being told by other kids that my DD is annoying

[ilovepenguins79]

This week i have had two separate girls (both age 5 and classmates in reception with my DD) come up to me, looking rather pleased with themselves, to tell me that they find my DD annoying due to the way she hugs (around the neck and we are working on this, she's just a bit unaware of personal space).
I was quite taken aback and responded 'thank you for letting me know, we can all be a bit annoying sometimes can't we?'.
DD can get a bit over excited and forgets herself but (and i know i am biased) i couldn't see her going out of her way to speak to her peers parents about anything let alone something like this.

AIBU to be a bit taken aback by this?

Children can be full of themselves when they are ‘doing the right thing’ at school.

Very true. I remember being that age. I was in Year 1 or 2, cannot remember which, and some boy was horrible to me at school so I told him I was "gonna tell his mum when she came to pick him up", I felt really proud of myself because it was obvious he didn't want his mum to know and hated the thought of me telling her, and that did make me feel smug and I had gotten to him.

What actually happened is I went to find his mum but he was already with her, and as I approached to tell her, he punched me in the face. Got it even more trouble, so more fool him.

So yes, they could be feeling smug because maybe they don't like your DD and are trying to upset her by "telling your mum" and making you disappointed in her. Or you could be misinterpreting. I don't know.

It was Year 1, so maybe a year older than these girls if they are in reception, not sure. Anyway, I can see their POV too, I've never understood people that can't keep their hands to themselves.

lolasmiles They don't have to pander to an adult's feelings if they're fed up with having their personal space invaded It is nothing to do with pandering to an adult's feelings though. It is about teaching approp behaviour and manners. Teaching dc it is fine to be rude to adults/other dc won't help them at all

I've known adults who are huggy / handset people....Maybe if people had pointed out to them that unwanted physical contact is annoying when they were younger then they'd have got the message before they hit their teens Same thing with rudeness. We also have an issue in our society with the prevalence of bad manners, entitled and disrespectful behaviour - 5 is a good age to start learning good manners. Have a look at Wonderkids - good manners on youtube!

Lola,

Your attitude is what makes teaching such a tough job in many schools these days.

Manners and respect are not ‘pandering’, they are the basics of fitting into a pleasant society.

Your attitude is what makes teaching such a tough job in many schools these days.
Manners and respect are not ‘pandering’, they are the basics of fitting into a pleasant society
I am a teacher. I just don't think we should be expecting 5 year olds to handle their irritation at having to deal with annoying neck hugging the same way we would older children.

They're entitled to find someone annoying if that person's conduct repeatedly annoys them, just like I'd find an adult annoying if they insisted on trying to hug me on arrival/leaving social occasions.

If our teenage students complain they find a disruptive student annoying then that's their feeling about someone who repeatedly tried to disrupt learning. Obviously, by the time they are teens they handle the situation better than a 5 year old because over time they've been taught how to do this, but done separately, not in a "Sammy may well have done X Y Z... But you should be suitably nice when you talk about Sammy even though Sammy's been upsetting you / provoking you for ages".

The people on here branding 5 year olds smug little madams / mocking children for telling tales when they report they've had enough of being hugged round the neck/ nitpicking over 5 year olds finding someone annoying etc are what makes teaching exhausting because too much time gets taken up pussy footing around the central issue of someone's behaviour negatively affecting others.

lola what is your course of action if the hugging has stopped, but the child-who-used-to-hug now finds the other two children annoying because they keep complaining to her mother, and the child-who-used-hug is also very upset about being called annoying over and over again and it is affecting her confidence. What do you do then? Just out of interest.

If the hugging has resolved and the two are being unpleasant then it becomes a bullying situation and would be treated accordingly.

Not all children have to be friends with each other and I'm not a fan of forcing kids to play together if they don't get on, but it's entirely reasonable to shut down any unpleasant behaviour.

It is unpleasant to call another child annoying and this can be taught preemptively not waiting to see if the other child gets upset or feels bulled. Some children internalise and won't speak up. It is better to say "I don't want to be touched" rather than "annoying" and this is the sort of thing which can be taught to 5 year olds on a daily basis and eventually they will absorb it and at the same time teach children about inappropriate touch.

It is unpleasant to call another child annoying and this can be taught preemptively not waiting to see if the other child gets upset or feels bulled. Some children internalise and won't speak up. It is better to say "I don't want to be touched" rather than "annoying" and this is the sort of thing which can be taught to 5 year olds on a daily basis and eventually they will absorb it and at the same time teach children about inappropriate touch.

Teaching how to deal with situations should be separate from students reporting a situation, otherwise it becomes one of those situations where the victims of someone's actions end up being told when they report that they should be setting aside their feelings to be nice about the person who has upset/hurt them.
We see similar "be nice about the perpetrator and monitor how you express your feelings" in some secondary school approaches in which the victims seem to have to set their feelings aside to centre the perpetrators and their feelings.

Again, they are 5.

People seem really quick to brand them as smug madams and want them pulling up for not wording their objections to having arms around their necks in the right way. That's far more concerning than a 5 year old finding someone who displays annoying behaviour annoying.

But the issue here was that the OP felt they were not in fact reporting a situation, and the teacher indicated that she agreed.

it becomes one of those situations where the victims of someone's actions end up being told when they report that they should be setting aside their feelings to be nice about the person who has upset/hurt them you mean it could become - and it didn't here - so what you are saying is hypothetical and therefore not as relevant as my points that it would be better for the girls to be encouraged to talk to a trusted adult not to a mother they don't know, and to not call a fellow child annoying, i feel.

We see similar "be nice about the perpetrator and monitor how you express your feelings" I have never seen this recommended anywhere. Is this what you teach to your class or reflected in how you teach your class?

Being nice and having good manners and being considerate of others and not being rude generally is not the same thing as rolling over and putting up with bad treatment.

I have never seen this recommended anywhere. Is this what you teach to your class or reflected in how you teach your class?
Of course I don't teach this to my class. The "but think of the perpetrators" happens in schools where they've fallen into misusing restorative conversations and a couple of behaviour consultant approaches.

I have no time for students being unpleasant to each other, which is precisely why if someone is upset over a situation where another student is getting in their space / targeting them / being too physical / bullying / doing something that upsets them, the last thing I'll be doing is saying "oh really... That's not good, but really you shouldn't say they are mean / unkind / annoying when you're telling an adult how you're feeling. Instead, aged 5, you should have the maturity to step back from a situation, reflect on exactly which specific behaviours you don't like, find an adult and then explain that you dislike a specific behaviour in a way that mustn't provide any comment about you're feeling towards the person displaying that behaviour, because if you do that then as adults we will think you're smug little madams.

By all means we teach students how to handle situations with peers, but there's no need for adults to be expecting 5 year olds to refrain from commenting how they're feeling about being neck hugged because it wasn't suitably worded in a way that adults would prefer.

OP's daughter is annoying these girls, why should the onus be on them to spare OP's feelings.

Out of all of those who support OP none have been able to answer the question which has been repeatedly asked:

Why is OP's daughter the only one who is due consideration to learn personal boundaries and unacceptable behaviour (OP admitted this is something they are working on and she needs a little patience) but these "smug little madams" (absolutely disgusting a grown adult would refer to 5 year olds like that) are not due the same consideration for their "manners"?

Seems like there is one rule for OP's 5 year old but a different one for her peers.

Larrygrylls Thu 06-Feb-20 14:52:16

There is also a massive difference in going up to someone’s parent and saying ‘your daughter hugs when we don’t like it, please can you ask her to stop’ (acceptable and a polite appeal for adult intervention) and ‘your daughter is annoying’ (rude and completely unacceptable)

The difference doesn't matter.

This is because what matters is the experience of the person reporting the unwanted physical contact, not the finer feelings of the person reported to.

It's appalling that you seem to expect children to anticipate and pander to the feelings of adults, and that you think the way a message is couched is important, when we are talking about children of five.

Adults need to get over themselves when a child makes a disclosure about physical touch. All reports of uninvited touch are acceptable.

There is no such thing as an unacceptable report of unwanted touch.

Just pooping in here to add that 5 years olds can definitely be smug...
then can also definitely tell on someone for their own amusement.
I think that they're not upset by your DDs behaviour, rather they know it's not the norm and are kind of making fun of her for it.its surprising how grown up 5 year olds can be! Especially if they have older siblings I think!
At the same time I wouldn't take offence. They're all just learning.
Maybe just say, awww that's not a nice thing to say? Did she upset you?
I also think it's fine and nice for 5 year olds to hug especially if they all do it but she just needs to learn gentle and lower hugs!

justwithacuppaquickly

It absolutely is a muddying of the waters when you tell a child:

1. Talk to a grown up you trust if you experience unwanted physical contact.

2. But you should not risk hurting the feelings of the grown up. This is very important. So choose your words carefully. The word 'annoying' is not acceptable.

What are you really telling the child is that the feelings of other people must be centered.

OK, this particular thread is about unwanted neck hugging and a child who gets over excited. Something annoying but not a life changing event.

But what if the thread was about the janitor's unwanted physical touch or interest, and a child who has been taught not to upset adults when making a disclosure therefore doesn't mention the janitor's penis or the parts of her body that he is interested in, or the things he gets her to do or say while filming her? Because we have also taught children of five that potty talk isn't nice...

We are expecting far too much understanding of nuance here on the part of five year olds, far too much reading between the lines of what we say. Five year olds do not have the experience to draw from in order to understand precisely what we expect of them, and trying to teach them to walk the fine line between saying what is on their minds and not upsetting others involves a huge and grave risk that they will not report at all.

There is a massive lack of joined up thinking on this thread, and even outright scorn for the wider implications of what is happening here (see for example the execrable mockery by LarryGrylls of MeToo) and how it plays out in the lives of young women both in school and in employment.

Manners and respect are not ‘pandering’, they are the basics of fitting into a pleasant society.
LarryGrylls

Manners and respect have no place whatsoever in the arena of reporting unwanted physical contact precisely because reporting unwanted physical touch has nothing to do with "fitting into pleasant society".

Reporting unwanted physical contact is still a subversive act on the part of girls and women. Your attempts to assert that it is proper to impose conditions on how reporting is done are a shameful example of how policing of girls' and women's voices within society works even today.

Little girls have been taught for hundreds (thousands?) of years that talking about our experiences of unwanted touch from groping to rape is our shame because it upsets so many people and causes such disruption to the life of the groper or the rapist. Reporting even major crimes involves accusations as to motive, nature, and agenda of the reporter, and even the crime itself is held against the victim, not the groper or the rapist.

Your concern for 'manners' shows exactly how that dynamic is still rigorously enforced in our society. The requirement to observe social niceties when reporting an infringement of personal physical boundaries is a way of muffling or even silencing the complaints of girls and women by teaching them that the sensibilities of the person to whom they report are as important as their feelings and experiences. The more discouragement little girls encounter when they speak up (in the form of the snub the OP delivered to the little girl and other forms - Larry's sniffs of disapproval for instance) the more they learn to censor what they say about their experiences, often to the point of silence.

Math,

You cannot resist hyperbole and ad hominem attacks.

This is not a disclosure of adult abuse but unwanted affectionate contact between small children. This is not employment but a reception class. False and extreme analogies to make a point (this is not the janitor but an affectionate 5 year old, and not in secret but in public) are a fairly desperate resort.

When was the last time you saw a playground or classroom? Children are always initiating physical contact (be it a hug, a poke or a shove), most playground games are based on physical contact. The peer to peer negotiation of boundaries is a part of growing up. By definition this experimentation results in ‘unwanted’ physical contact sometimes.

I think maybe you need to think back to when your uber successful adult children were little and how you would have felt if their perceived friends had come up to you and told you that they were ‘annoying’ because of misplaced affection.

mathanxiety I agree with you. The messages we send children when they are young about physical contact, personal space, bodily autonomy are the messages they carry with them.
I never understand the whole approach of 'tell an adult if someone touches you and/or you feel uncomfortable... But actually here's a list of conditions in your deliver that will dictate whether we think it's a justifiable complaint, you're just a madam who's looking to tell tales, or really it may be a little awkward but you've just got to be nice about the person in your personal space and accept they're probably just misplacing their affection"

If contact has got to the point a child finds it annoying and the instigator annoying then so be it. I don't want children thinking they've got to self censor in the name of being suitably 'polite' and nice when they talk to an adult about a situation they are uncomfortable with.

Obviously it would never occur to you that the problem here is that you can't handle the truth, Larry.

You refuse to engage in the joined up thinking this thread involves, perhaps because of a mindset of yours that was signaled by your comments wrt MeToo.

I wasn't making an analogy. I was describing the inevitable consequences of your insistence on children minding the feelings of adults and censoring themselves when reporting a breach of personal boundaries. These consequences are all over newspapers and the nightly news now, but at the time the breaches of physical boundaries were happening there was silence, and silence is what you will get once more if your advice is to be taken seriously.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/05/police-uncovering-epidemic-of-child-abuse-in-1970s-and-80s

Why are children in school? What are they there to learn? What do they learn there? They are there to learn subject matter and also a certain amount of life lessons.

You think when it comes to life lessons that they should learn to settle matters among themselves and observe social niceties and respect hierarchies while they are at it. What you envision is a form of the law of the jungle, aka boarding schools circa 1920-1980, where only the strong survived and those who didn't were assumed to have been victims of their own over-sensitivity.

Teachers and school administrators nowadays are charged with the responsibility of ensuring safety, rooting out bullying and harassment in all its forms, and creating a respectful and orderly environment in which everyone can thrive and learn. The world has moved on significantly from the one you seem to be hankering after, in other words. Children now are taught the difference between consensual touch and unwanted touch, and that they do not have to accept whatever someone decides to dish out to them and should report when that happens. Girls and boys alike are taught the concept of consent. Just as multiplication comes in handy in ones 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond, so too does this important concept.

In the case of girls (when were you last a girl, btw?) the lessons in the 'life lesson' category (the point where real school life and what is taught converges) that are to be found between the lines are very complicated indeed.

The main very complicated lesson centres around the concept of misplaced affection. Clearly you can't see or don't know how this term makes the lives of women and girls difficult, or how it creates a narrative that privileges boys and men in society and gaslights girls and women.
(Ignorance is the charitable assumption when faced with that term trotted out as if it was agreed that there is such a thing in the context of unwanted touch, btw.)

The other complicated lesson centres around the necessity that girls be 'nice'. When girls are not 'nice' they commit the gravest of sins against society. Calling a spade a spade is the opposite of 'nice' in our society. Being 'nice' involves self censorship.

Maybe just say, awww that's not a nice thing to say? Did she upset you?
No don’t say this. Nice doesn’t come in to it. If a child wants to stop unwanted touch / affection the last thing the adult should say is aww you’re not being nice. They can say you’re annoying me, she’s annoying me and the response has to be ok let’s fix that.

Maybe just say, awww that's not a nice thing to say? Did she upset you?
*
No don’t say this. Nice doesn’t come in to it. If a child wants to stop unwanted touch / affection the last thing the adult should say is aww you’re not being nice. They can say you’re annoying me, she’s annoying me and the response has to be ok let’s fix that

To me it sounds like these children took delight in telling the OP that her DD was annoying them... not that they were upset about inappropriate physical contact. I feel like people are looking too deep into this and children are well capable of being mean or hurtful on purpose at 5 years old. That being said, if they don't like the hugs, they should be able to say and they should stop.

it is absolutely right to teach children not to say hurtful things especially as OPs DD was in no way being malicious. I would wonder if the children say the same thing to the DD herself in which case it would be very hurtful and confusing considering she is hugging and showing affections which the OP says all of the other children do. They clearly don't have a problem with hugs. I was say it borders on name calling.

You can tell them that's not a nice thing to say, ask if they don't like the hugs and tell DD to stop. I should imagine that this is what the nursery teacher would do. This is the way that all feeling would not be hurt and the hugs will still be stopped in the future.

Math,

You love having the last word (or many many words). I will leave it for others to pick apart your complete lack of logic, misquoting of what I said and lack of engagement with the salient points.

To me it sounds like these children took delight in telling the OP that her DD was annoying them... not that they were upset about inappropriate physical contact

FFS OP's daughter IS annoying by repeatedly engaging in UNWANTED TOUCHING.

Why is OP's daughter due the courtesy of understanding that she is learning personal boundaries and these girls (the VICTIMS of OP's daughter's behaviour) not due the same understanding because of how they delivered the message?

Why are you all willing to ignore OP's daughter's behaviour and place the responsibility on these girls to be "nice"?

Seriously?