How much say should parents have over others using diminutives

[Namiemcnameface]

If you call your child something that has a variety of shortenings, how much control do you think you should have over the use of particular diminutives by others?

For example if you have a Robert, and took to calling him Bobby, but then other family members/care givers/friends end up calling him Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bertie etc.

I was responding to what was in the quoted post.

This is not a real problem

Ok it’s confusing though because you responded to me …

While the child is young you should not use any nicknames the parents are not ok with. When they get old enough to have their own opinion you should not use any nicknames they are not ok with..

If the parents are not ok woth Beth or Lizzie because they like Elizabeth. You call that child Elizabeth until she agrees to something else.

Its not a matter of what younlike it is a matter of what that person line..

I do not accept any nicknames of my name. Mostly because they arw all gawd awful. If people can't respect that. They are telling me they have no respect for me. If they continue to use a nickname I do not answer and will correct loudly and firmly.

If you are rude to me I can be rude to you.

This is a matter of respect.

My children have no nicknames as none of them like it. This is despite 1 of them having a name most people will shorten to Pheebs. She is never Pheebs. She is 28 now and people use her full name as that is her preference. It is respectful to use a person's preference. Dh is only known my his nicknames. Not his full name. That is his preference..

I cant stand people who thinks they have the right to lord over others preferences for their name.

In my experience the child gets to about 3 years old and refuses to answer to anything but their preferred diminutive, which isn't necessarily the same as what the parents intended. Parents can express a preference, but nicknames are organic signs of affection and can't be prescribed.

If there's lots of cousins they may well find that they don't have much control over what the grandparents are called. My kids followed the lead of their big cousins, and not what I or my parents would have preferred them to be known as!

Yes, but that only happens because someone has been calling the child that diminutive, and it’s become familiar to them and/or associated with people that they love (grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, etc.). Young children don’t understand the concepts of naming and diminutives. Children are very impressionable and easily influenced. You could tell a toddler that their name is actually unicorn, and they’ll eventually start calling themselves that. They lack the context, life experience, and comprehension skills that are necessary to actually understand any of this or express a true preference. This is what parents are trying to prevent when they ask people to call their young child by their full name or the parents’ preferred diminutive.

Disagree. I think the parent/child choose the diminutive . Im not even happy when people shorten my dogs name

My dad started off calling my eldest DC (his third grandchild) a different diminutive than the one we were using (eg Rosemary, we mostly called her Rose but he called her Mary). We never used his preferred name but didn't care that he did and eventually he stopped using it. I think it would have been quite nice if she had a special name only her grandad used.

This.

You have to allow others to have relationships with your DC which are independent of you. This is good for your DC, as well as consolidating a community around your DC.

None. No-one can actually police what others call their child, they might not like it but tough luck.

If they felt that strongly about it and wanted to go to the absolute extreme, they probably would not allow people who wouldn’t follow their rules to have contact with their child (not saying that I agree with it but saying that I could imagine some parents doing this). I never underestimate the lengths that people will go to prove a point.

For children younger than school age parents' nick names for their child or the full name should be repected and used.

Once the kid is in the playground, parents can only keep using their favourite name themselves and hope that family members will not be swayed by the kid's six year old mate.

Nick names?

I think if parents say “here’s Robert! We are going with Bobby for short” then their choice should be respected, it’d be weird/rude if family were were like “oh hi little rob!” When they met him.

similarly if parents said “here’s Robert!” And someone says “oh, will he be Robbie/bobby/rob”? And parents say “no, we like it as the full Robert” then their wishes should be respected till the child is older and can choose. My DP’s brother had one name as a child eg Robbie then reinvented at uni and became a different one eg Bob!

if it’s just a cutesy name while cooing over a baby eg “hi little robsbobs” I wouldn’t think that was an overstep from family. I think it’s all in the context 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I don’t think relatives should change names, so start calling Robert, Bertie first example. If this happens, parents need to repeat, ad nauseam, his name is Robert.

Parents get to chose when they are babies, then the child tends to chose when they get to about 4. Ds1 made it clear that any short version of his name was unacceptable when he started school. His name is Alexander and as an adult most people do call him that but a few will still call him Alex. When my dc4 was in hospital th nurse asked him if he had a nickname and he said he had one but only his mum is allowed to use it. The nurse asked him if his friends called him Tom and he said no, because that's not my name, my name is Thomas. Tbh with dc1 and dc2 we thought very carefully about potential nicknames but after they refused to be called anything but their full names then we assumed that the younger ones would also insist on full names.

No, it doesn't. We chose a name for our child but said from day 1 he would be known by a diminutive and that's what everyone did. When he started pre-school we filled in all the forms to say he would be known by that diminutive and about a month in they called us to say he was objecting to that and wanted to be know as his proper name. Soon after he started to insist the same at home. He's now ten and there is only one person who is now allowed to call him the diminutive that I'd hoped to call him for his whole life, and it's not me. I'm not even clear how he knew what his proper name was because everyone called him by that diminutive, except that I used sing him a song with his proper name in it and he had a name plaque on his door and a picture with his name on his bedroom wall and he was able to sound out words pretty early. My general point was that as a parent you only have control for so long, and then it's up to the individual what they are known as.

I think that's fair enough tbh. You'd have to be completely unhinged to re-name someone else's child so I think completely understandable that the parent's would want to steer clear!