Teacher thinks DS needs to cut hair to avoid bullying

[calmama]

Very upset. DS is 5 and has always been a sensitive boy. Gravitates towards girls and has some (traditionally) feminine (as well as some very masculine) interests. He has long, curly hair and big blue eyes. Has been mistaken for a girl since birth irrespective of dressing in typical "boy" clothes.

His teacher has just now brought up that she is worried he will be bullied because apparently the other kids at school think he's a girl. She's suggested he cut his hair. DH is all for it. I am not, pure and simply because he doesn't want to! DH has pushed many times and he just doesn't want to. I also don't think he should have to masculinise his interests just because he may or may not be bullied.

Ultimately, I am obviously horrified at the prospect of him being bullied, but am struggling to understand why he should have to change who he is to fit some kind of stereotype. Don't know what to do, but I am very, very upset about all this.

AIBU to think this is crazy? It's 2022. WTAF?

@Thehundredthnamechange

I would cut my son's hair to avoid his being bullied. Is it fair? No. But neither is life.

so you would bully him to avoid someone else bullying him?

Tell them you can't cut it because his hair = his aerials to the universe!

[quote calmama]@Gowithme Exactly. And I think forcing him to do it to fit a stereotype is actually very dangerous. It basically sends him the message from a very early age that even something as minor as hair length must be conformed to. I actually can't believe it.[/quote]
this 100%

They don't think he's a girl. They're objecting to him not conforming to the stereotypes their parents push on them.

My DS (SEN) went through the same and the school tried to say his hair was why he got bullied, not that other kids liked to find reasons to bully. The view was that if he cut his hair the bullies would move onto another child for something else. Bullying in that school was apparently inevitable.

I gently tried to push the idea of cutting his hair and he pointed out that after he'd done that for them, it would be his mono-brow, his gait, his mannerisms, his shoes, him being vegetarian, his mum being in a wheelchair, (all things they'd picked on) and anything else they felt they could use to belittle and isolate him.
We had a horrible journey for a long time but it was because he had ASD and was different, not because he had long hair.

As he said everyone just stopped 'mistaking' him for a girl when he got taller than them and they decided he might be able to do something about them.

He never did cut it, and now works in a chain of schools with the same uncut hair and the same neat bun hairstyle (creature of habit!) and no child thinks not calling him Sir is cool.
Some of the kids are trans, many of the boys have long hair, some pupils are visibly 'vulnerable' individuals, and across all four schools, bullying over personal preferences, and differences isn't tolerated.
My question to the well meaning teacher is why is it at their school?

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/25/government-issues-gender-identity-guidance-for-teachers-in-england

‘While teachers should not suggest to children who do not comply with gender stereotypes that either their personality or their body is in need of changing, teachers should be supportive of needs of individual students, the guidance added.’

Ridiculous! Two of the boys in my DS’s class (Y2) have long hair, and have done since Reception. It’s never been an issue and they’ve never been bullied. The dad of one of them has extremely long hair himself, right down his back. No-one thinks he’s a girl 🙄

It sounds to me like the teacher is projecting her own prejudices onto your child, and using the risk of bullying as an excuse. Unless, of course, that’s how she deals with bullying - by blaming the victim and telling them to change the way they look or bleach their skin or dye their hair or maybe not even come to school at all 🙄

I’d tell the teacher that her comments made me question her ability to deal with bullies, and what kind of atmosphere she encouraged in her classroom. I’d also ask her how often she’d been bullied by children who saw her wearing trousers and ‘thought she was a man’ 🙄

My friend’s son has never had his hair cut and he’s 13. He has gorgeous blond waves of hair and looks great. My supermarket delivery man has long dark hair in a ‘man-bun’. Your DS’s teacher appears to be stuck in the 1930s.

Is it your son or is it you though ?

as long as your son is not wanting to cut it and the choice to keep it long isnt partly coming from you then no i wouldnt cut it either , your right its 2022 . boys and men shouldnt have to have short hair to be men or males !

some children do get bullied its true , but in my experiance this is due sometimes more to personality , as in my dd went all through junior school and the minute she started secondary that was it , i might as well have thrown her in a sharks pool , she quiet , sweet , wants to help out the teachers , hasnt got a mouth on her at all . never swears , i had to change her to a different school and even there it hasnt been plain sailing . she has still got it at times , but the school are tough on bullying so she had settled in and made some friends and learnt to stand up for herself a bit , as her year head told me , shes just so nice it makes her a target lol .

i wouldnt worry about him being bullied until he actually is and even then the school need to deal with it , personally i think its not down to a child to cut their bloody hair to stop bullying , its down to the school to deal with the sods doing the bullying !!

my friends son who is 11 has longer hair ,, its straight and comes down to his shoulders , the first time we went over for a visit and i met him for the first time , i found it a refreshing change to see a lad that hasnt got a sodding thuggish buzz cut . give me long hair on a man over one of those any day lol

@PlainJaneEyre

He's 5 years old - do you let him do everything that HE wants? It's time for you to tell him it's time for a big boy's haircut or you just let him keep it long. You cannot police everyone's thoughts though regardless of policies, legislations etc. I don't agree that many boys have long hair - that's not what I see coming out of both the private and state school near me.

where its safe and doesn't harm anybody why not? If conforming to avoid bullying was right then women would still be doing the tight skirts high heels and makeup thing without any choice and still putting up with being yelled after and grabbed by men. And since when is a "big boy's haircut" short?

No no no! If he wants it long then he should be able to keep it. If 5 year olds are bullying each other then they need to look at what's going on in their homes because that is not normal, I don't care what anyone says, kids pick it up somewhere, most likely their family members!

The school should be talking to the children and making it clear that bullying is not acceptable and people are free to look/ dress/ act however they want as long as they aren't hurting anyone.

I can't believe in 2022 this is happening. Me and my friends were bullied in the early 2000's for the way we dressed/ looked, and the schools answer was to avoid the canteen. Why is this still allowed to happen??!

I have been teaching over 30 years and this is not your son's problem but his teacher's problem.
Let him enjoy his school years and absolutely challenge such archaic attitudes!

When I was in South Africa I went to an art school in Pretoria and bought the uniform gray trousers. One art teacher lady asked me during class when I’m going to get a uniform and I said ‘I’m wearing it’ and she transformed instantly with her eyes bulging out of her head, repeatedly shrieking ‘ladies MUST wear skirts’ 😃

In the end I had to get a letter from psychiatrist saying I must wear trousers due to ptsd 😦

Other teachers asked if I’m boy or girl lol (am tomboy) and one French teacher took me aside and said he liked my short hair and uniform ☺️ He wasn’t even hitting on me, pretty sure he was gay and just very kind.

@me4real

I was bullied and I would do anything to try and stop any child of mine being bullied, including making sure they don't look or act markedly different to most other children.

I hope you don’t have a ND child.

Also at 5 kids many kids like masculine and feminine things as you put it
I think its an unusual thing for a teacher to say and can't see many teachers saying it
Yes maybe that he has to have it tied back if in eyes etc

I agree that changing things to fit the bullies is an absolute hiding to nothing. Kids will be bullied over anything, absolutely anything from height to surname to brand of bag. Making sure the teachers deal with it properly, the kids have a huge amount of inbuilt confidence etc and they know to come to you is key.

I think there's bullying and then there's "attempted bullying" which is where bullies try it but they're unsuccessful because either they're prevented or the "bullied" brushes it off and isn't affected.

@Elleherd

They don't think he's a girl. They're objecting to him not conforming to the stereotypes their parents push on them.

My DS (SEN) went through the same and the school tried to say his hair was why he got bullied, not that other kids liked to find reasons to bully. The view was that if he cut his hair the bullies would move onto another child for something else. Bullying in that school was apparently inevitable.

I gently tried to push the idea of cutting his hair and he pointed out that after he'd done that for them, it would be his mono-brow, his gait, his mannerisms, his shoes, him being vegetarian, his mum being in a wheelchair, (all things they'd picked on) and anything else they felt they could use to belittle and isolate him.
We had a horrible journey for a long time but it was because he had ASD and was different, not because he had long hair.

As he said everyone just stopped 'mistaking' him for a girl when he got taller than them and they decided he might be able to do something about them.

He never did cut it, and now works in a chain of schools with the same uncut hair and the same neat bun hairstyle (creature of habit!) and no child thinks not calling him Sir is cool.
Some of the kids are trans, many of the boys have long hair, some pupils are visibly 'vulnerable' individuals, and across all four schools, bullying over personal preferences, and differences isn't tolerated.
My question to the well meaning teacher is why is it at their school?

that's crackers! both because of the advice that conformity is required to avoid bullying but also that its ok for the bullies to move off and bully someone else once your child had been bullied into conformity!

Do what you want.
Accept that DS may be bullied about his hair/being feminine and he may want to cut his then.
Let him.

It sucks. School should absolutely be embracing diversity in appearance, AND rejecting traditional gender stereotypes. Not to mention being anti-bullying,(which is in no way just suggest victims change their appearance)

One thing to bear in mind, is that if your child (for whatever reason) Doesn’t feel as though he fits in, he may try not to fit in, in sort of self-defence. It feels better to choose to define yourself as ‘different’ rather than allow other people to forcibly define you as different. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it obviously self-perpetuating. I didn’t realise I did this as a child until fairly recently, because I was decidedly weird as a kid. I’m still a bit odd as an adult, but as I can choose my peers to a great extent, it doesn’t matter. Being forced to spend a ton of time and have your value in your personal society (which for kids largely IS school) defined by people from whom you feel excluded is fairly awful, and a child who feels that will benefit enormously from a shield and developing a strong sense of their own identity, EVEN if it contributes to their peers issues with them. Let him keep the hair. He is who he is, and should get to express it.

@Viviennemary

I would cut his hair unless he really objects to it. Why would you be happy about him being mistaken for a girl. He isn't a girl.

Why does it matter if someone looks like a girl or boy?

@Phobiaphobic

Sorry to break this to you, OP, but in 2022 we're all about the sexual stereotypes now. Apparently it's the only way you can tell who is male and who is female.

Absolutely I remember telling my son when he was 5yo and frequently mistaken for a girl, to correct them politely, and if they insisted (as many used to do) to say - "I have a willy/penis/choice of word".

That would be labelled regressive these days!

@SpiderinaWingMirror

Do what you want. Accept that DS may be bullied about his hair/being feminine and he may want to cut his then. Let him.

that sounds to me perilously like saying "allow the child to be bullied and then he will want his hair cut" But I am sure you didn't mean that did you? because that would be truly nasty.

NEVER accept that a child (or anyone) may be bullied....again that's like saying women should have accepted that they would be bullied for not conforming to stereotype.

@PlainJaneEyre

‘He's 5 years old - do you let him do everything that HE wants? It's time for you to tell him it's time for a big boy's haircut or you just let him keep it long. You cannot police everyone's thoughts though regardless of policies, legislations etc. I don't agree that many boys have long hair - that's not what I see coming out of both the private and state school near me.’

Woah, I feel sorry for your DC! It’s extremely ironic that you mentioned policing other’s thoughts while you and this nincompoop teacher want to police a child’s body because you’re homophobic and want people to act like stereotypes.

You doesn’t just submit to (hypothetical) bullies’, if you want to have self respect. It’s extremely depressing to read how awful some people are, victim blaming him before he’s even a victim, catering to bullies and homophobia and harmful gender stereotypes.

Tell the teacher to tell the bullies that anyone can have long hair. They're being ridiculous.
'Boys should have short hair therefore anyone who has long hair must be a girl' is a regressive, sexist stereotype. I'd be surprised if the school supported the teacher in this.

@DietrichandDiMaggio I hope you feel the same about mothers who want their daughters to have long pretty hair so they can stick bows in it and style them like their own personal doll, because it's the exact same thing.
There are no comments about girls long hair getting in the way or being a distraction as that's what is expected. It's ridiculous.

The school should be addressing its bullying problem, not telling pupils how to wear their hair.

This should be your son's choice.