Truthfully I am very scared for my son and feel like he will be targeted for being mistreated. I never know how far people will take feelings of jealousy but he is so young and I find it unsettling that someone would even make remarks like that to a 2 year old especially with the tone she used. She obviously isn't happy about him spelling.
I spoke to his teacher and she told me that her and the woman are friends, and she does not think she would do anything to my son, but that feelings of jealousy are to be expected when a child is gifted. My son loves his teacher there so I really have mixed feelings about all of this.
I don't think this is something you need to be overly worried about happening in other situations. My son has never been treated the way you describe. When he was in preschool and was "cheating" by reading the answers to questions that no one else could read, the teachers were overjoyed about it, not jealous.
IMHO, jealousy from an adult is not a common reaction to exceptionally bright kids, nor is belittling or harassing toddler for being advanced. I actually find that quite baffling. I don't think it's "to be expected" because nearly everyone has more common sense than to be jealous of a toddler.
It sounds like the preschool teacher isn't willing to take a stand against her friend. That means you havea choice to either stop taking him there, since he won't have a protector from that woman, or talk to someone higher up. Since it seems like you use the class often, you should probably escalate to a higher-up.
