On Teasing

The following takes place on Thursday, 12:29PM. In the Parent Pick-up lane.

“Dad, Steve* was teasing me at school today”.

This was the first thing my daughter said as she buckled herself into the back seat.

“Oh? What was Steve doing?”

“He was messing up my name, and then Daisy* started doing it too, and when I told them that they said my name wrong, they said I was wrong”.

“But you know what your name is, and that is what matters. Did they hurt your feelings?”

“Yeah, and they didn’t stop, even when I told them it wasn’t funny”.

“Did you tell your teacher about it?”

“No, I just told them they were stupid, and that I was right”.

“Well, next time someone at school starts hurting your feelings, and won’t stop, you tell your teacher, OK?”

“OK”.

*Names have been changed, to protect the offenders.

I didn’t know how else to deal with the situation, this was the first time she had complained about any heavy duty teasing at school. But she seemed to feel better after our little talk, and moved on to the usual recess gossip that I get filled in on Monday through Friday. If the teasing by these two kids keeps up, should I stop by and talk to her teacher about it?

Shunned for not having a Furby?

Have your kids been teased or bullied at school? And how did/do you deal with it? Mikayla is the only one of our kids attending school, and she is in kindergarten, so this is my first round of dealing with playground teasing. Any advice would be great.