To be furious with weight comments made to my 10yr old

[harlacem0507]

DD is 10, in year 6 (which if u know u know is a bloody awful year for girls falling out etc) DD fell out with two girls as 3 was a crowd she felt left out all the time so has now made friends with some other lovely girls and everything was fine. Until today. One of the girls in the group she used to be with came up to her and said such girl said my DD was 'thin as a stick' and to eat more. I'm absolutely livid, being a RMN I have young girls with eating disorders and quite a few of these patients of mine have had weight comments made to them at a young age, thus creating a life long battle with food. I know my daughter wasn't called fat but to me it's potentially just as harmful and I'm so angry. I went straight to the deputy head or insists she will deal with it and speak to these girls tomorrow to get to the bottom of it but I'm so angry I want to txt the girls mum's and tell them what their nasty little sods have said but I don't know if it'll make things better or worse? Any advice has anyone been in this type of situation and how can I do my best to prevent this happening again?

Girls can be little bitches. They call each other names, exclude some kids, gang up on some. That's the way they are. Nasty. Encourage your daughter to make new friends, and help her to boost her confidence. One of my granddaughters has been bullied at school "for being fat". Certainly don't contact the parents or the school.

Why do you doubt that? And what do you propose instead? A public beheading?

My dd went through this in year 6 when another girl joined her and her best friend's friendship. This girl started calling my dd fat (amongst other things). My dd is a perfectly normal size and is very sporty and athletic, and she immediately started trying to cut down on what she was eating to the point of barely eating a thing for days. I was very worried about the impact on her and made the mistake of thinking her best friend's mum would sympathise with what was going on and speak to her dd about not going along with the other girl's nastiness, but instead this mother immediately went into attack mode and started firing abuse at me about my dd. I will never approach a parent again after that tirade. So I went to the school and after months of complaints, they eventually dealt with this child. And I spent a lot of time working on my DD's resilience, conflict management skills and body confidence. You can't control what other kids say, but you can help your dd in how she deals with difficult situations.

I already proposed that she speak to the mother if you read my comment!

Calm down

I would focus on DD and how it made her feel. And teach her to be happy in her own skin. You can’t stop me a comments and sadly secondary is worse.

My DD gets lots of small comments. And more recently fat comments. She can just laugh it off, confident that years of competition gymnastics and other sports has made her strong as hell!

I too thought it strange that OP should mention the bullying girl’s body masses.

That wouldn’t normally enter a parent’s mind.

When DS was bullied for being “small” in junior school ( Late summer birthday-so almost a year younger than some of the kids in the class)

I just remembered their names, not what they looked like.

(At a school reunion he towered over the bullies as he’d grown a lot - well over 6 feet- and one of the bullies actually apologised and said “ We don’t know why we did it”.

Three is always a hard number for school friendships, and probably hard generally.

It's one comment.

It's not bullying and really doesn't need any intervention from anyone unless it becomes a repeated action.

There used to be a really diminutive girl at school who so say did martial arts 🥋
No one EVER bullied her, her quiet confidence was definitely an advantage.
Maybe she wasn’t a Black Belt after all - but no one wanted to find out!

Over one comment?

Calm down

How bothered was your daughter? Any more bothered than if they said her hair was too short? Or something else a bit cheeky?

If she wasn't that bothered I don't think you have anything to worry about. Don't project into her.

Being too thin surely won't cause your daughter to stop eating or make herself sick to try and be thin, like someone who is called fat, so it won't lead to eating disorders.

We need to raise a generation of strong young women who let insults go like water off a ducks back and not let insults hurt them. A fast polite comeback would be good though.

I think this could have more to do with your fears for your daughter OP, based on your experience at work. Your daughter isn't those girls and she's doing ok so you don't have to worry.

It happened in school therefore it is for the school to deal with.

Do you have any evidence that being called fat is worse than being called thin? I'd be interested to read such evidence.

It really isn't, sorry.

Being bullied for any reason is horrible but calling someone skinny isn't as bad as the opposite

If that's the worst thing your child ever has said to them at school she's on to a winner.

Don't blow up a silly one off comment. If these girls are genuinely intent on giving your kid a hard time, this will make it much worse.

Fair enough

Being horrible to someone for any reason is nasty. But attacking someone for being fat is actual discrimination, I stand by what I've said

Yes I understand why, it’s because fat people think they have the monopoly on rights to be offended by fat shaming.

I also understand that society doesn’t view obesity as a positive thing but these children are only 10. Name calling for the sake of hurting another child is nasty whatever insult is chosen. It still hurts and it still has the potential to be damaging to a child with insecurities about their body.

I was bullied as a child for a feature that I now receive a compliment on at least once a week from people I barely know. It still felt shit at the time.

We will agree to disagree, I respect OP is MHN and has more experience than me in dealing with this everyday so I prefer to listen to her than you. If she thinks this could be a potential problem and has seen things like escalate then she's right to talk to the school.

I learned that too the hard way, I always try to think what I'd do if someone came to me, but not everyone reacts same way, I did same, told a friend her daughter called mine a fat cow, they were 11, my friend was immediately like, oh but what did my daughter say for her daughter to say that, I gave up after that and would never go to parents, most can't seem to grasp their kids can be nasty

This is Mumsnet. There would always be somebody posting 'OP, kindly, could you have lost sight of what a healthy child looks like? Can you see her ribs? Does she eat a lot of UPFs? Are you obese?'.

I agree that it needs to be stopped, as they are just as likely picking on other children's appearance in different ways for a feeling of power or control - and have probably internalised a lot of negative messages about themselves already. But focusing upon the weight element is a distraction, as it's not about the content as much as it is targeting things that kids do not have control over to make them feel bad; the bullies could as easily be picking upon hair colour, perceived income levels, the appearance of parents, what their house looks like or their intelligence.

Why do you think her view might be influenced by her experiences and why do you say that as if it’s automatically something that makes her view less valuable?

Someone with experience of being body shamed for something other than fat is saying that it still hurt them and still had a negative effect on them.

It’s irrelevant that society views thin as being better than fat. It also views women as being more attractive if they are curvy and have big boobs rather than having a figure like a slim
teenage boy but so what? Name calling is name calling and it still has the potential to hurt people on the receiving end of it.

I voted YABU because I don’t think the OP should be messaging the mother, the teacher should be dealing with it.

The OP is allowed to be annoyed, nobody is refuting that, I just think she needs to leave it to the teacher to handle, hence the YABU.

Thank you for all your input, after reading the comments I don't think I will be texting any parents if the school nip it in the bud and my daughter is happy with that.
Yes it probably has upset me more than my daughter, the only thing she did say was, am I too thin then? To which I said of course not and how people are different shapes and sizes but she was perfectly in proportion like most of her friends and healthy and she seemed quite happy with that explanation.
It's harder to keep professional and keep that professional mind set when it's your own child but I have calmed down considerably although I'm still annoyed these nasty girls even bothered to mention it, these kids just have no idea the damage it does to other kids when getting personal.

In regards to anorexia is caused by being called too fat, it's not as cut and dry as that unfortunately, and the damage it does is absolutely devastating. I have a patient so poorly with this dreadful illness that she can't even shower with fruit scented shower gels and you're not even allowed to say 'you look well today' as it makes her question her image altogether and is very triggering. When you work with girls like this you automatically panic about your own girls!

This. Anything else, such as thinking talking to the Mother is going to get something done, is a waste of time. Spend that energy in building up your Daughters confidence OP.

Once someone called me too skinny, I was 11. I still think about it regularly and smile to myself! Possibly the best insult I’ve ever had. I wish someone would say that to me now tbh.

Were you anorexic and struggling with depression and body image, and in pain every day due to your anorexia? I assume not if you find being told you're too skinny a compliment.