Am I Stupid?

i would hate to think it would be possible for the teacher to have done that, however, god help her if she did..

on the other hand, if she is going to pre-school, the kids in their class are exposed to older siblings, so with that, i am sure that you can see, if something happened, that maybe one of the kids said that to her.

i am also a very protective parent and she is an only child, so she gets ALL MY ATTENTION, good and bad. however, i know that my daughter has recently been playing with our new neighbors. our new neighbors have 9 kids. i have noticed that the children in the same age bracket as my daughter, retaliate much harsher then some of the other kids that didnt have such older siblings.

your situation could be as simple as that. i know, that you know, you cant protect your kids from the harshness of life. (god i wish we could!).

i am not sure if you will like my suggestion, but other then gently mentioning it to the teacher to see if she knows of how or why this may have happened. i would just reinforce to your child how smart she is. building self confidence starts now, so maybe instead of focusing on blaming someone, use this situation to not only tell, but show her how smart she is.

my husband has a learning disorder (since childhood) and it somewhat formed his personality to be very defensive. (its a protective instinct). if she has a twin and is constently compared to her, then what ever her strenghts are, really need to be highlighted.

with my husband, i see that he struggles with writting and spelling and even pronoucing words, however, he is a master at carpentry and is able to put something together just by looking at a picture.

she will be looking for direction from you. if you get defensive, she might interpret that as "well, if mommy is protecting me, maybe i am not smart". but if you come across like that is the sillest thing you have ever heard, then thats what she will think to.

sorry if i got wordy.

Vlora,
Unfortunately, it is quite possible and very likely another three year old knows the word stupid. I was very shocked at some of the things my three year old son came home saying.... all things he admitted to learning from other kids in his class of three year olds. Also, I doubt the teacher will confess to you or the director if he/she is the one who called your daughter stupid if he/she was the perpetrator. So, my advice would be to continue to reinforce that your daughter is not stupid. Let her know that people say hurtful things and it's not acceptable. I know it is very stressful because building their self esteem up is so critical at this age. The hardest part is that just the tiniest bit of bad can have a huge affect on them for life. If either of your daughters is able to identify the offender, I would definitely take it up with the school (regardless if its the teacher or a student). Hopefully the teacher overheard the interaction and talked to the children when it happened. If your daughter continues to say this, I would also talk to the teacher. Just let him/her know SOMEONE is saying it and you are concerned about the longtime effect on your daughter. I would ask if the teacher witnessed any of these exchanges and what was done about them.
Good luck.
K.

L.,

We have had the same problem as my son started a new preschool this year. We never use that word at my house, but I am sure he picked it up at his new school also a very known school. I am sure that one or more of the kids at school are just using it. The teacher at our new school would not use it and it is very possible she doesn't even see it. If your child is prone to tantrums she is probably more of a sensitive child. At least mine is and he takes everything personally even at 3 1/2. I am just shocked at how he personalizes everything. It is possible this wasn't even said about her, but maybe about something she did (still not okay) and she maybe over personalizing it. Sorry to hear it is happening. Sounds like you did the best thing for the situation.

My 3 yo picked that word up from one of her classmates. We just told her that it wasn't a nice word. I agree with the other mom about the personalizing it. My daughter would come home everyday for 3 weeks telling me she was getting time outs everyday at preschool and she would tell me about other kids that she hit. I finally asked her teachers who told me that they hadn't given her a timeout for months because she is very sensitive and takes correction so easily. Turns out every time one of her classmates got a timeout for hitting someone else she would turn it into something that happened to her. I don't know if she was mixing the pronouns up or wanted attention. My point is, good luck getting a 3 yo to tell you what happened and make sense of it, and she could have heard another child say that word to someone else or about something else and personalized it.

Dear L.,

Whoa, Slow down. We're jumping to conclusions. If someone did call your daughter stupid, you have every right to be angry. But, I seriuosly doubt that a teacher at a prestigious school, who is tranied in working with children will so easily loose her temper that she will call a toddler stupid. If she's like that, chances are that behavior would have become apparent to you before now. It may have been another classmate. The statement that your toddler made, "was mommy,I'm not stupid" Sounds to me like, she may have been called stupid by a peer and the teacher may have reassured her that she is "not stupid", which is why she repeated that same statement to you for your reassurance. Or maybe she got a question wrong in class and called her self that, out loud, who knows. But give your children's teacher the benefit of the doubt and have a little more confidence in her, unless she has given you a reason not to. Approach the teacher in a calm and respectful manner and see if she knows what happened. Good Luck and tell us what happened.

L.,

I agree with Katie D. I think it is very possible that it was a classmate and not the teacher that said that to you daughter. Some kids have older sibblings and learn a lot of things your children are probably not exposed to yet. Not saying that that 3 year old knows what it means but it still is not okay. I would definately alert the teacher and tell your girls that if someone says that to them again that their they should let their teacher know because that is not acceptable.

Good luck.

S. H.

Kids pick up a lot from the other kids they are around...teenagers...T.V. My three year old has picked up a lot of habits from her daycare that I work at. I really don't think it was the provider - because every provider that I can think of does what they do because they like to be around kids and are good at it. We're working on getting rid of "words" she's picked up by saying, "mommy doesn't like that word." Her 14 year old step-brother is one of the influencers...teaching her words like, "zip it." There's even one two year old that - oh - has such a potty mouth. Don't worry so much about it. Just do what you're supposed to do and teach your kids right from wrong. Good luck.