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?

Agree with pp that they definitely do ask for specific colours etc to be worn at times! At least, our school does.

I think part of my problem is that almost all our interaction is via email which is very easy to misinterpret and because of my own issues I’m over sensitive.

It doesn’t help we’ve had a run of bad luck with non uniform days lately as it always seems to be something we don’t own. We’ve had spots, yellow and numbers we had nothing for any of them and struggled to buy something online that would arrive in time. Pyjamas and world book were an issue as my sons really resistant to them.

I don’t think any school wants parents to go out and spend unnecessary money. Ours certainly doesn’t. They just want the kids to have fun.

It is crap short notice though.

oh and half the kids at special schools don’t dress up either. Nobody takes any notice, or judges whether they dress up or not. It really is a non issue.

YANBU to be annoyed by all the dress up days, especially at short notice, that's ridiculous! Our school doesn't do any, presumably because it's a pain for parents.

It's a compliment, and I think she was trying to reassure other parents that they don't have to go out and buy stuff in order to have a good outfit.

Don’t buy new things! That’s crazy. Stick some spots on a T-shirt, borrow something in a particular colour, wear those colour socks if they have them or whatever. It’s not a big deal and schools don’t expect parents to buy needlessly for these days

I agree with others - it’s a compliment! My child won a prize for his world book day costume, I was really surprised as I just made it at home the night before, but that was apparently why he won the prize - his costume was home made!

I'm shocked that a SEN school for autistic children is holding so many dressing up days given that change of routine and sensory issues are a trigger for very many of these children.

His first couple of teachers used to email not to worry about dress up if your child wasn’t happy, just do what they were comfortable with but as he’s gotten older there seems to be much more of an expectation to join in. Thankfully he’s much better than he used to be with clothing issues in general but he still draws the line at most dressing up outfits. His current teacher is new and very enthusiastic, so lots of can’t wait to see costume comments in the emails etc which kinda adds to the pressure a little bit although I appreciate that’s not her fault.
Relieved to be told I’m being paranoid, she seems lovely generally so seemed a bit weird to single out what he was wearing today.

I think she was praising your ingenuity. What an amazing outfit and thinking outside of the box!

They probably don't, but they need to put a bit more thought into what they ask people to do in that case.
If pupils are asked to wear, say, green the day after tomorrow, many parents will find themselves rushing to the shop as they don't want their DC to feel left out.

I'm not a huge fan of dress-up days, partly because my kids usually feel uncomfortable and embarrassed in their outfits. They tend to be shy and prefer not to draw attention to themselves. They're much happier to wear their uniforms and so dress-up at school days are a struggle. They're certainly not having fun if that's the school's intention. I understand that other children will love it, of course.

Sounds like a compliment-she's saying she was impressed as opposed to the random dressing up outfit that has no baring on the subject!

It sounds like your son is wanting to join in properly so lack of notice is potentially upsetting him eg. He wanted to wear a top with a number on but became short notice you couldn’t borrow something suitable eg a football shirt from a friend. I’d definitely just email politely for more notice.
Harry enjoys the dress up days thank you for arranging these. If possible could you let us have a little more notice. We live rurally with no transport and it’s not always easy to buy or borrow things at short notice and Harry does want to join in.

@Anoisagusaris Would love to borrow but we haven’t got anyone around us to do that so when it’s something like wear yellow it’s a case of trying to buy an item of clothing or just not bothering. We did try draw spots on one of his jumpers once and he hit the roof, could not understand why we’d defaced his jumper and refused to wear it 😅

Have vowed this year to buy socks in a range of colours, sadly they all grey right now and they’ve yet to do a dress in grey day.

In a sea of shop bought nurse/dr/policeman outfits your sons would have really stood out in a lovely way hence mentioning it. Take it as a compliment. (If he still wants to work in an office when he grows up our council has an apprenticeship scheme specifically for young adults with autism)

I would have thought improvising was meant in a nice way.

I'm sure she didn't think anything negative.

It's praise.

They don't want people buying specific outfits for events.

They want others to do what you did

@Corgiorsheepdog That’s definitely a problem, I’m hyper aware of him being left out and I’d definitely be one of the parents rushing out to buy a themed top etc it’s just not possible where we live.

It all feeds into feeling that we’re just not putting in as much effort as other parents. We have to email weekend news every Sunday for them to use in literacy Monday morning and it’s almost making me dread weekends. We’re not rolling in money and with no transport we generally do a lot of walking and hang out at home or in the garden weather permitting. So I’m super aware that every weekend news is the same and worry endlessly that it makes us look like really crappy parents who do nothing with our son etc.
Thinking about it, it’s probably another reason I’m looking for negativity that isn’t really there.

We had world book day last week and we encourage our families to improvise. The children who win prizes are ALWAYS those who improvise!

I think the whole system of given parents 24hr notice is more of a concern. My sons partner is expecting. He said he had everything and we got to talking about what you need now for children that you didn't used to need...for example tablets for 3 year old. I joked that all parents of primary aged children need a selection of costumes on standby....so Book Day plus a Victorian and Roman outfit😀
Back to the remark...I believe she's complimenting you on being able make an outfit by using things most parents would have in the home. She's complementing your creativity.
And finally....are you really bothered. I mean really?

I read it as positive.

As in many didn't do it (understandable at last notice) and some improvised and came up with something.

But I wouldnt stress. Many children in SN education wouldn't be able to manage not going in uniform.

I work in special education and dress up days wary widely between those that wear uniform, those who have nice home made costumes and those who have expensive brought costumes.

The staff don't judge. We just make sure all pupils enjoy the day in a way they can and with what they can cope with.

Forget about trying to analyse the teacher’s email, you need to work on sorting out your social anxiety issues. That’s the real issue here. Until you tackle this, you’re going to be exhausted continually looking to find things to feed your irrational fears. You also don’t want to pass on your negativity to your child as he grows up.

There are lots of different therapeutic approaches to improving your anxiety and self esteem so even if you’ve tried a couple of things and they’ve not worked for you, you owe it to your future self to keep trying.

Improvising isn't a negative concept, you've misunderstood but otoh you are unreasonable to feel that you should be spending money every week buying clothes for dress up day, the wastefulness is shocking

There is a couple of things - firstly the school needs to be given feedback - that notice is needed. We have a monthly email that is circulated setting out the following months events - this really helps.

Secondly, I think emails are very influenced with our pre conceived tones! so the teacher could be in their head saying don't worry I have xyz to help out and in our heads we hear - parents are not organised etc.

Finally, I have a box full of absolute random items to cover colours/charitable/animal dress up days 90% came from bargain bins, charity shops etc, or promotional items given to me which with trusty duct tape and permanent marker and Ikea delivery boxes can become pretty much anything.