Is "bossy" appropriate for a year 2 report?

[treelily]

DD's teacher has written she is "bossy and likes her own way, but hopefully this will disappear as she matures". Is this appropriate on a report? It is intended to be read by the children as we have to return a form that we and DD write comments on.

DH says well it is true, which i know it is, but I think it could have been written in a more constructive way.

Bossy means being assertive in unhelpful, alienating and in the long term, unsuccessful ways. It has negative connotations because it is negative behaviour. Not all bossy people are capable of learning to be more constructive - sometimes they are just pig headed and refuse to learn, preferring instead to blame others for picking on them and not recognising their amazing leadership skills and always-being-in-the-right-ness. Maybe some of those people were told as children that their behaviour was OK, it wasn't bossy, it was "assertive" and showed "good leadership potential."

thinking about my senior management team, i am sure they were all horrendously bossy as kids.

No. I would have accepted tenacious or wilful.

rabbit, the child in question is 6! Of course she is expressing her personality in immature ways.

Duch "bossy" doesn't mean good leadership skills though - it means ordering kids about without winning them over or inspiring them, and shouting and sulking and refusing to play if you don't get your way, and bossy kids are not leaders, they are very quickly sidelined if bossyness continues past age 8 or 9. When it comes to children it is not a gendered word in most posters' experience.

'Tenacious' doesn't mean the same as bossy and neither does 'wilful'. If you want something different fine buy the meaning does kind of need to be the same.

duchesse - yes, of course she is immature. This doesn't mean she is not currently bossy. The teacher expressly said she expected her to grow out of it...

So many people complain that reports beat around the bush and they would prefer to just be told the truth. So you've been told the truth and your husband agrees. You should use it in a positive way to help her become less bossy :)

"bossy" is only ever used for girls and women and in most contexts it's used in has a negative connotation.

It isn't only ever used for females. Of course it has a negative connotation. Being bossy is a negative trait as it involve asserting your will onto others with no consideration. I would sincerely hope my child grew out of that kind of behaviour and learnt good leadership skills instead.

I've called all my children bossy at some stage, both sons and daughter.

Years ago a teacher said to my Mother about my sister,'she will probably become a teacher, she's got the right bossy attitude'. Funnily enough she did become a teacher and still tries to boss me around.

As long as it is true, it is perfectly appropriate.
The Head should will have read all the reports before they are sent out, therefore must agree.
Which euphemism would you prefer?

I'm not a teacher or a writer, but here's some suggestions of lines of approach that I think would get the message across at least as clearly and more constructively. Ignore precise wording.
"X can be bossy when working in a group. I would like to see her listen more to other people's ideas."
"X bosses her friends around when organising games at play time. Remember to let other people choose too!"
"We often hear X telling her group what to do. This can make her friends unhappy. X is working on listening and forming a plan together."

Because actually, something like this shouldn't be landed on a child at report time, presumably the teachers will have talked to her about it and it will be something being worked on. Unless they've just decided she's just bossy and all they can do is wait for her to grow up .

If X is bossy all the time couldn't you just save time?

That was three different suggestions not one very long report! If you wrote all of those then I think the parents would rightly think you were focussing a bit much on the issue

One point I was trying to make is be more precise. If she does it when working and playing then say that. If it's when working in groups, say that. "X is bossy" is a character judgement and rather rude. "We have seen X being bossy in A B and C situations and we would like her to do Z instead" is an observation and a constructive suggestion for improvement.

but the first 2 only referred to being bossy in limitted situations so if both (or more) applied you would need a list rather than a simple "X is bossy"

Just some different suggestions depending on the exact situation. As the teacher has just been insulting rather than giving information, we don't know what the actual situation is.

Is it insulting to tell the truth?

mrz - yes.

We'll I've used "bossy" in reports with boys and girls. And then explained the impact that has and what the child needs to work on.

"Bossy" is a fantastic, unambiguous word that describes a common behavioural trait.

Exactly everyone knows what you mean when you say bossy. Natural leadership skills or assertive are now ambiguous because so many people have used them as a more positive sounding synonym for bossy when they are actually very different things.

If I went into my annual review tomorrow and my boss said "you are bossy" then yes I'd feel pretty upset and insulted, however true it was (I'm not by the way!). I'd be immediately on the defensive and trying to justify that I'm not bossy. I'd probably be looking for a new job, because who wants to work with people who don't like them? On the other hand if she explained the situations I'd come across bossy in and how I could have handled it better then I'd be on side trying to come up with a solution and do better in future.

Well, of course, the teacher could have written, "X is bossy at every opportunity. I have tried to work with her to find more constructive ways of communicating with her peers and teachers, but so far without success. I can only hope she will grow out of it."

On a more serious note, I hope the report did also contain positives about poor old X - eg that she is enthusiastic about her work, always works hard, does her best, is keen to contribute to class discussions etc. Then also being bossy doesn't seem half so bad!