When kids say unkind things to your dd/ds

[Tiredmum21]

Chatting to my dd5 this morning and she told me a couple of girls in her class had told it wasn't good that her eyebrows met in the middle.. we're of Indian heritage so my dd, like me, has light skin and dark hair which shows up on her face, arms and legs. She is 5 years old! It broke my heart to see her looking at her eyebrows in the mirror and thinking there was something wrong with them, with her. I was bullied and made fun for the same thing when I was younger.

How do you cope when you hear things like that? I know they're only children but when I saw the little girls who said it and their mums at the school today I really didn't want have to speak to them.

She's only 5 so I know I've got more of this to come so would be interested to hear how others cope and help their own children deal with things like this.

I would say to her

"You're beautiful inside and out. People are jealous if this so will try and find something wrong with you. But there isn't anything."

Then distract her with a game of snap or something that's very intensive interaction wise, laugh lots and keep praising all the lovely things.

I try to talk to my daughter about how her words can have an effect on others. Sometimes she has innocently said something and been unaware that an observation may upset others. There have been other times when she has said something unkind and I've had to pull her up on it.
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I would definitely want to know if my daughter was saying something unkind to her classmates. I know you may not get a good reaction but I would want to know and would speak to my child about it.