My 5 year old is always scared the other children will laugh at her

[EnglishNotMy1stLanguage]

This started slowly when she was in reception, she always been very confident and outgoing girl, she still is popular at school but I'm noticing an increasing fear from her of being laughed at over the most silly things like not playing football very well - they just started an after school club- or not going until the end of the monkey bars. This morning as I was preparing her lunch bag, she saw me putting strawberries in a perfect normal kids container and she begged me to change containers as one of the girls, who she gets on very well with, was teasing her last time saying it was a baby container for baby food. I tried to explain to her that it didn't matter what the other girl says and tried to give her some tools to deal with this kind of behaviour but ended up changing the containers......so is it time to talk to the teachers yet? Is it normal for this age? And please give some tips on how to reinforce her self steem and how to equips her to deal with unwanted comments. TIA

Talk though all similar/related issues with your daughter. A girl came to stay with my year R daughter a few weeks ago. That child wears a nappy at night and my daughter doesn't. I overheard mine saying "why do you wear nappies? Nappies are for babies."

I felt terrible until I heard the other child explaining why she still wears nappies in bed. I can't remember exactly what she said. But It's clear that our friend, her mother, explains things clearly to her and that she consequentially has a very good understanding of why things are the way they are and is happy to explain these things to another child if necessary.

I was most impressed.

Interesting

Is it the start of bullying ? Should the teacher get involved?.

I think you need to challenge her on the things she mentions. So with the container, ask if she thinks it's a baby container and if she says yes ask why. Challenge the view, 'well the container said it was for children up to 8yrs so that suggests it isn't for babies'

or with football, 'does everyone play football well? do you enjoy playing football? do you only enjoy it if you think you are playing well?'

The thing to nip in the bud is her taking on other peoples views unquestioningly. once she is confident that she can make her own mind up she is more likely to give a shrug and a 'so, what?' when she is challenged.

DS is the same age and I can see it is an age where kids are more aware of what their peers think.

As popcorn says though, you should make sure you are comfortable it isn't the start of bullying

I'm watching close because I'm also experiencing something similar. I like the input above a lot.