For most parents, finding out your child has been called nasty names at school wouldn’t be described as a “parenting win” but for Alison Kimmey, that’s exactly what happened earlier this week.
The self-help author and mother-of-two took to Instagram to explain how her five-year-old daughter Cambelle being called “fat”, ended up being a proud moment.
The 30-year-old from Florida told her 152k Instagram followers that her youngest child had come home from sports practise and recounted how her teammate commented on her stomach when her shirt lifted up in the changing room.
When asked about her response, the five-year-old told her mum: “I told her that I am not fat, I have fat. And that everybody has fat. And I told her it’s okay to have fat.”
And (while having an internal “happy dance”) the mother reassured Cambelle that she had done the right thing, saying: “I am so proud of you for the way you handled that situation. Fat is not a bad word, I don’t think she was trying to hurt your feelings.
“It was so brave of you to help her understand that all people have fat, but that no one is fat. And that it doesn’t make you a bad person if you have more or less of it.”
The mother, who has previously said that fat is not “a bad word in our house”, told her followers that she was proud of her daughter for handling the situation “with more grace” than most adults.
Cambelle also took the opportunity to apologise to her parent for using the same insult against her in the past.
“Children aren’t born with hate inside them. They learn words from their environments and the things they see/hear, and they try them on for size. I can’t prepare my daughter for all of life’s situations, but I can help her to be a voice of compassion, humility and love,” said Kimmey.
And, preempting that some commenters would say her approach was “promoting obesity”, the mother only had one thing to say: “Please understand that preventing childhood bullying before it can even start is not a matter of weight, but of character.”
Kimmey has previously been in the spotlight, after a candid conversation with her son and daughter, where she taught them about the use of the word fat.
“Our children are fed ideas from every angle,” she wrote.
“You have to understand that that will happen: at a friends house whose parents have different values, watching a TV show or movie, overhearing someone at school- ideas about body image are already filtering through their minds.
“It is our job to continue to be the loudest, most accepting, positive and consistent voice they hear. So that it can rise above the rest.”