to think my 5yo ds is not racist?

[chr0nic]

Today the teacher phoned to tell me my 5 yo ds had called another boy 'little Indian boy' . My son was made to apologise but not made to understand why it was wrong. The teacher phoned the other boy's parents and so did I to apologise. I tried to explain to the boy's mother that my ds did not mean to be racist and does not understand the concept of racism. She did not accept this at all. Now she has banned my ds from playing with her ds. I feel sorry for my ds. Am I being too pfb? Should I have tackled this issue at an earlier age to prevent this from happening? What now?

Personal experience: I was born in England, and at Primary School in Scotland in the 80s being English was a big insult. My parents moved back to Scotland when I was 18months old, but when the other children found out I was born in England I was called "English girl" if someone wanted to upset me.

Children will find something to wind each other up with. It's our job to stamp down hard when prejudice raises its ugly head, even if it seems innocent. I'd be upset with ds if he was teasing someone for being English these days.

Squee. About that photo you linked to. I was very young and I needed the money.

It depends on context. If it was used in a derogatory manner, to put down or offend the other child then it is not ok. If he used it to describe someone then of course it is ok.

As parents we try to guide our 3 sons well and we hope they grow up to be nice, confident individuals who are proud of their dual heritage (I am black, my husband is white). A couple of my sons experienced similar name calling when they were 4/5. We took action similar to the mother of your son's school friend not because we believed those boys to be racist (I did not know or care, they were not my concern) but because we wanted to teach our boys that it was not ok for anyone to use their race to denegrade them. We teach them this very young.

denegrade? denigrate even.

i think your boy should make a card and simply write
' i am sorry if i hurt your feelings'

after you have apologised once, then apologised twice, i would suggest you can't do much more.

The general conclusion seems to be that the school should have spoken to the OP's son about not saying that, and then spoken to the OP. Which is exactly what the school did do.

According to the OP, the only person who has mentioned racism or attempted to discuss whether or not her son really is a racist or not is her. So what exactly have the school done wrong? For her own benefit, the OP really should stop worrying about a one off incident.

I also agree with Neptune. It is the responsibility of the other parent to protect her child from name calling and teach her child that he doesn't have to put up with it. It is not her responsibility to pontificate over the reasons why the OP's child said it or listen to the OP pontificate over it. Why should the other mother care?

That puts a slightly different perspective on it.

However, if your ds was being sat on or held down by the other child, he may have said it in the heat of the moment in much the same way that one might say 'get off me fat lump' even though the protagonist may not be overweight.

It seems that the school has formed the opinion that your ds used the word 'Indian' as a racist insult, but children do trade insults and it may be that the other child had previously called your ds a 'little white boy' and your son was responding in kind.

A bit more context would help, but I would suggest that you talk to your ds further about this incident and in general about what are, and what aren't, appropriate words to use even when one may be angry or frustrated with another person.

It is on so many different levels, but there's no need for you to fear that your 5 year old is going to grow up to join the EDL at this point in time.

As for the other mother, she may not wish her son to play with yours after school but I don't see how she can ban either her own or your ds from interacting/associating with each other during school hours - unless, of course, she is proposing that they are segregated in the classroom?

It's an odd one.
I don't think the child was being racist. I do think he was probably namecalling in the heat of the moment.

Personal exp: One of dd's friend's mother is Albanian. He always calls Dd "little English" (as do many people here) I have never seen it as anything other than a compliment but it had started to wind dd up. So one day, when little boy was walking ahead with his (Italian) father and shouting "Little English, Little English" over his shoulder, dd shouted back "Hey, Little Albanian". Dad went home and told Albanian wife to tell me to tell Dd not to do it again, because it was "racist". Now dd wasn't doing it in anything other than response to the other child who had been highlighting her "difference" for months and months. The other child wasn't being racist, and neither was she. They were both being 6 and having a pop at each other. The thing that amused me, was that the father had been quite happy for dd to get called Little English.

I'd say the OP's situation was blown out of all proportion, but a lesson in being kind to one's schoolmates is never a waste of time. (I would, if I were the school though, be pointing out to the other child's parents that not every mention of colour or provenance or nationality is racist. They are not synonyms)

Agree with izzy and others. I teach yr1 and insults based on appearances are the most common, even when it doesn't make much sense, eg (wailing) "she said I had long hair!!!" etc - it's just all they know how to do! While technically I suppose using someone's race in a negative way is a racist thing to do, your ds could just as easily have picked on what he was wearing, his weight etc. No way would the school be getting involved if he'd said get off me square eyes or similar!

This is a good website (for older children, but worth a look) - Britkid this page explains about terminology

OP I can see why you are upset. The head seems to have used a hammer to crack a walnut. This could have been a valid learning experience - maybe the class could have had a circle time discussion. A real shame the other mother seems to have interpreted this so negatively, although I can understand why she might, but still a shame.

I'm surprised so many folk think that young children can't be racist! Coming from Northern Ireland I am well aware that young children can be sectarian, can call out sectarian insults with the best of them, can throw stones at people from other cultures etc - so I'm pretty sure that the same must be true with racism. For those of you sho say "oh - they're not really racist, they're just repeating what they've heard" or they must "have picked it up somewhere" - well surely that's the basis of most racism??

I don't think that this is necessarily a case of racism - but don't just assume that little children can be indoctrinated at a very early age.

There was a mixed race boy in my older DD prescchool and on of her class mates said about my younger DD really loudly "look she is black like ", his mum was so appologetic but I couldnt have cared less she is really dark unlike my oldest and he was just saying what he saw no racist intent about my DD or the other child at all.

Gin, I think they are more 'brainwashed' or indoctrinated into thinking like that or they meerly pick phrases and insults up from their surroundings. I honestly don't think they are old enough at that age to decide for themselves if they harbour truely racist thoughts towards people of different races. Racism is a deeply felt hatred or dislike of another race. Now, unless a child has read a whole history on Ski Lanka and decided - 'hmm yes, those people are inferior to myself because.......' Then maybe, but if Daddy hates Indians/Africans because they....then daddy must be right! A five year old most probably goes after the latter.

I also worked in South Korea for several years teaching English and I can tell you some of those kids had been brainwashed into thinking like that. There were times I had to leave the classroom because I was so upset at what I was hearing. If there was a picture in a book of a black person they would snugger and laugh at it, when asked why they were laughing they would say the person was 'poor' or 'dirty'
When told (by myself) that all people were equal one lesson and that colour should not matter I was told by a 9 year old that Africans were dirty,didnt have jobs and had no money, therefore they were not as good as Koreans.

Now I could have blamed the kids for all this, but I understood that they had got these ideas from somewhere, either school, at home or in society as general.

Yanbu, I suppose some people must feel that there is something so shameful about being from India or being a boy that it should not be mentioned.

What was the other child doing, exactly? If your ds had to tell him to 'get off' then presumably the child whose mother is pissed off was doing something physical to your ds that your ds didn't like. So your ds needs to know that addressing someone as "Indian boy" isn't OK, but the other boy needs to know it's not OK to climb on someone or whatever HE was doing.

And the teacher needs to think before she jumps to conclusions. She should be talking to the class about differences, in an age appropriate manner - some people have red hair, some people have brown, etc. etc. etc. When I was very small, my mother explained racism by saying how silly it would be if blue eyed people were rude about brown-eyed people. I got the point.

I'm starting to think that many adults have lost sight of what 'racism' actually means. I just cannot see that it's derrogatory to refer to somebody as 'Indian' (if they are), 'English' if they are or 'little green alien' (if they are). This wasn't about race, it was about kids, using whatever limited vocabulary and terminology they have, in the same way that they'd refer to somebody with curly hair, ginger hair, straight hair, etc. I agree with Bucharest, her post is a really good example of how ridiculous this is becoming.

The messages are getting confused and children are going to pick up these wrong messages. Why aren't we teaching our children what an 'insult' actually means and how it might feel to somebody else? That would be meaningful and useful at least. All of this reminds me of Harry Potter's 'Voldemort'... 'he who must not be named'... everybody on eggshells at the mere thought of the name, it's crazy to follow and engage in a race argument that really doesn't exist to the extent that it's perceived. In fact, in my opinion, that mere perception has the power to cause the alienation in the first place.

Thats awful. Any teacher should know that children start to notice and comment on differences at this age. DD and her friend told me that another girl in the class was naughty because she was brown. I told her teacher about it so she was aware and all she did was say it is normal at this age and she would do another PSHE session on treating everyone the same. I also spoke to DD about people being different in lots of ways and she hasn't mentioned it since.

How awful to make such a big fuss and the other parent did not need to be told!

"Little Indian boy" is fine if it's a description, not if it's used as an insult, and it looks like your son meant the latter.

So, "That's my friend, the little Indian boy over there" is fine but not "Get off me you little Indian boy".

What concerns me is that that boy is your son's best friend so his name and country is known but when your DS got angry with him he suddenly turned into a generic brown person. So "Indian boy" even though I expect that at 5 your son knows that he's from Sri Lanka.

When I was young, we had what could be called 'geography' lessons in junior school. I remember having school friends from all over the world - Korea, Poland, Chile, Germany and Spain, as I remember. Each lesson we looked at another country, the people, the lifestyle, the culture, buildings, homes, food, etc. The pupils from that country would have other information to give and they were centre of rapt attention. I loved those lessons.

I can't understand, nor ever will, how being born into a country - or having relatives from that country - has anything at all to do with racial hatred. I'm convinced that as a society, we've just grown more ignorant and intolerant. :(

megapixels I think you're right.

Why didn't he just say "get off me Michael" or whatever the child's name is.

Op, I sympathise and think you have absolutely done the right thing in 'phoning the boys parents, I can imagine that must have been hard.

Just to say similar thing has happened to us. Dd2 (reception, age 4 at the time) upset one day as had been excluded from play by a group of girls at playtime. Turns out one of them (seemingly very popular) little girl had said to others 'don't play with (dd2), she has dark skin so is different'. Needless to say my daughter was really upset and so was I tbh. I felt very uncomfortable even having to deal with it, but obviously I had to. For me, talking in a straightforward way to the TA the following day was enough, I didn't want to escalate things and we agreed a chat at carpet time about 'differences' was enough. It all blew over within very quickly and we moved on. Hope this blows over for you too.

Yes Coralanne, if my DD's (coincidentally also Sri Lankan) best friend relegated her to "Little Indian girl" whenever they had a falling out I'd be very upset for her and think she deserved a better friend.

OP your son is very young but not too young for a talk and to see that this is stamped out at the earliest. Hope it goes well and the children will be friends soon. I think getting your DS to send his friend a card would be a good idea.

I'd be very cautious about assuming that the phrase 'get off me little Indian boy' had a racist intent. I also grew up in a very white area and the only boy in school who was non-white was a Chinese boy. He was very aware of being the only non-white child in school, and he had plenty of friends. If you needed to identify him you would have said 'XXX, you know, the Chinese boy'.

He was probably very aware of being 'the Chinese boy' because it was a nickname that sprang up for him amongst his friendship group. In scuffles, pretend fights, general boyish messing around or games in the playground it was a term that was used and he would grin and retort 'English boy' or similar. It was never (as far as I know) said in malice, it was affectionate.

Racist terms can be used amongst friends (there has been recent research done on this) as a way of reclaiming language. What looks like unfriendly squabbles in the classroom can actually be silly friendship messing about and I would worry that something like that could get taken out of context.

If this boy is Sri Lankan he may well have said that he gets called 'the Indian boy' a lot and how this is wrong and friends may use this as a friendly wind-up term in order to take the sting out of it.

The danger is that when arguments turn 'real' the term can go on to be used perjoratively. To be honest, if they are friends, a card or note to say 'sorry if I upset you' might do the trick.

I think all the 'racist' language stuff is very dangerous, imo, it is far more complex than that.

We live in a very white area and when one little 3YO girl asked a mixed race child of the same age why her legs were always dirty, that was recorded as a racist incident!