DD (9, Y5) has been getting picked on by a girl for a couple of years now. It seems to happen in peaks and troughs. But this girl’s focus is on DD’s height. She’s very small for her age, as is her dad. If you looked at her you’d think she was 7yo max. Her 5yo brother is only 2 inches shorter, and some of her friends are head and shoulders taller. And the girl picking on her constantly calls her titch, shorty, dwarf, shortarse and constantly pats her on the head like she’s a dog. If something has been said in class when they’re learning, for example the teacher describes a ‘small mountain’ this girl will shout out “Just like Emily” (meaning my DD, not her real name).
I raised it last year but she had a bit of a hippy teacher in his last year of teaching who said things like “I’ll work on empowering Emily” and “I’ll do a lesson on how name calling isn’t ok” - which is all very well but FFS just tell this girl to stop it!!!
I raised it with the head who is as much use as a chocolate fireguard and just says “Oh well these things happen and we do encourage resilience”. Which I agree with but one child can only take so much.
To avoid drip feeding - this is a private school with very low numbers and the bully girl is one of 5 siblings. I’ve strongly suspected they don’t want to upset the family in case they pull all their kids out. It seems to be a pattern with wealthy/large families, whereas I only have 2 in school.
Anyway I spoke to her new teacher in the first day of term and said it absolutely cannot happen this year as DD is starting to dread school and has come home crying too often, and I don’t wanna have to pull her out. New teacher is much more of a ball buster than last year’s teacher and said she’d directly pull any name calling or mean behaviour. And all seemed to go well this term (except for the odd incident). Until today.
DD’s teacher called me to say that all her break times will be removed next week and she will have to stay indoors. Apparently the bully girl made a comment when DD was asked to pin something she’s done on a display the wall. She said “Someone get Emily a stepladder”.
DD replied and said “I may be short but at least I’m not fat.” The girl in question is quite overweight. She burst into tears and DD has had that punishment.
Now I’m not condoning what DD said, I’ve always said we never talk about how people look because look how awful it makes someone feel. But after 2 years of grief from this girl when there’s been NO action taken against her, my DD seemingly has snapped and now is being punished for 1 offence. The bully girl was made to apologise but isn’t getting the same punishment.
Full disclosure: DH has suggested before that DD say this to the girl (to which I promptly said FGS NO don’t say that!). But bear in mind we had her coming home upset and crying yet again by this nasty girl who just won’t fucking stop.DH got fed up and said that if she can comment on DD’s height the only way to stop it is to bite back equally as hard. Which I don’t agree with - but I bet that’s why DD’s said it.
WIBU to see the Head and say this is unfair, yes DD should be punished but why hasn’t the other girl ever had a punishment once? Why is fat shaming terrible but height shaming ok and should be tolerated? Neither can be helped of children. I did tell her teacher I’m not happy but she seemed to think it was much more unacceptable what DD said than what the other girl said!