We are dealing with a similar situation in my daughter's first grade class room. One of her little friends was told by another student that she was going to become diabetic and my own daughter is picked at a LOT for the most trivial of things.
It sounds as though you are doing exactly what this other parent and I are doing - building up the confidence of our own children because we have absolutely no control over anyone else or what goes on in there homes.
We don't call names, we don't tell them that the aggressors are mean, rude or anything else. We simply tell our girls that they are perfect for who they are, as well as reaffirming the same ideas for every child in the class. I feel that it is important to promote individuality and compassion. The world would be a dull place indeed if everyone looked/acted/spoke the same way.
This seems like a ridiculous age to have to deal with some of these issues. Things have really changed since my 14 year old was in elementary school but we have to learn to roll with it, there are still many years ahead of us to grow and learn. I hope you and your daughter have a wonderful day.
PERFECT ANSWER, I think your daughter handled this herself. Now hopefully that little girl, will go tell her mother your daughters response. I can see how upset you'd be though. I personally wouldn't say anything to the mother. If the teacher mentioned it's happened before with another family, let the teacher say something to her. That way you don't slip your grounds and feel guilty for words out of anger. In the end, we all know there is only ONE that will do the judging. Your daughter seems like a bright, beautiful little girl.
Hello Wendy your questions and concerns really caught my eye this morning when I read it. I have a 6 year old daughter who is what I call very solid also. She is very active playing T-Ball, dance, loves jump rope and solid as a wall. She is 4'2" and 70lbs not fat at all. It is if each limb weighs 10lbs. I have had a few problems only with a family friends daughter who has made comments like "you look fat" and "why is your stomach fatter than mine". I think that is ignorance on the parents part. My daughter also responded with "I don't care what you think I am beautiful just the way I am". That is what we always tell her, however now she will say mom I am fat huh? and it breaks my heart that she even wonders about it. I just let her know that as long as we are healthy we can't change the shell we live in and no matter what anyone says to know that she is beautiful inside and out. I know it is hard for her to understand at this age, but I hope if I keep that in her mind when she is older it will help. I have even had my parents tell me when she is gonna have a cookie or ice cream "Are you gonna let her eat that" and I get really upset!!! She is 6 not 16 and she's not fat or eating unhealthy it is just the way GOD made her. It hurts as a mother because you want to protect your child and we know how harsh people can be. I don't think at this time I would approach the mother, but if there's a problem again I would ask the teacher to set up a conference so you can speak with the girls mother in a calmer environment. That way you have someone else there and hopefully it won't turn into a yelling match. You can tell that's where it will go with this mothers attitude. I mean honestly what kind of adult/parent are you to discuss something like that with a 7 year old!!! That goes to show you what kind of child she is raising!!! It is sad, but true!!! I wish you all the best and let me know what happens. You are obviously a great mom with lots of love for your kids!!!!
Wendy E.
Speaking to an insensitive parent won't do anything. You think talking to her will change her? "Thank you - I realize now that expressing my opinon to my family in the privacy of my own home was totally wrong. I'm so glad you pointed it out to me." I don't think so.
No. You work on your daughter's self esteem, and that comes from accomplishment. Help her to be happy and active - make sure she has lots of play dates and friends, get her into church, scouts, volunteering, sports, junior modeling, pagents, dance, gymnastic classess, get her a tutor so she can excell at her studies - hurt feelings are internal - we believe what other people say! You must teach her that the opinons of others is worthless.
No matter the initial pain, don't be a helpless kitten in all of this - you must have the attitude of a tiger! This will not be the first time that this happens, be prpared, this is a woman's life in our country - it is even a popular TV show, what do you think America's Next Top Model is?
You must build a self esteem in her that is like a concrete wall and then she will be able to live a solid and worry free life.
At this point I would leave it be. It sounds like the teacher is willing to help a little. Which mit be all that needs to be said. But to reinforce your daughters confidence tell her how great she looks and have others point that out too. (like grand parents or close friends) Don't make it oddveous that you are doing it. Or she will feel that you are just lieing to her to make her feel better. If something else gets said at school then I would talk to the mother One on One with a teacher or principal.
One thing to remember you should always watch what you say about others, because things have a habbit of coming back and bitting us in the Butt. (if she thinks your daughters fat most likely she will have some issue that makes her gain wait or her own daughter to become fat) Don't ever make fun of others because you never know what is in your future that could make you the same or worse. Best of luck to both of you. May God watch over you and your family always. Julie
Well it seems to me that you have already done your job. Your daughter has already shown that she is a confident young lady she gave the perfect answer. As moms we tend to want to strike out at those that hurt our children, although our teachings say different. I believe that if you respond to the mom of this mean child, you are validating the statement and saying silently that your daughters response was not sufficient.
As for the future , make sure that she remains confident in herself , by participating in sports or organizations that continue to build on the person, not the appearance of the person. I would say you are already on the right track. Blessings for you and your family.
Relax. You are doing the right thing. Your daughter is strong. We aren't built the same. The other mother has a problem, but you won't be able to fix it by talking to her. Maybe she needs a friend and doesn't know how to be one.
Martha, mother of 4, ages 15-22.
I spent 11 years teaching elementary school and dealing with situations such as this. What I've learned is that when most sensible parents (you) confront silly parents (the other mom), the silly parent never responds the way you want them to and they just don't get it. Personally, I think it would be a waste of energy to confront this mom over something her child said she said. Then it turns into kind of a "high school" scenario. I think your daughter responded beautifully and you've obviously reinforced some healthy attitudes at home.
I also think that going to the teacher was a good idea. This way the teacher can be aware of the situation and if it happens again, hopefully the teacher will deal with the situation right then and there. If it continues, there are things you can do, such as go to the principal (it's always nice to go to the teacher first) and let the principal know that your daughter is being harrassed or bullied at school on a repeated basis. There are education codes about these kinds of things to protect children.
Ask the teacher to document incidences if it keeps happening, and document them yourself. Write everything that happened down. Hopefully, it was a silly one time incident, but if not...document, document, document. It makes you look professional, lets the teacher and principal know that you gave it time to be worked out on its own or in the classroom, and that you mean business. Plus, it gives you a proactive way to deal with your anger in the meantime without confronting the mom.
Your daughter handled the situation perfectly. Like others have said, continue to build up her self esteem.
Also, this is information coming from 7 year olds. You don't know for sure if this mom actually said this or not. You don't know if perhaps the other child is being picked on by someone else and this is her way of compensating. Maybe you also don't know what might have led up to this exchange in the first place. Kids can be cruel and it's not always because of the parents either. Words do have a lasting impact as well. Our first experience of this was when my son was 3 years old. He had a pair of Barney shoes that he wore to death, loved them. A boy in his daycare told him they were baby shoes and from that day forward he never wore them again (and I know it made him sad to part with them). Our own wonderful, loving children may also do this very same thing someday and learning about it will go against everything that we've taught them and break our hearts that our sweet children can also find it in themselves to be so cruel.
I think it's important that the mom knows what the child said and you did the right thing in telling the teacher. It may have come from mom or the little girl may have made it up to be hurtful. Let the teacher handle the situation. If you confront the mother, feeling the way you do, then it can create more conflict not just between you and the mom but between your daughters. I would leave the situation where it is for now. If another instance occurs between your daughter and this girl, then take it to the principal and ask that he have the other mother come and meet with you, in a neutral setting with the principal. Chances are the next step would be to bring your children together to discuss this, again in a neutral setting.
But if this is a one time happenstance, don't escalate the situation any further. :)
Wendy,
First of all I am sorry that happend. There will sadly always be people like that who can always find something negative to say. Unfortunately confronting them will do no good, apparently it has already been tried by the teacher. I doubt she will ever change and she is raising her children to be the same way.
Be proud of your daughter and the way you have raised her. It sounds as if you have done everything right and have a very bright and self confident little girl!
How appauling of this mother to say such a thing about a child!!! So far I think you have handled this very well. And you are lucky your daughter has a great teacher who is going to work on the issue in class!! From what the teacher says, sounds like this mother may not be very educated and certainly has poor judgement. I don't recommend talking to the mother about this. I forsee a screaming match which would not be good. Insted continue to focus on building your daughter's self esteem. Seems like so far you are doing great (love her response!). try to find female role models who are of a similar body type, most likely pro-athletes or with the summer olympics coming up an olympian! try to stear away from the pop culture icons (they are all way way too skinny). focus on telling her she is healthy and is beautiful all the time. the more positive reinforcement the better! if you start now with building her self image, she is more likely as a pre-teen and teen to be less effected by negativity. good luck! and keep loving your beautiful girl!!
Your daughter is awesome! What a great response! It really does show that she has a good sense of self-confidence to speak up for herself like that. It's great that you talked to the teacher about the situation and that the teacher is going to include some stories about acceptance of others in her lesson plan. I wouldn't confront the other mom because it sounds like she's not that great of a person and why invite that kind of conflict and drama into your life. The best thing you can do is teach your daughter not to be judgmental herself and that sometimes adults say and do things that are not smart. (I wouldn't be surprised if this mom didn't have body image or eating disorder issues herself.) The better your daughter is at being a critical thinker and the less reliant she is on other people's opinions about herself, the better.
Dear Wendy,
I'm sorry that this has happened to your daughter. I'm not sure about how to deal with the mom. But in respect to your daughter's situation, I would advise not to discuss issues about weight with her...including using words that also involves skinny. For example, not emphasizing the issue of fat or skinny. Some parents may think that telling your child they look good and they are skinny will make give them high self-esteem, but it will also bring the same bad results - "emphasizing on the issue of weight and being skinny". Making the child focus on weight as opposed to health. With my daughter, although she is only 2 now, I plan to talk about health and how certain foods are good for your heart, your bones, your growth etc. And that eating is very important for survival etc. And if she ask me if I think she's beautiful, then I would be honest and say that, "you are definitely beautiful on the outside, but that's not really why your beautiful..it's because you are so sweet and kind, and beautiful on the inside, that people realized you ARE truly beautiful to look at. What you are inside will shine on the outside too."
Maybe then, you can also tell your daughter that when people say nasty things...what ends up happening is that no matter how pretty they may look on the outside, others are only able to see their ugliness (ooze out onto the outside), and physically, they will look ugly to anyone who sees them.
Unfortunately with this one, all you can do is work on your own family. Keep instilling that self-esteem within your daughter so that she continues to have a positive attitude about herself and her image. She is right on with who she must please - and no one else so, even if she was overweight, it is not for anyone else to say. We cannot change the way other people think/act, we can only change ourselves. Your daughter will do more good with what she already said, the anything you could say to that other girls mother. These days, who knows what that mother would do in retaliation anyway. Your daughter sounds awesome! God bless!
It breaks my heart when I hear stories like this. I love your daughter's answer but deep inside it probably hurt her. Our society is really screwed up when it comes to the exterior. We put so much emphasis on that rather than what's inside like character. I would just focus on her positive strengths and encourage her. I think it's good that you're aware that body image is so important and how it affects girls and sometimes does encourage eating disorders. Which school does she go to? There are some school libraries that have my book. It's a book that I wrote for my grandchildren originally about a character called P.T. short for possibility thinker which is about encouraging kids to believe the truth about themselves which is that they were each created by God with their own unique and special gifts and talents. P.T.'s Big Surprise is a book about finding friendship in unlikely places, kindness and accepting each other just as we are. I'm not sharing this with you as an advertisement but you can show your daughter my website www.ptthinker.com and look at some of the heart messages to remind her that she is special, unique and ther's no one else just like her. Look under the encouragement heart messages. One that might be encouraging to her would be, "Celebrate You, You're Worth it!" You can see parts of the book on the site. Email me and I'll see if there's anything I can do for her.
Wow, your daughter is wise beyond her years and sounds very, very secure - that means you've done a great job. I suggest you don't even bother with the Mom (even though, like me, you probably want to confront her) - ignorance and insecurity seems to run in her family and NOTHING you say will change that. Let the teacher handle her. You just need to praise your lovely daughter for her excellent response and, as you suggested, let her know that even adults are sometimes wrong. She sounds like a winner - I wouldn't worry too much about her. Best of luck.
There are alot of ignorant people out in the world,you just happened to find one or many.but you should just ignore that person and her comments.You should just keep doing what your doing. And that will help build confidence in your daughter. Sometimes just ignoring their comments makes you and your family better people. Talking to her teacher was a good move, but i think if you talk directly to the family it will just cause trouble for you and especially for your daughter. Sounds like your daughter is a very smart girl and knows how to handle her self. As she gets older I think she will be okay. I was and still am a big girl (not fat but tall and just bigger than the rest of the petite girls around). I went through school just fine, actually no body picked on me cause of my size. For your being 7yrs old she speaks up for herself very well. Just as a mother we want to jump and protect them from all harms way. You have rasied a polite young lady and I am sure the rest of your kids are the same, they follow by example. And who could love a family that loves Hockey!! God Bless.....
It sounds like your daughter has been taught well by you to be able to reply like she did. Keep up the good work. She is right, she shouldn't care what other people think. I think it's good that you talked to the teacher, too, b/c she can be more diplomatic than you in this situation. I think that you should just keep the communication open with your daughter and continue to teach her the lessons in life, and sometimes that means dealing with other people's judgement. Good luck!
P.S. We are a hockey family too, and we are loving the Stanley Cup playoffs!
My first response was to get in her face. How ever as I think about it, I think I would let the teacher handle it this time. Follow up with the teacher to make sure she spoke to the parent. Let your daughter know (like you said) that some adults do not say or make good choices. If it happens again I would say something to that parent.
Good luck!!!
It sounds like you have already done a fabulous job with your daughter, her response was great! I think it is fine to let her know that 1)just because someones says "someone else said something" doesn't mean they did, and 2)adults can be mean spirited and obnoxious, just like kids. It is so hard for girls today to have a positive body image with all the pressure and media messages, all you can do is keep doing what you've been doing and hope for the best. She sounds terrific.