4yo daughter calling strangers fat

[Twobirdsinatree]

I think I might be overreacting here but this has really upset me and I dont know how to handle it at all.
My 4yo daughter has started calling strangers fat in a derogatory way.
Today we were in the doctors waiting room and she walked over to a young woman who was very obese and said 'you are a fat chungus, look at the fat chungus' and laughed. I was absolutely mortified. She has not heard this from me or her father. I am overweight myself and I would never in a million years call someone fat as an insult or comment on anyones weight in front of my daughter.. or at all! I also try not to criticise my own appearance in front of her.
I apologised to the woman and told my daughter that it was rude to comment on peoples appearance because it might hurt their feelings and if you dont know that person you dont know what might hurt them so dont say anything at all about their body.
shortly after that i went outside to speak to my son.. my mum was with my daughter.. and as I came back in I heard her doing it again! So I got a little angry with her and said 'no dont do that'
After the appointment the woman was still in the waiting room and as we walked out the door my daughter started saying 'fat chungus fat chungus' !!

When we got home I tried to talk to my daughter about it and tried to reason with her and ask her why she said that, and she said 'I dont like fat chungus its yuk, I dont want to see fat people at the doctors' I tried to explain to her how sad saying that might make someone feel but she didn't seem remotely moved she just kept saying that it was yuk and she didn't want to see it.
It really shocked me.

Am I unreasonable to be very worried or is this just a normal phase I should chill out about?
My son is older and he never did anything like this. He was naughty/cheeky of course sometimes but he always seemed to naturally understand about caring about other peoples feelings and not being nasty.
I'm finding it hard to get my daughter to understand.

Just so as to add any relevant information my daughter is on SEN register at the moment and has traits of ADHD I think.. altho not extreme. Apparently at school she cares very little about authority or what she's supposed to do and can be a bit ungovernable!
She has also just gone on the brown inhaler which contains steroids which could possibly be effecting her?
Also shes had a bit of upheaval because her grandad, my dad dropped dead unexpectedly a couple of months ago and he lived abroad so I went away for a month to help my mother who is disabled (he was her carer) sort everything out.. and my mother has now come back to live with us so I can take over her care and is sharing a room with my daughter..
She was quite close to her grandad.

Does anyone have any advice about how I should be reacting to this behaviour? Am I overreacting? Is she just unsettled at the moment and it will pass or do you think there's something I'm not doing right?

My son went through a phase of saying that every dog we saw was very fat and that was mortifying enough! We just kept saying that it wasn’t kind and he did quickly grow out of it.
I hope your daughter does too and all will be forgotten!

Did it occur to you that maybe fat chunguses don't want to see your daughter in the doctors? Who was the appointment for anyway? Did it really necessitate a family day out or are you one of these people that has to take the whole family into the waiting room just for one person to see the Dr? Maybe don't let her go up to people she doesn't know I'm the first place.

Fat Chungus is from YouTube. Shit like that is why YouTube is banned in my house. Stop her screentime or heavily supervise it.

@BrownOwlknowsbest you are right I've been lax recently. She doesnt have any tech herself but its her older brother.. he's not supposed to watch YouTube on the smart tv but sometimes he does. I need to crack down on it and pay more attention to what he's putting on when she's in the room.
I did talk to him about 'chungus' when I was putting him to bed tonight and asked him not to be saying that in front of her because she's not old enough to really understand when its not appropriate to say things. I told him what happened in the doctors with her and he was also mortified.

She's four

The sleeping thing is not ideal op, I'm wondering if there's any way you could implement some wiggle room. So if mum absolutely have to be in her room can daughter's bed be moved into another room. If you fully explain this and talk it through it will help. Or take her blankets and covers and sleep with you, husband on the sofa? Or get some sort of separating screen. That's a pretty big change to expect a child to accept and won't be helping matters.

For what it's worth my son had a few days or crying and being unsettled when moving him to a bed. However, we were consident and very routine with how we did it, keeping everything else around bedtime regimented and he is now fine with the change.

@JoyBeorge are you joking? Where do you expect me to put her? Leave her at home alone with her 7 year old brother? And how do you expect my mum to get herself to her doctors appointment on her own, she needs 24 hr care and im her carer, she's in a wheelchair...

And if she's Nd the sensory overload of having another person in her room, let alone a strange adult, is a huge deal.

I agree that consequences are needed - eg no tv, take a toy away, and keep up the consequences if she keeps being deliberately hurtful to others. You could try removing her immediately but she might use rudeness as a way to get out of doing something she doesn't want to do.

But praise when she's being kind, paying attention when you're doing an activity together, tell her how lovely it is to spend time with her, that's she's a great sister, friend or whatever positive thing you can think of to reinforce. You do need to balance with consequences for bad behaviour though, or she could end up friendless or a bully.

@RunLolaRun102 is it? Thats helpful.. shes absolutely got this from her brother watching YouTube when she's in the room then. I am really gonna have to crack down on that then. I'd banned it for him but recently he's been managing to put it on the TV again.
She has no access to screens by herself. She doesnt have a tablet and the TV is wall mounted and can only be switched on by an adult or my son.

My DS has SEND and he used to do similar all the time when he was around that age. Not necessarily the same way because he never said it directly to them but instead very loudly to me about them. I remember being in a lift and him telling me the man in their smelt and he didn't want him in the lift. I was absolutely mortified and apologised and luckily he laughed it off but it's not nice. I just made sure that every single time he did it, I told him the same phrase to keep it consistent "no, that's not nice, we don't talk about other people like that". Because of his SEND he's very direct, to the point and has no filter and it's very hard at times! But I still make sure I tell him because although that filter doesn't come naturally to him, he needs to learn it because you can't say things like that about other people. He's 8 now and he still has no filter and says inappropriate things all the time, but we have managed to stop the comments about people we don't know. You need to be consistent and tell her every single time that no, that isn't ok. She might not fully understand you telling her how it makes other people feel so make sure what you say is appropriate to her understanding and basic and to the point

💖

You are doing your best to deal with the situation. You just havd to keep reminding her to be mindful of people’s feelings.

How about you in the bunkbeds with your daughter (I'm thinking she might behave better and settle better with you in the room) and your son in the main bedroom with his dad?

I'd banned it for him but recently he's been managing to put it on the TV again

So your son needs a consequence for that. The obvious one is he loses TV privilege. Disconnect. Job done.

@YouScumbagYouMaggotHeresKevinTheCarrot ill try her in my sons room again after Christmas. I already moved all of her stuff into there and made a section of it for her toys. Her stuff is still all in there she also has her own drawers and wardrobe in there... its just she wouldn't settle on the bottom bunk of his bed at all when we tried

I'd be thinking about why that is. It may be that after a period of being unsettled she feels unsafe in an unfamiliar bed. As a pp said, possible solution is your son in with dad and you in with her.(but again, will need to make sure it's the best solution for son too) Or mattress on the floor and you in with them both for part or the whole night.

@YouScumbagYouMaggotHeresKevinTheCarrot yeah I'm gonna start that from now. I've turned a blind eye coz my mum likes to watch cat videos on YouTube so it will be on already then I think he manages to put what he wants on. Id removed the app completely before she came.
I have been guilty of just ignoring it coz so much else was going on. But yes I think its totally toxic and I need to get rid of the app again. My son didn't even know what it was until last year.. but my daughter is too young to even have that stuff on in the background

It really isn't rocket science. You take her straight home and tell her in a very firm voice that what she said was horrible. She has a consequence whether that's no cbeebies or no pudding or no whatever.

Telling her that it made you sad is wet and has clearly made absolutely no difference to her whatsoever. This is why we have loads of kids who make horrible, unkind comments to others and behave badly. We no longer have consequences.

Just to say I do believe she was genuinely repulsed and not just being mean. She may have found the size of the woman, if she was very very large, to be unusual and upsetting with her sen needs. So it's not her being super mean but struggling to understand why a person looks so unusual and it threatened her sense of self, hence wanting her not to be there.
This may have been influenced by YouTube but it is natural to find excessive obesity not attractive.
Of course if she was just overweight then this does not apply.
Takeaway, validate her feelings too as well as explaining the woman may be hurt. She doesn't understand that, just feels her own reaction. At 4 she is not being deliberately mean.

Is there a Dad on the scene?
When is she 5?
When you say 'SEN register' is she diagnosed with anything yet?

Tbh op the nature of YouTube is you can't really leave it unsupervised as they can be watching the most wholesome thing in the world and then the algorithm will present them with something completely appropriate. I believe YouTube kids is better but not foolproof.
That's why I have dedicated telly reward time, as it means I can supervise and control what is watched and when.
If you feel you can't do this you are best sticking to scheduled netflicks or BBC with a child only profile.

@YouScumbagYouMaggotHeresKevinTheCarrot unfortunately our bedroom in the attic is not suitable for the children at all because the roof leaks and causes black mould (which I do stay on top of but sometimes it can just appear overnight) no way id let the kids sleep in there long term
Shes always been like that about sleeping in her own bed in her own room.. if we go anywhere like to a hotel or holiday let or friends house.. she will not sleep at all during the night.
I'm just going to persevere with my sons room.. it hopefully won't be forever just until my mum gets proper accommodation