Odd girl in daughters class

[Scottishbornandbread43]

Daughter is in primary school and has always had a nice group of friends.
There is a girl in her class that is a bit strange (sorry please don’t think im
being mean). She talks and sings to herself at inappropriate times, she chews everything and leaves bite marks on everything including other people’s property- her conversations are odd - constantly talking about bugs, she asks my daughter every day if she’s had her period yet (daughter is 10). There is a list of strange things this girl does.

My daughter felt sorry for her as no one played with her but now my daughter has found her other friends now don’t want to play with her.

My daughter spoke to me over the weekend and said she doesn’t want to be friends with this girl anymore but says she follows her around saying ‘she worships her’ (which I think is bizarre)and doesn’t want to be told off for telling her to leave her alone.

I feel sorry for this girl as did my daughter but I don’t think my daughter realised how intense she would become.

any advise? My daughter tried being kind but is now so upset as she doesn’t want be unkind to her but she just wants some space from her

She wasn’t calling the child bizarre, odd or anything else. She was attempting to describe the behaviour without assigning any label to it. No one is doubling down on anything, and OP certainly wasn’t calling her names !! There’s been a lot said on this thread about people needing to avoid causing offence. There’s a whole different conversation to be had about pages and pages of offence still being taken at something that wasn’t intended that way. No-one has a god given right not to be offended. It’s all in how you handle that offence, and turning it back on those who have said clearly no offence was meant, is not it.

Nah! Not buying it. It's just a discussion. No adult on here is going to stop using the word odd in a situation like this.

Maybe not, but SEN has no relevance to OP’s post. She went out of her way to say the words she was using were to try to avoid applying any suggestion of disability as she was not qualified/had no knowledge of the child. And still people are insisting on taking offence, where it clearly and specifically wasn’t intended, and it’s the intent that’s important. Free speech includes the right to offend and the right to be offended.

Whether she meant offence is neither here nor there. Although, I do think you would have to be rather odd to not think using numerous words with negative connotations to describe a child wouldn't cause offense. I also find it bizarre instead of educating yourselves you would rather double down on your ignorance.

If "doubling down" on my ignorance means not instantly changing my opinion to match yours, then yeah 🤷‍♀️. Not offended by that either.

Why is it ok for you to call posters odd?

Be the change you want to see.

OP could just be relating what her dd is telling her.

They're calling us odd because they think it proves that it's an offensive word 😂

In case the OP happens to return to this thread, we had a similar situation and found the only thing that helped was 'quantifying' the help DD was prepared to offer. We had a number of unsuccessful meetings with the school prior to this. You need to be very specific or they will drift back to the path of least resistance.

I will give you actual examples of what was agreed in case they are of any help when quantifying the support your own DD is prepared to offer:

Elodie (not her real name) struggled in the mornings and so would enter the classroom through a different entrance to the other children (avoiding the chaotic cloakrooms and morning rush) and do quiet activities with a TA in a side room before joining the class after registration once lessons had started. School had been making DD join her for all of this. DD said she was happy to meet Elodie on the playground each morning and go in with her, but wanted to leave Elodie with the TA and join her classmates for registration and pre-lesson activities.

DD was being heavily encouraged by the playground supervisors to play with Elodie every break and lunchtime. At the time Elodie did not have the social skills for reciprocal play and had no shared interests with DD. It was agreed that DD would play with her every Thursday lunchtime and that the school would find Elodie another buddy or find her positions of responsibility with the younger children on the infant playground for the other days. The school also promised a break-time TA for Elodie for one day a week to help her access group games with her peers, but this did not end up materialising.

The school switched seating plans every half term, however DD had been paired with Elodie almost continuously for over a year. She was also partnered with her for every school trip and every PE lesson/class activity. We said DD was happy to be partnered with her in class for one half term every year and one school trip every year.

I think friendships with children like Elodie can be tricky as they often lack the core social skills needed to be a good friend. However if no children play with them they also lose any opportunity to develop those skills. Ideally they need time with kind but assertive children, preferably with an adult on hand to intervene when needed. DD was kind but not assertive, so Elodie was not learning anything from the friendship and missing a huge opportunity to develop new skills.

DD and Elodie are now in Year 10 at different schools. Elodie is absolutely thriving in specialist provision (busy social life, girlfriend and doing well academically I am told) and they still keep in touch via Snapchat. The friendship was a good lesson in boundaries for DD and Elodie was a good role model for proudly following your own interests in the face of people that think you are 'odd'.

It’s everything to do with it. It’s the intent that’s important. People have the right to be offended, but whether or not they are justified in doing so is all about the intent. I’ve been disabled all my life. I’ve educated myself just fine thanks, and have been a disability outreach worker for over ten years. The ignorance here is not on the part of the OP. It’s on those who insist on reinforcing offence where none was intended, and OP was clear that she did not mean any offence.

The word ‘odd’ is defined as ‘different to what is usual or expected - strange’. Where is the offence here ? These words were directed at the behaviour not the child, to avoid labelling them with a condition that may be inappropriate. I’ve never come across this attitude IRL. Mostly only exists on MN where competitive offence is rife.

So in what context are you using the words ‘odd’ and ‘bizarre’ - given that OP stressed she didn’t mean any offence how does your use of them differ from OP and should I be offended ?

I agree with this.

My thoughts exactly 😂 ridiculous

Probably not in your circles.

But maybe someone else less concerned about fRee sPeEcH and more concerned about being a nice human will consider the words they use and how they ascribe value judgements to children’s behaviour.

Enough people have said that being called odd or weird at school
has had a profound effect on them to make it worth thinking about language more carefully.

What a horrible way to describe someone, Girl in daughters class would have sufficed.

I’m guess the context of you being an adult and thinking it’s ok to describe a child as odd, strange and bizarre.

Morning, everyone. It looks like the OP won't be back to respond to any more questions but she has been given lots of useful advice here, which we'd like to keep for her in case she wants to refer back to it.

We're going to close the thread to new posts though, given that things have become a bit heated in places and the OP won't be here to respond.