over at unfogged, some comments in this thread are talking about undue pressures that kids as as young as 5 and 6 are facing. i don't have anything particularly enlightening to say about that, but it reminded me of a period when i was teaching at ASM (i taught 5-8 year olds, and, as another note, i did teach in milan, where most children wore armani for kids for picture day at school, and yes, i am being literal). i know you're not supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but, hell, i was only there for a year, and i was pretty much in love with florentia, a five-year-old from argentina who hadn't yet lived in once place for more than one year of her short life (her father was a diplomat of some sort). she spoke spanish, russian (her family's previous stint had been in moscow), english, and was rapidly picking up italian. at 5 she was already a near-fluent reader, and making up totally awesome stories about magical dolphins. being kind and funny and open, she was very popular amongst her classmates.

then one day at lunch, i noticed she wasn't eating anything, and i asked if she was feeling well.

"i'm fine," she said, pushing around her food. i didn't believe her (a bug had been going around in class and basically i was afraid she was about to vomit up a storm) so i pushed her to tell me what was going on. she said that her mother had told her she had needed to lose weight, so she couldn't eat her lunch.

i about blew a gasket (not in front of her) and went to talk about it with my much wiser and more experienced supervisor, who ended up speaking both with florentia and her mother about the situation. it was towards the end of the school year, and i left italy in july, so i'm not sure what the outcome ever was.

anyway, one piece of advice i took away from my much wiser and more experienced supervisor, who really was a brilliant teacher of young children, was to never, NEVER comment on a child's appearance. i thought that was obvious when it came to things like weight or odd features or glasses, but she meant absolutely nothing. not even if the child looks pretty/handsome. it seems innocuous and even encouraging at the time to tell a little girl that she looks very pretty that day, or that you love her shirt/skirt/hairstyle, but at such a young age it merely enforces weirdness about a) fashion b) appearances and c) teaches children that you can get positive reinforcement for something so stupid as what you're wearing - which, of course you can. but it's entirely freaky to think that there are five-year-olds out there realizing and exploiting that fact.