Should I take this to the school?

[ZeeB68]

For the last few months, my 8 year old ( almost 9) daughter who is in year 3 has been coming home looking stressed and down. I've asked her a number of times if something is bothering her and she just says no I'm tired. Their has been a few things I've found odd ( which now make sense) like, my daughter is half pakistani and has more of her dad's skin tone. She also has gorgeous very thick dark almost black hair so naturally she does have quite thick dark hair on her arms and legs due to the genetics of having darker hair and pakistani genetics but I have never wanted to make her feel uncomfortable so never pointed it out to her or made it obvious or an issue.a couple of months ago she started asking me " am I really dark brown" " im not beautiful like you,you are white" I kept asking her where these comments were coming from but she would just cry and not tell me. Another big issue is my daughter was in the bath, I left her for a few minutes to get her clean clothes out before taking her out and she called me in saying mummy I'm bleeding. I went in to check on her and realised she had found a razor and had shaved her arms and legs. When I asked her why again she just cried. I asked if someone was saying things to her and she promised me no one was. Yesterday my daughter came upset saying a girl ( who she has been friends with since nursery came up to her randomly and said " Mt mum hates your mum" my daughter responded with " my mummy hasn't done anything wrong and my mummy doesn't speak to your mum' I told my daughter if I lost something that upset her I will speak to the girls mum and my daughter started panicking saying no please don't she will tell more lies about me and started crying I told her there must be more going on she isn't telling me. This girl has been going to the teacher daily telling lies about her. My daughter said she keeps walking away from her but she keeps on doing this. My daughter also told me this girl made comments about her skin colour, saying " your so dark brown" and on a number of occasions has said " your so hairy omg" and ran away laughing. My daughter doesn't want me to speak to the teacher what would you do ?

Speak to school!

Yes, share this with the school. You'll be bringing your valid concerns about your child's well-being to their attention. Possibly they have seen changes in behaviour at school, or a discourse in friendship that the children need support with, or the learning they are covering recently has triggered this and needs tackling with a little more sensitivity. The school can also support with teaching about diversity and difference which they most likely already do but could be worth revisiting.

I’ve voted unreasonable because you shouldn’t need to ask. Go and talk to the class teacher in the first instance. This is racism and needs stopping. Ask how they are going to safeguard your child. Good luck.

I almost voted Yabu because of course you must go to the teacher and describe what is happening. How is this even a question?

Remind your dd that any secret that makes you feel sad or worried should be shared with an adult she trusts, so she has done the right thing telling you. Reassure her that her “friend” is ugly on the inside and that’s a far bigger problem than having some hair, which is part of her natural beauty. Point out that we are all different and if we all looked identical like dolls it would be very boring.

And then your job is to help. You know this kind of bullying won’t stop unless an adult intervenes.

Regarding the hairy legs and arms - there are several MN threads on whether and when it is right to help a young girl remove unwanted hair. She may forget about it when the racist bully stops her campaign of misery.

report to the school, obviously, and do it today.

Of course- your DD is being bullied and subject to racism. I hope school respond strongly and appropriately to put a stop to it.

Also can i give some advice if your dd is keeping her worries to herself ? My dd was picked on at this age by a friend and I found a good way to help was to walk her home from school - we had a long walk of 1.5mi - and talk as we walked. I didn’t immediately ask about her bully, I would jus talk generally about my day (both good and bad) and how I felt and how I was dealing with my problems (obviously selecting age appropriate issues!) and then I would ask about her day - what was the best thing, what had she learned, what was lunchbreak like. If she was chatty she would then open up about her problems a lot more easily.

I would also help by having play dates with potential new friends so she could avoid the nasty girls at lunch.

Try and create a regular space to communicate with your dd and don’t fixate on this one problem because she will start to dread talking to you as many children are fearful of the negative emotions and don’t want mums dragged into their problems.

Reality is you NEED her to be telling you these things, and if you can make that a positive experience then it sets you up well for y5 and y6 whic are often worse than y4.

Urgh kids can be vile sometimes. If I was your child's teacher I would want to know about it so that I could keep a closer eye on it. I feel for your daughter, I'm very pale but have dark hair and am quite a hairy person, it was very obvious on my arms and legs and face when I was younger and I remember being teased a bit about it.

Just please keep an eye on her in that she never starts to try and shave it off like I did. It was definitely not the answer!

This is most certainly an issue to talk to your daughter's teacher about. You might want to make a list of bullet points on paper and take it with you, because thus is quite an upsetting issue and it might help you to have some notes.

Thank you for all your replies. I know I needed to tell someone but it was horrible seeing her so upset begging me to not to out of fear the girl would make up more lies about her and she would get into trouble.

I have told her it's one thing winding you up but when it comes to her skin colour and her body hair she needs to speak up especially. She's such a sweet girl and very mature for her age and is so kind and caring to everyone. She doesn't speak to the girl and walks away because she knows not to get involved with those kind of kids. She's very bright and loves school too so I'm worried she will end up not wanting to go in completely or end up not liking school. It's made me very upset too I was crying last night because she said she didn't tell me because she didn't want me to get upset and she wants me to be happy. I told her she can tell me anything and that she doesn't need to worry about me getting upset and she needs to tell me if things aren't OK so I can help her fix it. On the other hand I have spoke to her about how it could be dangerous the fact she's tried shaving her legs and arms on her own as she cut herself it could have been worse. I've just spoke to the teacher who was standing outside and asked to speak to the school teacher too. She said she will speak to my daughter today and find out what's going on and she will also do some work regarding body positivity on her. I will find out today from my daughter if anything has been done I'm not going to just leave it. I appreciate too kids are just kids but my daughter has to live in her body and I can see how these comments are affecting her regarding her hair and skin colour. It's really upset me. I forgot to mention she is one of the only muslim-asian kids in school, if that's the right way to put it. I've always had it in the back of my mind that this could happen but up until now its been fine. She's in year 3 now so I guess as now all the kids are getting older and becoming aware that's why now its started. I will try and sort it out with school but I am wondering if it is best to look at other options of changing to more of a mixed school where there is other children like her too, if that is maybe an option and road worth going down. My son is in year 2 nd luckily nothing like this as of yet.

You absolutely should talk to the teacher especially as the bullying is racial. The school should have policies in place to set out clearly the procedures they follow and you can ask to see this. The school should come down on any racism like a ton of bricks. Reassure your daughter that it's the right thing to do to tell her teacher and ask the teacher to Reassure her of this too.

Definitely speak to the school.

My son was bullied at school (not race related- which I think adds another huge dimension) and I do wish I had removed him much earlier. I eventually did in later primary years and he was much much happier and made some good friends at the new school. I hesitated for a long time as I was worried he would be worse off- but he wasn't.

Definitely speak to the school, your poor daughter.
I would be absolutely livid if my child was doing this to another, it needs stopping now!

My five year old had some horrible things said about his physical appearance, he begged me not to speak to school. I had to explain that sometimes adults need to take steps to keep their kids safe and that I would work with the school to support him as the other kid's actions are not acceptable and that my son should feel safe at school. I worked with school and did role play with my son at home.

Sometimes, despite the begging, you have to not do as your daughter asks. Yes, you'll be the bag guy at first, but hopefully the school and with your pushing will sort the issue and your daughter will see how to be strong and how speaking out when someone treats you badly is the right thing to do.

The teacher don't me this morning she will speak to my daughter today at school, when I pick her up we will see what comes of it and if the teacher comes back to me, if they don't I think I should ask to speak to the head teacher.

One of the things the teaching assistant told me this morning is that she would do some work around body positivity with my daughter, there was no issues before she started getting comments and I feel now looking back they were just pushing it to the side.

I also think back to the incident of my daughter shaving her arms and legs, is that not even a form of self harm, she never mentioned anything before and never tried to do such a thing before the comments made to her. She only called me In because she had cut her ankle with the razor and I noticed the hair had gone of her arms and legs, I just keep looking back now thinking imagine if she'd cut herself worse from it or touched one of her veins it's all sensitive around there. It's just all really upset me.