how tough would you be on your child if..

[pleaserewind]

the teacher took you aside and told you that this afternoon he had been in trouble for calling the assistant a loser?
ds2 is 6. In his defence though it seems to be the in joke at the moment as a few of them have been laughing in the playground before school starts calling each other losers so i don't think he really thought he was being very offensive.
but i am cross

Not very tough.

Surely just copying that advert that's on TV atm?

Pretty tough. First on the basis of calling anyone a loser, but secondly on the basis of being cheeky to an adult supervisor. Whether he claled her a loser or something else, he shouldn't be calling her names. I'd want him to understand that there's a difference between an adult with authority and a child.

Personally, not very tough at all, just explain gently why calling names isn't very nice, and how he wouldn't like it. Persistent offending would call for slightly stronger tactics though.

Are you cross because of being embarrassed by the teacher rather than ds behaviour?

TBH I'd probably just say that he shouldn't call people 'losers', particularly not peole in authority. But I haven't got that far yet as dd only 3

not very hard, more of a rote "you shouldn't have said that, should you?", repeated a few times before bedtime, and threats of harsher punishment if he does it again. Wouldn't do more unless he actually did repeat the offense.

How does the school want to deal with it?

My ds is 6 and for a while in the playground the kids were calling each other idiot and bum bum head and of course my ds picked it up and started saying it too at home. One day I asked him if he knew what any of the words he was using meant and he said he didn't know, therefore I said to him he was being really silly using those words that he didn't know the meaning of and it did stop him from saying those words but we will be moving on to some other random words soon I expect!

I'm with Caligula on this one, especially the adult bit. My children are being brought up to respect adults, and that includes not calling them names.

i have told him off and explained that it was out of order. I also told his dad which he begged me not to do but i have told him that i will now let it drop so long as he never does anything like that again.

good call. I think the whole "we are dissapointed in you" thing works well, and obviously if it happens again, things get tougher!

Difficult for kids to see that calling someone a loser is a bad thing, when they see adults on TV calling each other a loser in a jokey way.

Think school was being a bit OTT.

Im not so sure it was ott - maybe the school just thought that a good explanation of why you shouldnt call someone a loser would best come from the family?

I wouldnt get cross, but Id certainly talk to him about it, and let him see that I thought its serious.

LOL assumedname - my kids watch "Tom" bashing "Jerry" over the head with frying pans and the like but they know it's not acceptable behvaiour in real life...............well at least I hope they do

um .. mine too. but they do use words that Ive certainly never taught them, and I think they get them from adult tv. getting worried about the frying pans now.

I think I'd expect the school to deal with this - he's only 6. For me 'being in trouble' at school would have to involve something more serious.

Honestly, can't an experienced teacher and a classroom assistant reprimand him gently without mentioning it to his mum?

If I were working in school I'd like to think I could take something like this in my stride, especially as it's a jokey thing to say as per the advert and other boys have been saying it too.

i know what you mean QofQ but i do think that they can see that cartoon chracters are fantasy much more easily than seeing or hearing things from real life people iyswim.
what would you have done with your child?

i did think they would have dealt with it without telling me actually as he's normally VERY well behaved at school, they have always said that.
not so good for me tho !

I'd have 'hoped' the school would deal with it seen as though it was in school time, but if they felt the need to tell me, or if they said it to someone when I was there I would tell them in no uncertain terms that it wasn't acceptable.

The most important thing is to help him understand that he shouldn't talk to staff at school like that, heamaster/teacher/dinner lady or cleaner. Respect for staff at school is vital in my opinion.

I think they told you because he is usually so well behaved. IME when well behaved children have small behavioural slip-ups, the absolute best way to nip it in the bud and avoid a repetition is to tell the parents.
She hasn't told you because she couldn't deal with it herself, she's told you because she knows he's well behaved and therefore knows your parenting technique carries weight.