Not entirely comfortable about this - Y1 'teasing'

[vladthedisorganised]

DD is generally a happy soul who up to recently seemed to have a lot of friends of both sexes. .

I have heard DD talking about x and y having 'boyfriends' and 'girlfriends' but haven't thought much of it as it seems to be fairly normal. DD hasn't mentioned her friends as much and seems to be hanging around a lot more with some of the older children these days.

I picked her up from school yesterday and found her surrounded by a group of lads from her class who were 'teasing' her (hate that word but can't think of a better one) - it started out as 'oooh, X is your boyfriend!' referring to a lad she gets on well with. DD just shrugged and said 'well, if you think so, then yes, he is!' (there seems to be a lot of 'boyfriend/girlfriend' stuff going on which I hear is quite standard, though I think it silly). Rather than stop them, the kids seemed to press in closer and yell in her face about 'you want his babies!'. DD managed to run off at that point and it seemed to stop once they'd spotted me. I did ask if she was OK but couldn't get her to talk about it.

I didn't intervene but don't like the way these kids surrounded her and were yelling in her face.. it seemed to have gone beyond joking around to me and I'm not entirely comfortable with it. I don't want to 'project' as I was bullied a lot at primary school myself: is this 'normal' behaviour for 5yo lads, or should I mention something to the teacher? DD is having a lot more nightmares these days and I wonder if it might be connected; though she hasn't mentioned anything specific other than 'x and y are really naughty and get on my nerves'.

Should I raise this, or leave it?

I'd mention to the teacher that you saw a group of children appearing to gang up on your child, making her uncomfortable to the point she ran off. Maybe that you think the boyfriend/girlfriend stuff is being taken a little too seriously and used to tease some of the children.

Just ask them to keep an eye out.

The lunchtime supervisors too if you know them.

Thanks Micah. I had a chat to DD about it and it seems this is a regular thing with these boys: apparently she tells them to stop yelling at her but they 'just keep on because they think it's funny and they try to make me cry but I don't'. It was a good opportunity to have a chat about how silly the boyfriend/girlfriend thing is, how it's perfectly normal to have friends of both sexes and a bit about STOP (thanks MN!)

I'm definitely going tell the teacher to keep an eye out - and have given DD some strategies in the meantime.

When we came came to Australia, I found this girlfriend/boyfriend theme caused by the parents at preschool and primary school. They would be waiting for them after school and would ask the tots/young children who was their girlfriend/boyfriend as if it was compulsory to have one. If not, then there was something wrong with the child.