Are you a boy or are you a girl book

[RevolvingPivot]

My kids know about transgender / being born in the opposite sex (I've probably not used those definitions correct but I don't know the terminology) etc but i don't think a lot of 8 year olds would understand the point of the book.

They read it in school yesterday.

Thoughts?

This is not a bashing thread I know kids how to be educated about these things.

‘I am me’ - so no conclusion there... why do they have to go around this and really labour our the whole gender ‘what am I?’ question?

Why not a nice story of how the Charlton brothers were taught football by their mum? No long drawn out exploration of gender and sexual roles.

Just let the kids read a story and get their takeaways from that.

I get what they are trying to do but I don't think it comes across well. The story isn't that exciting either my kids probably didn't even listen.

The reader was a bit... irritating. As a child I would have been yelling ‘but whyyyyyyyy do you have that on your head???’ (I was a very precise child.) I would have found the child seemingly unaware of their sex a bit odd too.

So you say your kids know about being ‘born in the opposite sex’? How are they taught that?

This wasn't the version they watched they were read the book by the teacher.

I've just said some people are born a boy but think they should have been born a girl and go onto live as a girl. She's only 8.

I’m so glad DS is a bit older so we didn’t have to explain the current themes. I was at school (for about 6 months - it was a trial to integrate kids in the mainstream) with a girl who couldn’t speak and was paralysed from the rib cage down - I’m pretty sure she believed she had been born in the wrong body.

So Daddy is the one mentioned with a job - and a very traditional male job. Daddy builds the bed. Fiona (little sister) clearly delineated as 'girl' by the hair (accepting current social norms) is the nurse. 'Mom' is the homemaker (OK, so Dad cooks dinner - woo-hoo), a 'lady' drives a fire-engine, but the two firefighters who visit the school are male, Buster has a really concerning jaw ... all in all a rather confusing bundle of ... something.

How did my nieces ever grow up to be -respectively - a firefighter, a sparks on subs, a writer and someone who runs their own business? The nephews are still little kids.

That book is designed to sow confusion into children. Every child is either a boy or a girl. That doesn't mean we can't do whatever we want but we're still a binary species.

Please don't tell your daughter that children can change sex @RevolvingPivot - it's not true and it's really confusing.

I didn't use the words you can change your sex

‘Born in the opposite sex’ does imply that this is something that is wrong - and the message now is that this can be addressed.

Good grief. I mean the whole boy/girl thing is so shoehorned into it fir zero reason.

Otherwise you'd just have a story about family and a kids first day at school and a visit from some fire fighters.

Its deliberately creating questions and confusion where there would be none. Why?

Ok sorry I don't know the terminology

@RevolvingPivot

Ok sorry I don't know the terminology

I think that’s true of a lot of parents.

My advice would be not to discuss it at all until your child asks you about trans people, then take your information from a neutral source such as Transgendertrend.

Taking about “living as a girl” to an 8-year-old is just unnecessarily confusing - for you, clearly, as well as your child.

Why are small children learning an awful lot about trans people? And this is in the last few years - as I said we hadn’t had this with DS (who is still at school).

To me this book has nothing to do with transgender.

It’s a book saying that gender stereotypes are silly and we ought to focus on people as people and look at their interests and personalities rather than obsessing over whether they are girl or boy.

Children at certain ages can have a tendency to gender stereotype - all part of working out who they are - and I think it can be a good idea to challenge those stereotypes gently before they get ingrained.

I think perhaps you are reading a trans spin on it because that’s currently a hot topic but there is actually nothing about trans in the book. As far as I can see.

But the parents are firmly wedged though aren’t they?

I don't think it's to do with transgender either. There is nothing to say he wants to be male or female.

It's more of you can be who you want to be I guess but it's obvious to a kid I don't think.

Children at certain ages can have a tendency to gender stereotype - all part of working out who they are - and I think it can be a good idea to challenge those stereotypes gently before they get ingrained.

It’s not children who need challenging. They take their lead from the adults around them for many years. It’s the adults who need challenging.

I think this is such a missed opportunity by schools. Why are we indoctrinating children about this? Surely they could read a story about respecting everyone, particularly women considering the huge problem of male violence.
This is just reinforcing gender stereotypes and new way of dressing it up.

Yup. It may be me... but I see fewer books addressing, say, a child in a wheelchair or a blind adult, a classmate with learning difficulties or a parent who is deaf.

When I was a child we used to get books like this (and one about a kid with 2 dads). This was in the 70s. We used to get people to come and read to us - old soldiers and women who nursed during the war, the local police woman or local historian, people’s parents who were doctors, a writer and even an undertaker. It was just so much fun and we met all sorts of people and learned to take people as we find them. To meet all sorts of people.

@imjustanerd

I think this is such a missed opportunity by schools. Why are we indoctrinating children about this? Surely they could read a story about respecting everyone, particularly women considering the huge problem of male violence. This is just reinforcing gender stereotypes and new way of dressing it up.

Schools don’t usually get to decide what materials they use for RSE - that’s the DfE.

Many schools have been captured by Stonewall and GIRES so are directed to specific resources endorsed by them (although that has changed since the High Court ruling).

When I worked in a school as a family support worker, I was told by the local authority PSHE lead that I could not share Transgendertrend resources with my colleagues in other schools, as they weren’t “inclusive”.

Obviously I ignored that and shared them anyway

What was the one they were giving out in Scotland - wasn’t it something about Brenda the sheep wolf? Absolutely bonkers.

Moral of the story - just because it’s ‘approved’ doesn’t mean it’s good or right.

I think you tube video clips are better.

I've shown dd1 one where you think you're chatting to a child online and it's really a grown man. I think the twists at the end was good abs they remember it.

I always had this lined next to my desk. DS grew up with it.

Yup. It may be me... but I see fewer books addressing, say, a child in a wheelchair or a blind adult, a classmate with learning difficulties or a parent who is deaf

Rachel Rooney wrote a lovely little book with pretty diverse illustrations called my body is me.