Retaliation

[jampot]

My 7yo ds has come home from school today and said a boy in year 3 keeps calling him "fatty". Now ds is quite big for his age but is not fat. He wants to retaliate but is scared to call names in school for fear of getting into trouble (bless him). Do I tell him it's okay to call this lad names as long as they're not too rude or should he keep schtum and let it eat away at him (no pun intended)

Mmmm, DD1 (5) is tall and chunky and very, very sensitive. She said that one of the girls at her school keeps calling her "fatty" too. I told her to call this girl "ugly" which cheered her considerably and seems to have done the trick as she hasn't mentioned any more problems (and I know she did it - "Mummy, when C callled me Fatty today, I called her Ugly and everyone laughed!" No doubt this has started off deep rooted psychological problems for this child, but hey, she started it!

I am afraid I go for "an eye for an eye" - as long as DD1 doesn't start it, I think it's OK to retaliate with like for like.

Helpful?

I'm sure that Tanzie and I will go down for this, but I'm with her.

Well, I can see how retaliation would work but ds and I had a long conversation about teasing at school and I told him that I thought the teasers probably wanted a reaction and it would probably really annoy them if he didn't give them one. So I suppose I told him to ignore bad behaviour but, and I do want to make this clear, only because I thought it would piss the other boy off. I was proud of him recently actually: a much older boy was riding his bike on the pavement and trying to intimidate my ds (6.5) into moving out of the way. Ds gave him the filthiest look ever (I've trained him well!), folded his arms, stood his ground, maintained eye contact and didn't flinch. I don't think he thought I was watching. It wasn't overly aggressive but it did say 'don't mess with me mate' and I was pleased actually. It's a fine line we all tread though isn't it, between teaching them to stick up for themselves and making sure they don't get stuck into pointless playground battles.

WWW - will you come and visit me and JJ in Holloway?!

I don't think this is teasing - "teasing" implies something delightfully amusing. My experience from my long ago school days is that they don't give up if ignored

How about telling your ds to say "thank you" to the boy. It might confuse him so much that he thinks he's said the wrong thing and will stop it.
I find it works wonders with beggars. When they ask me for money I say "no thank you" and they get a little confused and don't bother me any more.

The wicked side of me really wants to tell ds to call this boy a "tosser" (ooh I am sooo common) on the basis that he probably doesn't know what it means and will probably then end up using the word in school and get slaughtered for it. I hate getting involved in playground troubles especially at this age but he already encounters a fair degree of bullying from a teachers son in his class who only on MOnday threw something at him which bent his finger back. Tuesday morning his little finger was twice the size and purple . Dinner staff nor teachers do anything about it either so after nearly 2 years of weekly troubles I have advised him to take this child "G" on himself and if he is kicked to kick back.... Really don't want him getting into this with everyone who pisses him off though..

decided to speak to his class teacher this morning just to have a quiet word with the "fatty" child (who just so happens to be the mum of G who bullies my ds!!!) apparently the child does have depression problems and other issues but is still bang out of order. I did feel she thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill though

Had this problem last year with dd1 (chunky but healthy). Spoke to school & pointed out that dd1 had practically stopped eating because of it (she was a bit under the weather as well so think it affected her more than usual). Anyway, teacher had a big 'class discussion' about nice things & nasty things without naming anyone involved. The whole of the class then refused to play with this girl as they all knew who had been calling names. End result, girl very ashamed of herself, big apology to dd1 as that was the only way to get the other girls toplay with her again. She hasn't done it since One of the occassions when peer pressure worked the right way.

nice story berries - it does worry me that name calling like this could stop a child from eating - glad your teacher and her posse were able to sort it.

My problem with DD1 was that the girl concerned was not in DD's class. I asked DD if she wanted me to have a word with either the girl's teacher or her teacher, but she said she wanted to "sort it out on her own" (bless!).

Jampot - I overheard one of the boys in DD1's Reception class saying the other day saying to his little friend "I don't want to play with X today - he was being a right w*nker yesterday!" One of yours?!

could use the winston churchill approach

ie you're fat

Yes but I can get thin, you can't get pretty

at CD! Nice one - will tell DD1 to try that next time, but think it is a bit "deep" for 5 year olds?

like sofiames and wickedwaterwitches ideas. i had an ex who was a real verbal bully especially when he had an audience. after a while i pretended i didn't hear and would quickly stike up a conversation with someone else. made him look so stupid when he repeated it even louder waiting for my reaction and all he had was his insult left ringing in his own and everyone eles ears.

My son was picked on by a bigger boy when he was in yr1 (he is now yr2) he now does karate and is doing extremely well, (has a number of tropheys)and he is asked to take them in to show his class mates and the rest of the school, as you can imagine no-one bothers him now!

Agree with CD, put-downs are a better bet than returning insults. A shy child may not be able to deliver an insult with the requisite panache, and may end up being the one who gets into trouble for it.

My dd1 has had a good bit of grief over the years for wearing glasses and an eyepatch, and more recently for having hairy legs (she has, bless her, but she's only 9, so what can you do? At least she's blond...)

According to her you need to perfect the art of the hard stare, and then deliver your killer line without appearing to try too hard (and def. not get upset). Her current favourites are:

"Well you're not exactly a supermodel yourself, are you?"
and:
"Shame you forgot to switch your brain on before opening your mouth."

or a good one is

For goodness sake you really are immature aren't you?

Tanzie - luckily mine are in yrs 2 and 6

I'd go with CD's 'immature' one - nothing is more guaranteed to make a kid feel small than that - has to be said with real disdain ' Oh you're SO immature', sigh, walk away. I remember a fantastic pupil I had who told me that her plan in life was to beat up her brother (!) for as long as she could and win, and then as soon as he tried it, go for the 'You're so immature' line. It worked!