Bolding mine. Yes, everyone is naked under their clothes, and that is pretty easy for a teacher to explain to 6-year-olds should the topic come up in class. If a student mentions the discussion at home, it’s unlikely to raise too much parental suspicion. Not everyone goes swimming naked; it’s less easy for a teacher to explain if it comes up in class, and it’s easily misinterpreted if another parent hears an incomplete version of the story at home, particularly if it involves a picture that was shown at school. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the parent taking that picture, but I can understand why the teacher would be worried about how to respond to the picture situation in a classroom of 6-year-olds, given the possible reactions of other parents.
-Sidney, sister and daughter of elementary school teachers
teacher was overreacting. but why was he naked in the hottub? why not wear shorts, underwear, or a bathing suit at least? is your husband naked as well?
The more I think about it, though, the more sympathetic I am to the teacher. I can imagine, with all the stresses of first-year teaching, thinking, “I really don’t need this,” when a kid brings in a picture of himself hanging out in a hot tub. Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with such a picture, nor is there anything wrong with such an activity–but it can be hard to manage a classroom, and this might just be something she’d like to put the kibosh on. If it’s treated as a no-harm, no-foul, but don’t-do-it-again situation, I think that’d be reasonable.
I explained in my last post why he was naked (a bathing suit will freeze when you get out, my son stays warmer without the suit). His dad and I always wear our suits; the hot tub is not immediately visible from outside the yard (6’ stockade fence) but we are still modest, just in case.
The point is, all you could see was his head, so it didn’t occur to me that the picture could be construed as improper. I would not have let his dad send it in if it, in any way, was not just a regular picture. I wish I could post it here for you guys to see, since it has created so much discussion.
I can totally picture it. Harmless for sure, I have no doubt.
But just seeing how you’ve gotten so many off the wall comments from people who are supposedly the brightest around I’m sure you can sympathize with an inexperienced teacher anticipating wacky comments from parents who might be told by their child that a classmate brought in a naked picture. Her note was completely polite and (IMHO) not accusatory in the least. It screams CYA to me so that she could say she addressed it.
My gawd, we have people in this thread making comparisons to Nazi Germany and talking about going over her head for such a simple thing. Now imagine the reaction you’d get as a teacher from people who didn’t start reading in the womb if their kid came home and told them about child nudity. I doubt a classmate would come home and say “Little Timmy brought in a picture where he was chilling in the hot tub with his dad. He was naked but all we could see was the top of his head, no worries Mother.” I’m thinking more like “DAD! Can we get a hot tub so we can hang out in it naked like Little Timmy and his Dad? He brought pictures of them in class!”
I can see why the note would make you roll your eyes, but to do anything other than “Okay, I get you. I don’t see any problems in the future. Thanks for the heads up” is just silly. You seem way too reasonable to do anything else.
Regardless, I still think there are some people who are clearly making too much out of a polite note. I believe taking this issue to the principal is far more of an overreaction than the teacher’s note. Far more.
the moral of the story is: have your kid wear shorts, imo. he steps out of the hot tub, you wrap a towel around him. naked kids over age 2 is weird to most people
Perhaps the teacher is afraid that anything nakedness-related has potential for overreacting on the part of others.
I understand this is very immature, but if I were you, I’d provide further pictures of your son being naked behind different objects. Have them printed on t-shirts he wears.
Actually, in a way, it is the moral of the story, in that it’s exactly the kind of viewpoint that a professional like a teacher has to take into account when dealing with small children in a public setting. What clarkstar said may sound really way out there, but there are no doubt a lot of parents who would agree with the statement.
No. The moral of the story MIGHT be, don’t let your kid take a picture to school if there’s any question about its propriety. But it’s certainly not that your kid shouldn’t go skinnydipping in a hot tub.
(FWIW, there are other pictures that might be inappropriate even though they depict harmless activities. Imagine a picture of a boy, shown from behind, taking a pee against a tree. It could show nothing, but I’d still be irritated if one of my students brought it in, and I might ask the parents to knock it off with sending such pictures in).
I think you misunderstood my post. I don’t think there is anything wrong with letting your kid go skinnydipping in a hot tub. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the picture that was taken, as I’ve said several times above. What I was saying in the post that you quoted is that the teacher has to be concerned about what other parents are likely to think about the situation, not just what I think is right for my kid. That’s all.
Gotcha. That’s a very different thing from what clarkstar said, I think. Sorry for the misunderstanding! I think it was the first sentence that confused me.
It is? Well I guess I must be weird then when I think nothing of my 5 year old running round the house naked, a real pedophile because I also don’t care if she sees me in the shower, or changing, or whatever?
lol overreacting is standard in this thread. if your kid is streaking tru the house don’t you tell him or her to get dressed? what if you have company over?
Some people might suggest that if ‘the company’ sees anything sexual (which is presumably the concern) in a 5 year old running around naked, then it might be ‘the company’ that has the problem, not the parent.
One of my favorite past times is going to a traditional Japanese hot springs in which everyone is naked… TOGETHER! Babies and 5 year olds and 10 year olds and 15 year olds and 20 year olds and old ladies! Those disgusting and immoral foreign degenerates! Thank God I have been corrected by the proud descendant of a Puritan or I would no doubt be boarding the pedophile train into child molestation right this instant. :eek:
Now excuse me, I have to go call the cops on my parents for all those pictures of me dancing around naked as a kid.
