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?

Fairydoll, My sister did the same thing when she first saw an African, back then we all laughed about it (including the man)

I agree Tigerseye, the issue is actually a lot more compex than I think we realise. I think it is an end in itself. I have thought for a long time that the craziness of all this PC stuff is actually creating racism in itself.

Nomad, I disagree that PC stuff is creating racism. Racism is caused by threads like this where loads of people pile on and say how dreadful it is that a 5 year old has been called racist, when in fact, at no point has the OP ever said that her child was called a racist , that the behaviour was called racist, or that the school treated it as a racist incident.

All that has happened is that a child was made to apologise for saying 'Get off me, little Indian boy.' In much the same way he would have been made to apologise for saying 'Get off me, little ginger boy.'

The rest of the thread is simply many of you being incredibly hostile to the idea that children should be told off at all for mentioning someone's ethnicity or nationality in a negative sentence. To me that sentiment is racist, and what was said by the little boy is irrelevant in comparison.

.........Racism is a lot more than words Milly, Is my daughter's aunty racist for calling my daughter a 'half cast?' No, she had just come over from Nigeria and had no idea that we do not use that word anymore (DH quickly put her straight and she vowed never to use the word again) In her case it was pure ignorance, but to some it may have been racist. It also requires some wisdom and open mindedness to understand the difference between what is racist and what is ignorance. Most mums on mumsnet seem pretty clued up to me and I am sure most of them are not deliberately trying to be racist!

I think it is ridiculous. Also the mum should have appreciated you phoning her and apologising. that was a nice thing to do. I think I would have told her to stuff it if she wouldn't accept your apology. Your son has done nothing wrong IMO.

'many of you being incredibly hostile to the idea that children should be told off at all for mentioning someone's ethnicity or nationality in a negative sentence.'

But the five-year-old wasn't mentioning it in a negative sentence, I don't think.

I don't think so either 'little Indian boy' Indian - I am sure most 5 year olds do not know the difference between where India and where Sri Lanka is, Just as lots of 5 year olds in other countries get the UK mixed up with the USA! Unless the boy has of course taken private lessons in the Geography of South Asia. I am sure the 5 year old did not know if it was terribly more offensive to say he was Indian than Sri Lanken.
The other words 'little' and 'boy' are not racist in my book.

"little indian boy " ? Since when was that rasvist, ,little Scottish girl, little Chinese boy, ,little Kenyan girl ???

I don't we" re going to win this one, the world has truly gone mad.

Nomad, You are agin missing the point. Nobody has told the boy off for being racist. It is something that has been made up by the people on this thread. Nobody involved at all has said that this boy is a racist.

Abraid, I think the 'get off' is negative. I have no idea why the OP's child was saying it, but it just sounds like a typical classroom dispute between two boys. It is rude to use personal statements about people, fat, ginger, blonde, glasses wearer etc if you are saying something like 'get off.' Children are typically told off for it.

Nomad, I also find your point about the 5 year old not knowing to be odd. The children are best friends. At 5, if your child's best friend was from another country, why wouldn't you know which country they were from. DD certainly knew at 5 that her friend was from Ireland.

The country he mentioned is irrelevant to the child being told off anyway, but I don't think it requires specialist geography lessons to know which country your best friend was born in.

He wasn't just " told off" he has been banned from playing with his pal because of it. It is far more complex than a simple argument.

I think it is a real shame the mother reacted so strongly, maybe it was the heat of the moment. But I suspect her anger wasn't due tothe fact that he got the wrong nationality!

But people on MN come on all the time and say that another parent has said their children can't play together anymore, over utter trivia. It does not lead to a load of people going on about dangerous attitudes, political correctness, or brainwashing.

It just seems like a lot of people are happier to make a big deal over this and blow it out of all proportion than they would do if the parents and school had acted in exactly the same way because a child had been referred to as fat/ginger/glasses wearer.

The mother obviously inferred the boy was racist why else would she not want him to play with her son all of a sudden?

Well the idea of racism obviously came up in the conversation. The OP said the mother would not accept her apology when she mentioned about her Ds not being racist, so to say it has no place in the argument is a bit odd!
Maybe it has been blown out of proportion but it seems that the mother herself blew it out of proportion in not being receptive of the apology. If the boy was not told off for something that might appear racist, what else was he being told off for? I don't understand?
If a 5 year old called a boy 'fat' or 'ginger' in the playground would it really come to this? All I can say is things have changed since I was at school!

My sister got called fat all through her years at school. If the teachers dealt with comments like this every time a child some something unkind they would be on the blower all day instead of teaching!

Oh dear a 'political correctness gooonne maaaadddd' thread. :-(((( Posting this kind of crap does incite racism as it pisses people off. Clearly this didnt happen a school would not approach you for this or make your son apologise.

All very OTT IMO, he was just saying what he saw, the school have made a bit of a hash of it.

can I ask for advice on a similar subject: child in ds2 class (4 years old) was made to apologise to a TA who couldn't get the interactive board to work for saying "people with brown faces can't do it then" an incident form has been filled in and logged on this childs file (family friends in case you are wondering why I am so bothered) the boy has been labled racist.

(they have been describing people at school over the last few weeks an have been using brown face, peach face black hair red hair etc.)

Is this OTT?

i can understand the TA being a little upset, but an incident report?

We don't know any of this. It is all simply speculation about people's motivations.

Hopefully schools have changed Nomad. There is no way that my children, at primary school, would think it was acceptable to make unkind comments to another child such as those made to your sister, or to have disputes in the classroom, without a teacher intervening. Teachers, and indeed the headmaster, have phoned me over much less. If you have a zero tolerance policy on bullying then the number of times kids make unkind or simply personal comments goes down and you don't have to spend all day on the phone., and issues are nipped in the bud long before they actually turn into bullying.

As for the mother's response, I would never phone another parent. I think parents should leave the school to resolve disputes in school. I would speak to my child if phoned by the school, but never to another parent or child. The children almost always make up at some point, but the parents end up having an issue with each other forever.

If my child and another child has a dispute and my child was unhappy about it, I do typically say, find someone else to play with; you don't have to play with X child if you don't want to. They don't play with the kid they had an issue with for a while and then eventually it blows over and they make friends. Friendships in school change over time.

None of this changes at all simply because the OP has got worried about racism and phoned another parent to discuss racism. We don't know exactly what happened between the kids, what the teacher thinks or what the other parent thinks, or if any of their responses are about racism. But plenty of people on this thread are encouraging the OP to worry that this by making it out to be some major problem when kids having a dispute is just one of those things that happens in primary schools.

GKYS, incident reports like that are meant to be about the school, not the child. It is meant to be sent to the LEA as numerical data. I don't know why it would be on a child's file.

It would be worth finding out off a teacher what information is sent on from primary school to secondary school. There was stuff (not to do with race) that was put on my child's file, that I was unhappy about. A huge amount of stuff was sent to me (and the same happened to all other parents with kids at the school) when DS finished primary school that had been kept on his file - reading levels, tests etc, and the observations that I was unhappy about.

So I assume that very little is actually passed on in a child's file to secondary school.

I think it depends on how he said what he said. If it was used in anger, or to upset the other child, then you need to teach him how it is wrong to use comments about how someone looks (including fat, ugly, etc) as an insult.

i don't see how it's any different to saying 'little fat boy' or 'little red headed boy' or 'little curly boy'. he was just stating what he saw. personally i'd say to teacher that he doesn't understand why it is racist and can she explain to him.

'People with brown faces can't do it then'
Why the hell would a 4 year old say a thing like that, i would be having words with his parents.?

forehead I agree it shouldn't have been said, but to brand the child a racist? certainly rude. I was just curious as to why an incident report.
he is four, and has no idea about racism, I was wondering if there would have been an incident report if he had said " fat people can't do that" which would have been again rude but not an " ....ism" issue or am I missing the point?

MillyR thanks for the info, will pass it on, infact may recruit the mum in question

very odd thing for a four year old to come out with agree with forehead.

I think we have to be careful of putting adult inferences onto children's words. It is extremely difficult to understand the subtle nuances of how children communicate with one another, quite aside from that fact that they are children living in and interpreting a complex adult world.

The label 'racist' can stick as much as the label 'Indian'.