quote), I would have said in the OP's situation i'd have let the student sit out.

YANBU, OP. The comparisons with the world of work are not relevant here, because your DD didn't miss school, she just didn't feel able to do PE that one time. Most jobs don't involve running around in shorts.

Heavy periods are awful, I've been there, and for a girl of 13, leaking during PE would be so humiliating. It's not as if she makes a habit of trying to skip PE after all.

I'm generally of the view with periods that we'll enough to be in school is well enough to do PE

@MaisyPops it depresses me that so many of the views I see you express on here match so closely the many negative experiences I have had with the teachers who teach my autistic children. The One Size Fits All approach, the constant "don't be THAT parent refrain", the Them And Us attitude you display towards students and parents; who you really come across as seeing as lesser iyswim? I want to believe that the majority of teachers are lovely, caring, and professional and certainly I have met a couple who fit that description but when I link my own experiences over the past ten years with the views you express on your many Teacher Here! style posts; I really do struggle to feel positive about the teaching profession as a whole. You confirm so much of the negativity I sense in so many of the teachers I have dealings with. I do realise I am being slightly unreasonable and will no doubt be roasted but that's fine. I don't know if you actually realise just how cold and arrogant you appear in your posts?

If they're well enough to go to school then they are well enough to participate in school activities

Someone could very easily be "well enough" (or in OP's daughter's case, less likely to flood and leak) during a maths lesson where they are sitting still, and yet not feel confident or able to wear a sports kit and fling themselves around for 45 minutes. Girls should not be denied access to parts of their education that they feel they can take part in during a painful or extremely heavy period, just to punish them for having female bodies. If we take this choice away from girls like OP's daughter, maybe next time she will stay home altogether and that would serve nobody.

YABU - it’s a judgement call by teachers, periods aren’t something you should sit out pe for

How about we allow girls to judge for themselves instead of allowing other people to tell them what they are or are not experiencing?

MaisyPops

So what was the point saying if you are well enough for school, you are well enough for PE. And what if this poor girl did have to sit out each week for a month?

Appropriate sanitary protection doesn't stop leaks for many people especially when exercising. And then there's the cramps, headache etc.

I got my daughter these, which are tight jersey shorts. Put normal knickers on, put pad on and then put these jersey shorts over the whole lot so that nothing can come loose and if there is a bit of leakage, this will soak up a bit. Then the PE shorts over the top.

Although I do think the PE teacher was mean, based on your DD usually participating and enjoying, plus she had a note from you.

www.boden.co.uk/en-gb/girls-shorts/g1238/girls-plain-jersey-shorts

@greenpop21 at my school at weren't allowed to wear anything but the standard kit and we weren't allowed to bring medication in without permission, and definitely weren't allowed to carry it ourselves. Then if you needed to take it you had to ask permission to leave the class, which would probably not be allowed as you should do it on break or between lessons. Doing it between lessons would make you late for your next one, so you'd get told off for that, and morning break would be too early. Lunchtime had its own problems as well.

I wish the NHS ran schools.
Just that really.

That poor child :( I haven’t read all the replies, but just chucking my 2 cents in...

YANBU, she is your daughter, you, together made the call. Who the fuck does she think she is overriding a parents note? My god, I’d be fuming if my daughter had to go through that, at 12, I bed she wished the ground would have swallowed her up

You sound like a great mum. I’d be putting in a formal complaint.

The school rule is - if you’re well enough to be in school, you’re well enough to do PE.

Periods aside, this is a bizarre rule. There are lots of reasons why you might not be able to do PE but can be in school. Sitting at a desk and running around outside in the cold and rain are totally different things. Plenty of adults who exercise regularly might skip a day if they have a bad cold, even if earlier that day they were able to go into work. (I’m not saying all kids with a cold should automatically get out of PE, just commenting on how weird it is to say that if someone is well enough to sit at a desk, they must therefore be well enough to run around outside.)

But for periods specifically, no I don’t think YABU at all OP.

There is a reason teenage girls hate pe and it leads to a hate of sports as an adult. Arsehole pe teachers with no compassion periods can bloody hurt you can also have blood running down your legs even if you just changed. You might even pass out. If a girl or women doesn’t feel up to exercise during her period then she shouldn’t be forced to do it end of.

I remember waking into hospital and just suddenly the bloody ran down my legs within minutes I was in gyno having it described as a tap being turned on and clots removed manually, hospitalised over night leaving with a cocktail of drugs to take for the month after passing a such a clot my body pushed it out like labour. If my dds ever tell me they are not up for pe while on they won’t be doing it.

CarolDanvers
You've done exactly what another poster has done which is selectively quote part of a post, get all outraged and ignore the part where I said in those circumstances then I think the OP's child should have been able to be excused. It's predictable on school threads.

MeredithGrey1
We have winter kit, joggers etc. Students can be involved as linespeople, referees, swap to an indoor sport for a week. There are ways around it.

Then again we also have common sense so staff have the ability to see the difference between a situation like the OP and someone who claims to be on every PE lesson (often with a note from mum to get out of it), or is only suffering qhen it's sport they don't like etc.

Shocked at some of the posts on here.
@weetabixandshreddies, you are coming across as very naive. Yes, there is a problem with some school leavers expecting sick days at the drop of a hat. No, this isn't a reason to force young teenagers who are not fit for a particular activity to just suck it up and get on with it. Are you aware of the following :
-current data suggests that 10% of women and girls suffer from endometriosis. That's a lot of women.
-likewise current research suggests that adolescent girls suffer at the same rates as adult women. That's a lot of girls in any secondary school.
-The most up-to-date research cites rates of endometriosis of 69.6 to 73% in adolescent girls with severe dysmenorrhoea that is unresponsive to first - line treatments such as the pill and NSAIDS.
-average gap between onset of symptoms and diagnosis is around 8 years in the UK and Australia and longer in the US. All you people saying it's only OK for girls like the OP's daughter to miss PE if she has a genuine medical problem, has it struck you that this statistic means that the 10%of teenagers who probably have endometriosis are unlikely to get a diagnosis by the time they leave school? Weetabix, I'm glad you agree that getting medical help is important, but the reality is that GPs are woefully under-educated on this, and the process of getting help is a long and tough one, and it's a condition that affects a lot of women.

For some of us, the delay in diagnosis can be disastrous - in my case, my bowel and urinary tract have been severely diseased, I've had repeated, lengthy and complex surgeries and have been left with permanent problems that affect my day-to-day life . In my case, earlier diagnosis might have made all the difference. That's without going into the emotional damage that being routinely left to cope with high levels of pain at too young an age can cause,and the infertility that some patients then experience.

I notice on these threads there's always at least one person who claims girls like the OP's daughter shouldn't be 'encouraged' because they will come to expect special treatment. There is always some sort of reference to what their future employers will think. I always wonder why I never see these posters arguing the same thing on threads about children with, say, potential Crohn's disease. It is not the case that the ills of society can be solved, and the work ethic of the young improved, by teaching young girls to ignore the possible signs of a serious and debilitating health condition. It's more likely to perpetuate the problem by encouraging girls to minimise it, thereby risking ending up like me. And no, employers don't like it, but that's nothing to do with the fact that my mother let me miss PE occasionally, and everything to do with the aforementioned repeat lengthy and complex surgeries, which might have been avoidable and/or less complex, had I received help at an appropriate age.

OP, I don't want to scaremonger, but do take her to the GP if this becomes a regular thing.

How about we allow girls to judge for themselves instead of allowing other people to tell them what they are or are not experiencing?

Ok. So the girls who use periods as an excuse to skip PE - is that ok? Because if you say no, that isn't ok then you are doubting their judgement surely? How can the teachers decide who is genuine and who isn't?

@MaisyPops

That said, if it was a student who always does PE, wants to be involved, doesn't try to skive, doesn't have a mum writing notes suggesting she has a period every 8 days etc then I would just let her sit out.

This bit? Where you list the box ticking criteria the girl has to fit into before you; her teacher, with no medical training or personal awareness or information regarding how her body copes with menstruation, decides if she can sit strenuous exercise out or not.

The Period Pain Gate Keeper.

I am not sure why you think that paragraph makes you sound any better tbh.

well enough for school, well enough for PE

This is a crock of shit. I have always had, even as a teen, seriously heavy periods. I could cope with lessons, where there was no physical activity, even though I would be using a super plus tampon plus an extra thick sanitary towel, and changing these after evey lesson.

When you add on the physical exertion as well, I'd have had blood dribbling down my legs.

My DD is the same, as was my mother. I wrote notes for some of DD's heaviest period days, I assessed each one on a case by case basis.

It really pisses me off that girls are still being dismissed about their periods, a lot of people really don't get just how bad they can be. (Like when I'd find DD curled up on the bathroom floor sobbing her heart out, having taken the maximum dose of painkillers which barely touched the sides.)

Luckily, I've reached the menopause, and DD has an implant which has really helped.

Weetabix there is a huge difference between a girl who regularly engages in pe and one who claims to have their period each week.

Personally if I had a child vlaiming to suffer from their period each week I’d be sending a note home to the parents about their child’s health.

I think you’re overreaching.

Weetabix then we need to be questioning why so many girls would want to avoid PE. What we absolutely should not do, is punish girls like OP's daughter because our PE curriculum and/or teachers are not engaging enough for half their students. Or could it be that these girls don't feel comfortable with what they are being asked to do, which in my day was to wear tiny gym knickers in eyeshot of a housing estate which was horrendous at the best of times but absolute hell during your period. I have no idea what uniforms are like now as DC are not highschool age.

Why am I being naieve?

I always wonder why I never see these posters arguing the same thing on threads about children with, say, potential Crohn's disease.

Strange you should say that. I have crohns. Not diagnosed until I was 30 but did have symptoms much younger - my parents dismissed it as IBS. Yes it has severely damaged my bowel and I now have arthritis linked to it. I take 2 immunosuppressant drugs that make me feel terrible and also put me at higher risk of catching things. Still only get the same amount of sick leave as everyone else. Still just have to get on with it. Still have to ask permission to go to the toilet at work, and wait for cover to let me go.

Still refuse to let it define me as a person though. I don't want to be seen as different or to be treated differently or to be seen as less than capable. Maybe I'm harder on other people because I'm hard on myself? Who knows?

CarolDanvers
You mean a casual comparison between students who regularly take the piss and make things up versus those who don't.

I love on mumsnet you get people who'll claim nobody ever in the whole world has ever used an excuse ever.

Who are we kidding? Almost everyone as a teen has used a fake excuse for something to get out of it. And we all went to school with people who did too. Only now it's cool to pretend that it never happened.

At that age I regularly missed a day of school most months due to period pain which meant I could barely stand.

In yr 7 we had a weekly swimming lesson which I missed one week every month. My periods used to last 8-9 days so some months i missed the lesson two weeks in a row.

Fortunately I had really sympathetic teachers who knew me well enough to know I wasn't shirking.

The thing is that a general assumption of well enough for school well enough for PE is incredibly and inexcusably stupid, even if you are willing to make a few exceptions. That just makes it 99% fuckwit instead of 100.

That said, if it was a student who always does PE, wants to be involved, doesn't try to skive, doesn't have a mum writing notes suggesting she has a period every 8 days etc then I would just let her sit out.

The problem with that is girls who suffer from heavy difficult periods don't usually do so as a one off, it's often an ongoing problem. There's a good chance that the girls regularly needing to sit PE out are the ones suffering the most.