Am I being overly sensitive about this comment from my sons teacher?

[Specksofwhiteallaround]

Just looking for some perspective as I have quite extreme social anxiety so could well be reading something in this comment that isn’t intended. Sorry it’s a bit long, I just wanted to include the background as it’s probably relevant to how I’ve read it.

For full context my son is 9, has autism and attends a special school. His school does a lot of dressing up days to raise money for various causes etc but they have form for some being very short notice, eg: the evening before in some cases.
I get that for a lot of people it’s probably not too much of a problem to run the shop and grab whatever they needed but for us it’s a pain in the ass as there are no shops near us that sell kids clothes, I have no access to a car and the bus service to the nearest town is very limited, which his school and teacher are aware of.

It's careers week this week and yesterday morning there was an email asking kids to come dressed as what they want to be when they grow up today. My son says he wants to be an office worker so we went with school trousers, a formal white shirt and a plain jumper as the shirt was short sleeved and it’s freezing. We mocked up an ID with his picture, laminated it and out it on a lanyard and he was happy.

There is a daily email home and in todays one his teacher mentioned the career outfits and made a point of saying some had improvised and specifically mentioned my sons outfit. My first thought was of course we improvised you gave us a days notice but then I felt kinda of deflated like she was implying I hadn’t made any effort.
A little while ago it was numbers day and again the night before they wanted kids to come in clothes with numbers on and unluckily we didn’t have any, his teacher mentioned in the email that she’d got some stick on numbers so no kids missed out, and it just made me feel a bit crap, like my son was missing out because we didn’t happen to own a jumper with numbers on which is surely ridiculous.

Would anyone else take this as a mild criticism or am I just being paranoid?

Why do you care?

I’d need to see the email to judge. Seems weird that they would say anything remotely negative, or which could be interpreted that way. They should be encouraging the kids to express themselves however they want/can.

Let it go. You have done your best. I used to hate the dressing up days also when kids brought in projects which were clearly done by the parents.

I think you are overthinking this.

She’s complimenting your ingenuity.

She’s admitting it was late in the day and admiring that you’ve managed something. Nothing to fret about.

You're definitely over thinking this.

Can you tell us what she said about the recent one?

I absolutely hate dress up days. It's so wasteful and I just don't understand it. Surely it would be better for the school to do an hour activity to create something relevant (something you'd need in your chosen career for example), that have parents dress children up with no learning attached.

It's just elitist and stupid. Sorry, I absolutely hate it and YANBU.

I would respond back with something like "we love to improvise, we hate waste given all that's going on currently!"

It wouldn't be unreasonable to email the office too, asking for the school to give more notice and perhaps less frequent events.

Personally I think 'improvised' in this context is good - yours was a much more creative option than buying a ready made costume and entirely appropriate.

I think they were probably praising rather than criticising your costume. I don't think that schools want all children in a new bought costume for every dress up day and using what you have and making something (like the ID badge) is probably exactly what they like to see.

I’d take it as a compliment I’m sure it’s meant that way. Schools prefer creative and diy to shop bought. Love you did what your son wanted - not wear the police man suit as we’ve already got that costume. The ‘work’ ID lanyard is genius.

I’m surprised a special school has so many dressing up days, especially at such short notice. My son is autistic, he went to a mainstream school and I remember how stressful dress up days were as he struggled with clothing so much. His school were happy for him to go in wearing whatever he wanted in those days 🤷🏼‍♀️

Are you sure she wasn't impressed at your improvising skills? I would have thought that that was what she meant.

You ABU about the comment but you ANBU to be annoyed that your school gives you one evening 's notice for dress-up days!

That's ridiculous. My child's school gives you about 3 or 4 week's notice and they don't have many dress-up days to start with!

You are being paranoid. Improvising is a good thing and the teacher was being complimentary. Your office outfit sounds great. The lanyard is a great idea. And who has jumpers or tops with numbers on? A school never expects parents to go to a shop and buy costumes or special clothes -ever. For numbers, I’d have cut one out of a bit of paper and pinned it on a normal top.

I also think she meant it as a compliment!

Yes, exactly.

She was praising you - saying that parents can improvise rather than buying costumes/clothes. Our school encourages if. They specifically say not to buy something new for dress up days.

Improvisation takes more than buying something. It was a compliment and probably put out there that it's ok to do that. As said you are overthinking it, take it as a compliment.

I read that as 'no need to buy anything, improvising with whatever you have at home is fine'.

Have you and the other parents asked for more notice for dressing up days? Because one day is ridiculous.

I’d definitely politely feedback that you are happy to join in but more notice would be best as you don’t have local shops or transport so you’ve got time to get/make/borrow something.

To the people saying I’m over thinking it, I absolutely am. It’s a major symptom of my social anxiety and I find it very hard not to dwell on things, especially anything that feeds into the feeling that I’m not going as well as I could be with my son.

I didn’t occur to me that she might have meant it positively, I really hope that was the intent. Dh didn’t help as he read the email and asked why the teacher was throwing shade at me 😬

I think you’re being a little sensitive. The school really cannot be making anyone feel bad about costumes when they give such little notice. She sounds like she was praising you. They also hate for parents to buy outfits. I think this is what she meant by the numbers? Almost accepting it was a ridiculous request and saying they’d help those that didn’t have numbered clothes.

Even if it’s ‘no need to buy’ notice is still needed as not everyone has yellow or a spotty top etc and you may need to buy or borrow one.

If anything she was probably admiring the ingenuity of those who improvised. When we had dressing up with prizes at my school the prizes always went to home made costumes never to bought ones. She probably mentioned the numbers so nobody thought their child had missed out.