DS made racist comment at school

Given your son is autistic, other kids rile him up to the point of meltdown, and now parents are discussing him in Whatsapp groups, I think you need to involve the school and get mediation in place. Whatever the story is, it needs to be set straight between all parties. And, after it's set straight, you've got to come out swinging against your son being teased because it's only going to get worse/more subtle. My son really struggled in Y5 and 6. Other kids would call him a r*tard and do things like try to get him to say the n word. Which he never did because I had robust conversations from an early age about racism. My point is, if there are manipulative people around your son, he's likely to come off looking worse than others because autism reduces his social standing - and if he cries and can't get his story out, most people will jump to the wrong/worst conclusion. Tbh, I would be looking hard at whether you want to continue sending him to that particular school. I wound up electively home educating my son for a year.

Just to address one more thing regarding skin colour not being mentioned to white kids - not my experience. "Cracker" "Honky" "White fucker" were all terms thrown at me in school. There's nuance to it, of course, because white skin is far less othering, given things like media portrayal, etc. But I really need to mention intersectionality here because of autism. Autistic kids are at a disadvantage when it comes to communication, and while white privilege still applies, it needs to be adjusted for autism as a disability.

He might not have meant to, but that's how the little girl would have felt in that situation.

That's presumably not how you felt when your 6 year old said that, but hopefully you had a serious talk with her about not making comments about other people's bodies and have done some educating around gender roles and stereotypes, because you know that that's not OK for her to go around saying and don't want her to do that to someone else, who might be very hurt.

Her mother doesn't have to just hush up about that to avoid upsetting the white people in the situation. I'd also have been mortified if this had been my child. It sounds like the best solution is to have the two parents discuss this with the Head to mediate.

Whilst the OP can explain that her child being autistic might have influenced the situation, the worst thing she can do is make it all about how the other mother shouldn't have shared the incident with anyone else.

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I agree, your son hasn't given you the full side of the story. My son is like this he will shutdown if he thinks he's getting told off even if he has not done any wrong. From my understanding of 7 year olds they usually run off and tell a teacher, if this was the case I'm sure the teacher would have told you about the incident if it was serious and racist comments would be treated as so. Op you don't know what really happened so yes speak to his teacher on Monday. Establish the facts first and go from there. If he has said it then you deal with it. Kids do say hurtful things, how else can they learn without making mistakes. If these parents want to judge a 7yr old asd child they are arseholes op. Who cares about what they think, you know your son! The mere fact they are on a school WhatsApp group makes them very sad in my eyes but that's just my opinion. It will all blow over and they will find something else to gossip about next week I'm sure.

I’m sorry, but you don’t have a clue. Zero comparison. I say this as someone who is brown and whose child has also said similar. Although these comments did make me chuckle, they are really not the same, believe me.

That all said, this is a young autistic child who is clearly saying things without even knowing what he is saying. He is an autistic child. He tans easily and doesn’t like it.

I imagine it is bloody hard being the parent of an autistic child, and I feel for the op. This is a lot to navigate, but she is taking it very seriously, so I think it will all come out well. Good luck OP!

BTW, my, now adult, son has ASD. If he was asked to describe anyone at school he would do so
Literally. No holds barred. No nuance, no idea that he might be being rude. So it would be
The old teacher ( meaning an older person)
The fat one.
The one with the weird hair.
He really was just very plain speaking, absolutely no filter.
I wonder if what you son said was just descriptive.

WhatsApp parents groups can be an absolute cesspit.
I say this as a teacher of 30 plus years of experience.
There is a disturbing number of parents who've grown up with social media and so should know better, but seem incapable of refraining from posting inappropriate comments resulting in judging and pile ons.

I'm so sorry this happened to you OP. This is crap, immature reaction from other parents.
The matter could/should be dealt with amongst teachers and parents involved.

Yes but so can the damage of this child being ostracized. He's a seven year old, who made an offensive comment, and he needs to be shown the error he made and how he can make it right again. He needs the opportunity to apologise and be forgiven. He's a child for heavens sake.

How about sorry for a little girl who’s had her first taste of racism at the grand old age of 7.

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He didn't hurl racist abuse FFS. He's 7.

Or should I go and come down hard on my fat-shaming mysoginistic 6 year old who told me I had a big tummy and mummys can't play football.

Lots to digest here. Speaking as a teacher, albeit mostly of upper KS2, I wouldn't automatically classify this as a racist comment. To an adult it clearly is, but at 7 this is still a concept children are beginning to understand, and the ASD can't make it easier, although it isn't an excuse. I think the child's intentions need to be taken into account; and if they are picking up ideas like this home which in your case it seems not. Are they parroting phrases heard from another child?

The SM stuff is shit- parents should know better. Unfortunately not all do.

It seems like you are on the right track with making it crystal clear to your child that he needs to apologise and why he can't say these things. If appropriate I'd suggest as well as apologising he takes the lead and asks the little girl if she wants to play with him, although I would also explain to your son that she might not because of what he said, and how to deal with this appropriately. 'Ok then, see you after break.'

I'd email the headteacher- that way you can calmy explain what's happened. As a courtesy to the class teacher I would at a bare minimum copy them in too.

He’s not racist. Appalled at the bullying nature of the WA group. OP, my ASD DC are now adults and I have been through this. Unfortunately people prefer to judge before they are willing to understand the the social implications of autism. My eldest in particular would blurt out inappropriate comments but it was always as a reaction to extreme stress. Usually after he was bullied himself earlier in the day.
It will get better. 💙

I’m brown. I remember racist comments from 40 years ago, like other brown posters on here.

I also have a non NT (white) mother, possibly autistic but undiagnosed, who has and had no empathy and no understanding of how her words could hurt people. Indeed often defending what she said as “being the truth” or intended to help the person, for instance telling people they were fat.

What next? A small girls feelings no sense of self have been hurt. No one when I was little ever rallied around me, when I was little, against the racists. Not even 15 years ago as an adult. So it’s good the girl is being listened to and finding strong support. I’m glad society is changing.

But equally, I feel the girls supporters (who include the OP!) are mostly going about their support in very much the wrong way. After all this is a child who is autistic. Aged 7 he likely doesn’t even know what he is saying, though I suspect the WhatsApp parents assume he got these ideas from his family. where else would he got the idea that her skin colour makes the girl different or wrong? As an autistic child, he probably feels different and wrong quite a lot of the time.

A few things, which may be repeats of what others have said.

Are the WhatsApp parents aware the OPs son is autistic? Can the OP make it very clear that she will now work with her son to ensure this never ever happen again? Ie make it clear that these ideas were NOT coming from his family (which I’d otherwise assume). I’d find it comforting, if I were the girls parents, to hear a “so sorry“ message from the op, and to hear what was going to be put in place to teach the little boy that what he said is not on.

Discussing it in a direct 1 to 1 chat with a close friend to get some support is very different to broadcasting it on a class whatts app group. And it sounds like they were making negative comments 'the autistic boy' relating to his disability.

So we have a 7 year old ND boy making a comment related to a protected characteristic, and a large group of adults making comments related to a protected characteristic. Neither is right, but the 2nd group is definitely worse, a load of grown adults targeting a child with a disability, knowing that the actions they are (rightly) unhappy with are likely linked to his disability. This does not make it ok, but we as adults have the experience and knowledge of how to do better, much more than a 7 year old.

I can see you are ashamed and disappointed but I'd be very wary of centring yourself and your son as the victims as this situation progresses.

Your son- for whatever reason- hurled racist abuse at another child which is awful. He may well have done it impulsively or had a good reason to want to hurt her, but it's unacceptable.

The Mum shared a traumatic incident with her friends on a WhatsApp group. No-one should be pressured into not speaking out about racism when it happens.

I would forget being "livid" that this has been shared, offer a full and frank apology to the Mum and do what you can to get to the bottom of why your son said it and make sure he understands why it's not OK. It will blow over soon enough and you can all move on.

Good god! The school absolutely needs to step in. This is ridiculous drama.

And I would say that even if your DS was not SEN. Children do not behave like adults. They must be taught, not pilloried.

Oh ffs he’s 7! Of course this needs to be taken seriously and be taught that this is wrong but kids of this age are just as likely to say I don’t want to play with you because you have curly hair/I don’t like your coat/etc etc. unfortunately he chose skin colour which has all sorts of conatations. He needs gently educable why this isn’t appropriate and an apology to the little girl in question and making sure the little girl is ok and supported.

I had this when my son was in mainstream in primary he’s now a teenager. We also had a few incidents (luckily nothing that could be took to be racist) which just didn’t seem to add up. Ds isn’t the most articulate and at thst age some of the other kids are, and not what to say/not to say and when. So if something happened and you asked ds a direct question “did you do/say this?” He’d say yes and it was very difficult to question him on an incident he’d just shut down. A couple of times over the next few days the full story would then come out which would put a completely different spin on things. Obviously op son needs to be taught thst he can’t say this but if I was op I’d speak to school and get full story as maybe there’s more to it

Oh get a grip. She’s literally said it’s really awful. How is she being ignorant by saying saying something racist is bad and she’s making him apologise?

My toddler son had white skin, huge blue eyes and white hair. We went to a market on the quayside overseas. The stallholders made a huge fuss of him. He was touched for good luck, given treats. It was a surrealistic experience.