Daughter accused of 'racist' behaviour

[Kara742]

Sorry if this becomes a bit of a rant but today my 4 year old dd's reception teacher told me that another mum called in saying that my dd called hers a 'paki'. My daughter is mixed race and has family from all over the world, she has also never used any of this type of language before and the only time we have ever had to tell her that a word she is saying is unsuitable in a certain environment is in her current never ending poo/wee humour phase ????.
Although I know that certain words get 'picked up' from school at this age I can't understand how she could have learnt this at reception. Apparently the teacher said that although no one actually saw this happen, it will have to be put on my dd's school record and I'm not sure how I should approach this with my daughter or the school without making it worse. Any help or advice would be really appreciated because I really can't believe she would do something like this. ????

[Blu]

I can see why you are upset!

Have you spoken to your dd about it at all? They pick up all sorts when they start school and use words without understanding them. I would ask her neutrally if she has ever heard anyone use the word (though obviously the danger there is that it introduces the word ) or ask her if she had called anyone a name. It may be that she heard it from someone else and thought it was just something you call people to be rude (like 'poo head') .

Or she may not have said it.

Or she may have said it and heard someone else somewhere saying it, and used it in context.

Just talk to her, calmly and matter of factly, and then report back to the school.

They do have to log racist incidents in order to monitor generally and deal with patterns.

[Kara742]

I asked her if she had been in any arguments over the last few days with anyone or if she had called someone a name or accidentally upset someone but like you mentioned I didn't want to mention the actual word in case it brings it up and makes it into a 'thing ' whilst at the moment I can't see where she would get it from, it would be horrible if she went into school tomorrow and said it to the teacher or to a student because I taught her a 'new word'.
Thank you, it's a bit of a relief if it's just to make sure there aren't repeated incidents this year. I haven't dealt with anything like this with any of my older children so was worried it would be a permanent mark for her time at school and it sounds silly but I didn't want her to be put in a 'racist' category by her teachers in the future.

[MrsPCR]

It being on her permanent record will mean on the register, your daughter has a profile which logs all behaviour. Not sure how well used these are in primary, but secondary use it for all positive and negative behaviour from anything serious right down to arriving at a lesson without a pen. At the end of the school year, this automatically resets to zero; however you can change the academic year to look at previous years, which is where the staying on your permanent record comes in. They only ever look back at previous years with troublesome kids more as a comparison. If this is a one off, it will undoubtedly go unoticed. Or it becomes part of a long catalogue of issues and becomes hidden at the bottom!

[amarmai]

since your dd is mixed race , is it possible she was called that name and that she is repeating it? See if you can role play with her using dolls maybe and pretending to be a child in her class. Call each other silly names as a joke and see what surfaces. The word came from somebody and the recipient was likely your mixed race daughter. Take this seriously and ask the school to hold off on the recording until you get a chance to get to the bottom of this. There was a very similar thread to this where another mixed race child was called niga by a white child. The mixed race child wrote it on a piece of paper and the teacher reacted the same way as you are describing , also without getting the other side of the story. There is another side to your dd 's story too.

[Luna9]

Terrible that they are putting it on her records when nobody has proofs of it; the other girl could be making it up; so if you make something up about the other girl;will they put it on her records too? They are only 4; the school approach is not correct

[CookieDoughKid]

Kids say things all the time and they have no idea what it means. I wouldn't shy away from mentioning the word to your dd. I would calmly have a discussion about it. At the same time talk about other words such as chinky/nigga etc... Kids hear all sorts of things and you can't always be there to censor what she hears. I've two mixed raced dc's. It's better they learn they learn from you rather than in the school playground - whether or not she said the word.