DS made racist comment at school

well then they are immature and not doing their own child any favours.

Actually my point is that DS wasn’t actually being racist or sexist.

He doesn’t/didn’t believe that boys are better than girls. If all those outside the door had been wearing green he would have shouted “no green clothes allowed”. He was a 5yo adopting a very crude and socially unacceptable means of putting people into groups in the context of a silly game.

Of course I also explained to him why both comments were unacceptable and I hope he wouldn’t do this now, either.

I do agree with you though that boys saying they don’t want to play with girls and vice versa is very common and I don’t see it being criticised often.

Sorry, wasn't clear. My ds attended the same school that I work at. I had to always be careful about what I said or did. Doesn't sound like the classroom assistant at your school with a child in your ds class has been.

A similar comment was mage to my daughter when she was in year 2. The comment was " I'm only inviting white people to my birthday party" I'm black, as is my daughter.

She's 24 now and doesn't remember the comment. I do.

She told me about it and I didn't bother reporting it. I talked my daughter through it. On hindsight, I probably should have said something to the school.

I wouldn't have started a group chat about it. I did tell another black mum about it. I was more about teaching my daughter people like this child are ignorant. When you face so much racism in life, these comments aren't surprising. It does make me wonder where it comes from, as kids aren't usually born this way.

She works at the same school her child attends, surely?

This isn't racism.
He isn't prejudiced he just said something socially unacceptable.
You are punishing him for his Autism and inability to express himself.
He doesn't need to apologise.
The parents labelling a tiny kid a racist should be apologising.

Now that you had the explanation from your DS.go and explain what he actually said to the school teacher, he was being curious not racist, he is only 7 and has to deal with bullying at school.
The WA group are totally out of order.

They can't police it, but they can make their views on this practice very clear. It might just make one or two people take a look at how they conduct themselves. Some people do embrace personal growth and learn to do better next time.

The school have said what the OP's son said was not malicious, but this WA chat certainly seems to have taken a malicious turn. They have basically tried a 7yo on their virtual kangaroo court and found him guilty. That is not okay.

Talk to the mum about how seriously you are taking this. I am 31 and grew up in an area where 29/30 kids in my class were Asian. When I was 8 my best friends said they wouldn’t play with me because “your skin is dirty.” The child’s mum would have had memories like that and I would be frothing at the mouth.

Gently, autism is irrelevant here; you’re just trying to make yourself feel better. In fact, they often have a stronger sense of social justice than most people. Everything you’ve said is really about you and how you feel.

I agree that's what it's all about teaching children how to behave through stories not chastising them. It's not the end of the world another poster said it it's how you respond. Children should be brought up not dragged.

@ellie09 i understand the upset you must feel. And the girl in question. But your son will be upset too. I have a son with ASD and they really can come out with some inappropriate things that they don’t mean, they just don’t know what to say and the wrong thing comes out. Please support him. I really don’t think he meant this as a racist comment.

Yet the school has admitted to the op that there is a problem with other kids talking about skin colour. They should have brought it up so op had the chance to talk to her son and guide him. They are 7 now and then 8,9, 10 and so on. The hard work starts now on making sure our little people grow up to be civilised individuals.

@ellie09 I would not start by scolding him. As you noticed he's just crying and not answering. Firstly to get all the facts straight I would ask him if he said that and ask why and how he feels about people with different skin colours. When my son started secondary he was excluded one day from school for having said "dirty black" at a girl. He wasn't able to talk to me about it, just cried and I was horrified. Finally he told me it was his a girl he used to play with all the time who had teased him (discreetly) for having a handicap (Asd) and an assistant during class. He had yelled "dirty black" because he wanted to hurt her back. Not an excuse, but I was really worried about him being labeled a racist especially since 80% of his friends are muslim and he's absolutely not racist. He used to play a lot with this girl and they had a fallout. She was teasing him out of earsight while he just screamed out loudly in front of everyone so ofcourse he got punished while she got the victim status. My son was told off by me for having said something racist instead of telling his assistant so the girl could be punished instead of him.
Having had this experience I would like to know what prompted your son to say something like that to her...

Young children may come out with racist sounding comments on their own and the comment may be innocent even though it doesn’t sound it.

My 5yo said he was doing to play ‘poo bandits’ on the bus (it’s his invention where bandits chase us and shoot us and turn us i to poo spaces).

This one time he said the people with brown skin can be the poo bandits (yes I am sure at least 2 of them heard). I was appalled then realised to him to was prob like boys one team, girls the other, sorting teams by hair colour or whatever.

I simply said to him we don’t choose who we play with based on appearance they can’t choose it’s not kind. I said how would he like all brown haired people to be bandits (he has brown hair) and he got the point. I didn’t even need to go
into the history of racism but would with an older child.

By age 7 maybe your child has come across racist comments (especially as you have no idea who says what at school) and is copying them. It shouldn’t be a big deal to explain that kind of comment (if he did make it) is rude and mean.

When I was at primary school I was often told I couldn’t play because I was a girl. Children are often becoming aware of differences and working out how to form social groups - it’s only later they realise friendship groups tend to be better based on interests, personality and shared experience rather than what colour their skin is or their favourite TV show.

The WhatsApp situation would stress me out too and I’d probably be avoiding the other parents too and they have no idea of what they have been told is correct because if it came from an adult at school you’d surely have been I formed….

I don’t know what to do about them but a discussion with your child about why that is such an inappropriate comment (even if they didn’t make it) is definitely due, along with an apology to the brown skinned child by whoever made the comment. And to be hi eat ideally an apology by the gossiping parents. They have behaved appallingly.

Once again, you cannot say it should have been reported to OP as you don't actually know what was even said. Teachers cannot report and record every minor disagreement everyday, it would take hours. The teacher clearly thought it was nothing as did the kids actually involved.

Your child's schools poor practice is completely irrelevant. Lots of schools build good parents school partnerships without reporting every minor thing, if your childs school is doing this they are still getting it wrong.

Interesting - this raises the important point about sexism being ignored. My own little boy sometimes says he doesn't like girls or no girls allowed. Nobody starts a witch hunt for that. I'm not saying sexism is the same as racism but for thr posters who are out to crucify the little boy in question, I wonder if their little darling has ever made a sexist comment like that.

Wow, have you actually even bothered to read anything the OP has said??

You mean black friend?

I haven’t read the full thread but my DS (NT) did something similar at 5. We had a group of kids round to play and he and some of his boy mates closed his bedroom door and shouted “no girls allowed”. The girls were outside trying to get in. Then their black, male friend joined the girls so DS said “no girls and no one with brown skin allowed in”.

It was obviously very bad behaviour - I was absolutely mortified and you can bet I clamped down on it immediately but at 5 and growing up in a multicultural society DS actually had no idea of the racist context. He was absolutely making a cruel distinction but if it had been a white child he would have chosen something else to differentiate him - it wasn’t based on any preconceived ideas about race any more than excluding the girls showed he was sexist.

It was actually a really good opportunity to talk to him about race and racism. We bought lots of books and have had several discussions about it at length since. At 6.5 he would never make a comment like that now, but if the incident hadn’t happened perhaps I wouldn’t have realised I needed to be so proactive in having these discussions.

It's called safeguarding this is why schools fail in Ofsted inspections they don't see the need to inform parents. It's too much hard work they have our children for near on 7 hours a day. They take on half the parenting responsibility it's important that there is a home school relationship. 168 parents complained when Ofsted turned up at my daughter's school and after that they received an inadequate. The academy trust brought in heads from other schools to sort it out all teachers had to reinterviewed. It was a mess and it was all because they couldn't be bothered to work with parents and record all incidents. The work also went downhill.

The parents are out of line putting it on WhatsApp but if there was no app they would be whispering and finger pointing in the playground. You can't stop people from talking about you. The school is at fault for not informing op in the first place.

The thing I don’t get though is that kids ask perfectly innocent questions and then we make them apologise for it?!
Surely you just explain it to them and leave it at that? Also making the point that it’s a sensitive topic and best not to bring up skin colour with other people?