to challenge a racist remark made by a ten year old ?

[hooochycoo]

A ten year old very well, I know remarked to me that Indians should all go home and stop trying to make little Indias in England. I was shocked and told them that that was a racist thing to say, said that they should do some reading about immigration and emmigration and that it wasn't nice to say things like that . I also tried to explain how if they went to other countries they'd find british people living there, making little Englands, that people lived all over the world. And that they shouldn't say these things when they hadn't travelled outside Britain.

I wasn't angry or shouting. I was amazed at what they were saying and insistent.They said that they knew already everything they needed to know already because they'd seen newsround and seen pictures of India, and that indians were going round killing people and blowing things up. I then said that they sounded bigoted and explained bigot, before the child's mother stopped me.

The child's mother is really angry at me and has said that that her child wasn't racist because she's too young and that she justified in saying those things because of a boy at her school that was indian who was mean to her and because of the news coverage of the woolwhich attack.
. and that I was completely out of order to say what i said. Apparently I attacked her child and was patronizing. She said a ten year old couldn't be racist because they are a child and compared it too a four year with a stutter, saying i wouldn't have told the four year old he had a speech impediment.

what do you think ? aibu?

ok the child made some points that needed to be both gently challenged and explained, re plenty of British people go to Spain and in the past to India and made/ make little colonies.

secondly the terrorism comment. children are often exposed to the news now in all its horrific imaging.

the blood in the hands of the Woolwich attacker was horrific and upset me as an adult and really upset my teen dd.

children can't rationalise like adults. my dd told her therapist that she wouldn't go in the tube because Muslims could attack us. that's not racist is it? it happened.

similar to saying I can't fly incase the plane crashes.

the child deserved to be listened to. gently corrected and reassured.

it's far too easy to just play the racist card when sensible debate and reasoning is needed, especially with such young children.

No. YANB entirely U. I personally wouldn't use the word Bigot. I don't think young children can be bigoted, only absorb bigoted views from people around them.

I also think to say these views are unkind BEFORE they understand some of the issues is dodgy ground. No only because you can be at risk of labelling their parents, friends, relatives as unkind and this will not educate a child with a new opinion, only compound the polarised thinking.

I have a patter i use to challenge racist attitudes from children. I ask them what kind of music they like, food, etc. Then explain what Britain could be like without immigration and the influence of other cultures. Older children you can talk about the british empire too and a bit about living in a globalised society etc. Depending on how recessive they are.

Children never, in my many years experience, share racist opinions unless they have absorbed these opinions from people around them. Children innately view difference with curiosity.

*receptive

YANBU. I challenged my friends 13 year old daughter last week for using a disgusting racist word. I waited for her parents to pull her up on it and as they didn't I did. My friend and her P didn't say a thing about what she said or about me challenging her about it. When I had some alone time with my friend later on in the day I made my feelings clear and she said everyone said it where they live in Wales

Ten is more than old enough to be challenged directly. If he is old enough to voice these opinions then he is old enough to see what reaction they provoke.

I don't think you have done anything wrong op. my dh was the victim if racist abuse on the tram a couple of months ago, it was horrific and really should be pulled up at every level. Not one person in that tram spoke out and it was a group of young teens. I wanted to report to the police but dh refused.

His stupid mother should thank you what if he spouts this crap in the wrong place without mummy to defend him? He could get himself in some real trouble.

MexicanHat that is so depressing to hear. Was it the 'P word ' by any chance (sorry for being squeamish and not typing it but it turns my stomach). If so then I too have found that this is a word used almost routinely by some in certain areas and they are most insistent that 'everyone says it' so it must be ok. Bloody sickening.

Did the OP make the ten year old cry?

Telling off someone else's child is always tricky and causes resentment if the parents are present. It really makes no difference what the misomeaner is. A child can find it terrifying when someone outside their family tells them off even if the telling off is fully deserved.

My daughter at the age of three was told off by another mother because she believed that my daughter had tripped her son up. (In fact the child had tripped over his own feet and my daughter went to get his mother) My daughter sobbed hysterically for half an hour. The school's head teacher called the other mother in and made it clear that HER behaviour was totally and utterly disportionate to the incident. She was told that if she repeated the behaviour then she could be banned from school premises.

I feel that the OP should have challenged the girl's mother on why she had done nothing about her daughter's racist behaviour. If her daughter repeats such rubbish at school then she would (quite rightly!) be in serious trouble. Experiencing mean behaviour from one child is not an excuse for racism.

Yes littlemog you are spot on.

I had travelled to Wales for the weekend to visit my oldest friend. She moved to Wales 4 years ago. She would never have been a friend of mine if she was a racist yet she allowed her daughter to use the word several times totally unchallenged. I love my friend, we have been friends for over 30 years. I just feel so disappointed in her non-reaction.

Dear OP, some white people get very squawky when the words "racist" or "bigot" are used, because as far as they're concerned unless you're running round wearing a white hood and burning crosses, you're not being racist, maybe just a bit "unPC".

This is why there's currently a thread on here with well meaning white people thinking that Oprah Winfrey is being a bit OTT over the handbag in Switzerland incident.

So you absolutely should've challenged those remarks, they were vile and a 10 year old should know better, but possibly should have couched it in terms of such remarks not being "nice".

The child's mother is BVU, I would die of shame if my child spouted stuff like that.

Also WTF at whoever upthread said "there child assumes all criminals are brown because that's what they see on the news" What news are you watching - BNP Daily Bulletin?!

I think the problem here is two-fold:

1. the views given by a 10yo child are clearly unacceptable in society. Yes, everyone is allowed their own opinions but saying these views in public is not allowed. I still stand by my argument that a 10yo has learnt these views as opposed to forming them for themselves.

2. despite the context, the mother would have in her anger only picked up on two words - racist and bigoted. She won't see how you used them in a sentence, not would she appreciate how you used them. To her, those words mean that you were criticising both the parenting and her child even though that wasn't your intention.

It doesn't mean necessarily that your friend holds these views. However the views came from somewhere. At this moment in time, you are the outlet she is venting her anger on. I don't know if apologising would help. Giving the family a bit a space might though, and then trying to talk it through.

I remember being at infant school so 4-6 years old and another child made a racists conment I remember at that age not only knowing it was wrong but feeling strongley enough about it to pull her up on it and say she was wrong.

10 years old is definitely old enough to know better, providing you have parents who are willing to teach you properly at home. if I had ever made a comment like that in front of my parents as a child id have definitely got a telling off at the tinr

I can assure you that if my 10 year old starts saying things like this you have my full permission to take her to task.

It is unlikely, mind, as she is one of the most right-on people I know

^ MotherInferior ^

Posted too soon - I agree. If my DC behave out of place, I know my close friends will pull them up on it and vice versa, especially as sometimes an outside opinion is taken more on board than your boring old parents.

No 10 year old would say "making little indias in england".

That's something they hear from an adult and repeat.

I bet my last rolo the mother knows exactly where the child heard that little gem.

The words were bigoted and racist. Whether the child intended them to be or not, the sentiment behind them is bigoted.

The fact that the mother chose not to take that opportunity to correct the child but instead to try to justify such a statement on the grounds that one child from india (or maybe not. was the child from india? I ask because I know that everyone who is a certain colour gets lumped in together regardless where they're actually from!) was 'mean to them' says more than she ever intended it to, I think.

It's so ridiculous.

A kid with blue eyes was once mean to me. Should I have made sweeping statements about every kid in the country who has blue eyes? No. That would be stupid. It would be more stupid for an adult to try to back me up on it or to try to make a case for anything other than that one child, that individual, was mean on that occasion. And their meanness was not as a result of them having blue eyes!

If children do make ridiculous assumptions the parent's role is to correct those assumptions. If they choose to not do so, well, we can all draw our own conclusions and I know what mine are.

When I was about that age, I was hauled up in front of the headmistress because I'd written in my school diary that I didn't want to learn German at secondary school because of the horrible things the Germans had done in the war. No member of my family had ever said anything to me to suggest that contemporary German people were bad; I had learnt about the war in school and formed my own, wrong, conclusion, because I didn't have the analytical skills at that age to distinguish between a group of people in the past, and a whole population now. It is absolutely right that I was pulled up on it, but it certainly wasn't my parents' views that I was parroting, it was immature reasoning because I was a child.

YANBU, 10 is plenty old enough to have a debate, though it should be calm and allow them space to ask questions / explain why they said it etc. I don't think using the terms racist/bigotted is useful because it doesn't help the child see the problem, just how the behaviour is labelled.

Yanbu at all, sounds lie te apple des not fall far from the tree

If DS (nearly 10) came out with rubbish like that, I'd be perfectly comfortable with another adult calling him on it. You did the right thing, OP, your friend is just embaressed and trying to save face.

It never ceases to amaze me on MN how many people insist that you should never tell off, mildly admonish or even challenge anyone else's child. We've now got a generation of young people who are outraged if anyone asks or tells them to behave differently. It's absolutely ridiculous.

I also disagree that children are naturally curious and accepting of difference. Kids (and adults) can be incredibly cruel to those they perceive as 'other' or different. Ask any black or asian person who was at school during the 70s! I think that it's the teaching of social rules and inclusiveness which educates children to behave kindly and tolerantly.

YANBU at all for challenging the child and her views. If she's old enough to express herself then she's old enough to be challenged. It sounds as though you were careful about how you phrased it but all the mother heard were the words racist and bigot and is defensive and angry.

She has picked it up from home otherwise why else would her mother challenge you? As a child I was picked on by a boy who used to spout similar sophisticated racist nonsense picked up from his parents. There was no way a 10 year old would come out with such reasoning, it is usually crude name calling at that age. I am dreading my dc starting school as they will no doubt be subject to racism at some point.

I have no problem with others telling my child off if I am not there. It would be an other adult reprimanding the child in the way that it was done in front of me that would bother me in this instance.

I have had various kids at mine over the summer holidays. On a couple of occasions (being mean to another child, jumping around in the living room, coming through the back gate instead of the front door so the dog can escape etc) I have told off the DC's that were there. If there mothers were around I would expect them to do it.

I would likely have done similar in your shoes, OP.

I can't remember where I heard this, but it covered the issue well for me: If a child is old enough to the victim of racial abuse, then they are old enough to be pulled up on their words and/or actions and told that they are harmful.

It may not be the mother, she may have just been overwhelmed in the situation, and children can pick these things up in many places other than the home. Media (where are the positive representations? what does newsround focus on?), education (contributions so often overlooked and ignored, only focused on as victims), general society is full of these messages and not always very keen to correct easy to reach but inaccurate conclusions, as TheCat said. To think it's just the parents giving out these messages ignores how larger society systems built and tries to benefit from these ideas.

do the people who think that i should have left it to the mother to say something feel any differently if you know i'm the aunt?

Ooh that does make a difference.

It means your opinion is worth more and that she would take it as a more direct attack.

well if your his aunty why didn't you say so in the beginning.

sorry drip feeding like this is daft. do you want us all to post differently? yawn.

regards the 'welsh' seemingly being racist. what crap. racists exist in all countries/colours/ creeds.