Pre schoolers - some thoughts about if GRA reforms come to pass and how to protect them

[ChickenMe]

Someone on a group I'm in was proposing actually not telling your kids what sex they are
Obv I disagreed with it which didn't go down too well. Many people "liked" my comments but no one spoke out plainly (i.e. this is rubbish)
Anyway it got me thinking how we can protect our young children from the madness which could enter schools if the GRA reform does go ahead?
I want my DD to start school with a firm idea of biology so she can't be confused by some weird ideology.
She knows what male and female are (we've been observing male and female animals, she knows she is female and so is the cat)
She knows the correct words for her genitals and about periods (in an age appropriate way) and that babies come out of the 'GYNA (or stomach!)
Is this something other people on this board muse over? What else can we do? I feel like I have to almost inoculate her against any rubbish she might be told later. I find it really scary that this shit could come into schools

Whenever my DD came out with gender stereotypes, or there were some particularly glaring ones in whatever we were reading...

"Isn't that silly DD - of course boys/girls can do/wear/like x, mostly boys and girls can do all the same things"

I think small children have their heads on the right way and know when someone's spouting rubbish. My granddaughter knew quite clearly at 2 yo that she was a girl. I don't think she'd have been impressed by being told she had a choice: she's fiercely proud of being a girl. When the royal baby was born this week I was waiting for a chorus of 'how do they know it's a boy? Let the child decide for itself later'. But if that happened I missed it.

I was waiting for that comment too Ancient but really that kind of thinking isn't mainstream although it's advocates want us to think it is

I'm on high alert about gender stereotypes-I'm sure it goes on at nursery but so far she's not come out with anything. I have had to correct OH and MIL a bit tho!!!

I have a preschooler and have been thinking about this too, Chicken

My daughter has recently started coming out with boys-this, girls-that stereotypes. Apparently tops are for boys.

It does worry me. She is very strong minded and a forceful character, but also so suggestible, and this shit is so pervasive. I counter stuff when she mentions it, but I would like to do more that's positive.

I will have a think, and also follow for ideas.

I think the most powerful thing we can do is give them a strong sense of their own sex and the strong message that girls and boys can do or like anything they want. There are no girl things and boy things. I agree with Itsallgoingtobefine and we say ‘isn’t that silly’ or ‘girls can’t like that? Do you think that’s true?’

My girls are older and I am still reinforcing the message that girls can do anything and backing it up with lots of fiction about strong girls, lots of discussion about suffragettes and what they fought for and lots of talk about real women and girls achieving things. Sometimes news stories are good for highlighting positives and negatives.
We do also talk directly about the issues as well now but I think their confidence comes from the basic messages. I really worry about the teen years.

I think for the small ones it is just constant repetition of a clear message that just because you are a boy/girl you don’t have to like pink/blue/football/sparkles/climbing trees and continuously contradicting the confused messages that they get from other children, nursery, school, grandparents etc.

I do wonder if the message needs to go a little further - not just “boys and girls can like/do/wear whatever they want” but also that it is NORMAL for both sexes to like/do/wear anything, rather than leaving room for the message to actually come across as girls liking cars/boys wearing sparkles being an acceptable exception, a difference we tolerate as lovely liberal choicey people - rather than actually just boring, normal, natural human variation, so boringly normal it shouldn’t even be a remarkable thing.

I read an interesting thing recently which I've been trying to live with mine (two school age, one 4yo). It's about not drawing attention to sex/gender where possible, though it's linguistically difficult sometimes.

So for example you see a girl in blonde ringlets and a frilly frock going for the swing your son wants to play on. Instead of saying "let that girl go first" you say "let the other child go first", which also emphasises what they have in common rather than drawing unnecessary attention to how they differ. It's also important when you see a same-sex group, to say "those children" or "those people" rather than specifying "those boys" or "those women".

I know it sounds a bit wanky but sex and gender are so often irrelevant it's a shame we are linguistically straitjacketed into specifying.

FWIW my 4yo has a speech delay so uses he/him/his for everybody. He'd quite happily say "that little girl has got flowers on his dress" for example.

I’ve got a 2yo and a 5yo.

5yo understands that the only difference between the sexes is biological- she has a vulva and boys have a penis, she can have babies when she’s an adult if she wants them.
She knows clothes are just clothes, had a little brother with long blonde hair, that boys and girls can play with whatever toys that they want and that being a girl doesn’t need mean she can’t do whatever she sets her mind too. I’ve explained sexism and she shouts “smash the patriarchy!” When she spots it.

I think making sure she has strong role modelthat don’t conform to gender stereotypes in her life is really important.

sex and gender are so often irrelevant it's a shame we are linguistically straitjacketed into specifying

I think that sounds very sensible, perhaps something we should strive for full stop rather than just when talking with children.

I so agree..... on every level

Normalising ... and celebrating what women can do ... and pointing out what children have in common.... So powerful.

It did make me laugh though when my DD was 8, she asked me why girls were so much more intelligent than boys.... It just so happened that in her class, still arranged on "tables" the top 10 were 9 girls and 1 boy.... and the bottom 10 were 8 boys 2 girls.....

She was somewhere in the middle - but had spotted this and of course extrapolised out from her only reference point.

Those reference points - whatever they are, and so many provided by us - are so darn important.

And it seriously pisses me off that in DD co-ed school of the top 5 roles in the school (head and deputies) only 1 is a woman..... and they have never had a female head....