To think that my 3 year old can't be a racist?

[DroppingIn]

Nursery pulled me over when I picked up DS yesterday to tell me that DS did not want to share with another boy apparently and when he was asked why said he said it was because the other boy was 'black'.

We talked about it on the way home and about people looking different colours and how we are all the same. It is not something that has ever come up before although there are quite a few black DC/Asian in his nursery.

I was not going to tell him off for saying the other DC was black as he is. I also was not going to tell him off for not sharing in this particular instance as DS is normally very good at sharing but I have seen several instances where other DC have snatched stuff off him and it being dressed up as 'sharing' which gets on my tits tbh.

I am concerned now that the nursery is going to have him down as a mini racist and of course, the parents of the other boy being told about it and thinking there may be more to it than there is.

What to do?

I see mwahmum is still insisting a 3 year old is racist.... I'm sure OP is going to dress him in his mini KKK outfit white peaked hat and all and send hIm in to nursery tomorrow....

3 year olds have very little reason for why they do anything, or say the things they do. They don't have filters, they have very basic internal reasoning. It was probably the first thing that came to his head. OP just continu to reinforce the idea that yes we come in all different shapes, colours and sizes but we are all the same people, and we shouldn't not share because that person dosnt look like us, which is what you said you have done. So I see no problem.

My nephew upon meeting my DP for the first time at 2.5 looked at him and pulled this face and then proceeded to fiddle up to dp and rub his hands, turns out he thought DP was dirty....he's not a racist, still a little unsure around DP though, but it will pass.

I think we are born racist.
We are also born different to each other.
To not be racist has to be taught and learnt like a lot of other things.

Piggy if the parents went into detail with the cold about how "some people didn't like others of different races" then they would be creating the child's first racist encounter not the OPs son.

Racism/perceived racism works both ways. It would be ridiculously assumptive of the black lads parents to assume eacism as that requires intent and at 3 that intent is he generally missing.

if someone said to DDs at 3 that they wouldn't play with them I would comfort her but also be saying x is being silly but not everyone can be friends. I'd probably use an example of when she wasn't nice saying she didn't want to play with boys. In essence I would minimise and be comfortable with that on the first occasion and assume the other parent would be dealing with it too.

The nursery had to check though, because it could be a normal 3 year old saying the first thing that came into his head or it could be a 3 year old repeating some racist comments he has been exposed to. Neither means the three year-old is racist.

euroisis, why on earth would you think we're all born racist?

Droppingin if its any comfort my 3 year old has taken up refering to people by their colour this week - fortunately it is t-shirt colour he has latched onto, but I did feel conspicuous when he shouted out that a black man had got into the swimming pool recently (he was refering to him wearing a black t-shirt in the pool, not to skin colour, but strangers wouldn't know that). My 3 year old also tells wild, rather hysterical lies if questioned about why he did something ("because there was a bear coming, because it was snowing, because I turned into a monkey, because a pirate did it, etc.) He certainly doesn't find it difficult to lie, though he doesn't lie convincingly :o

I think letting it go is the rigjt decision, but the nursery workers don't sound as though they have a good grasp of 3 yo psychology or development - why on earth are they asking a 3 yo "why" he didn'tshare? Very few 3 year olds will ever give any meaningful kind of explanation for why they have done something - the staff sound as if they need a bit of training in handling preschoolers and teaching them social skills.

Boudica1990 Nope... I said OP is to blame for her sons behaviour.

Words can cause a lot of damage and I don't expect children to me not unfiltered when speaking but if they say something innappropriate that can cause hurt and offense it needs to be addressed.
I'll give you an example of my own experience, when I was 7/8 I used to walk to and from school everyday, there was a little girl a couple of years younger than me who went to a different school who walked the same way with her mum and everyday that girl followed behind me calling me blackie, darkie or variations on that theme and generally making my life a misery whilst her mum looked on and did nothing. As an 8 year old I was terrified because I thought that if her mum ws going to let her behave like that and do nothing to stop it then if I tried to stop her the mum would intervene and it would be worse for me. When I saw the mum a recently she actually had the fucking nerve to smile and wave at me like we were mates. When I asked her about allowing her daughter to behave like this is told me "well she was just a kid and she didn't know what she was saying, she didn't mean it" So that fucking makes it ok to terrorise a child because she couldn't see the need to teach her daughter tolerance and acceptance because she was a too young. I am so fucking angry at these posts dismissing the damage that shitty behaviour can do to a person.
Trust me Softly if you had been through most of the shit non-white people have to go through on a day to day basis you would let your daughter know that is the way it is like my mum had to let me know the day the big white man decided he was going to stand in the street shouting every racist name under the sun and telling her to go back where she came from and take her filthy black kids with her and that is one of my earliest memories, so don't think stuff like that doesn't stay with you it does and the older you get the more you more you have to deal with it but forewarned is fore armed.

Piggy your experience sounds awful BUT the difference in this case is vast - the OP's son was cornered by inept nursery staff into coming up with some reason for not sharing - he wasn't calling the other child names. The fact he came up with colour is a reason to use it as a "teachable moment" but the other child may not have heard, and if he did, really, its the nursery staff's fault - whatever a child comes up with in that situation is likely to either be wild fantasy or hurtful, whymake the child syate a reason?

Mwhah is a bit out of touch with the nature of 3 year olds, as she would make them write apology notes...

Racism does not require intent which is why being colourblind is a confirmation that someone is certainly a racist.

If you are colourblind then you the fact that people of Black or Asian or other minority heritages underrepresented in the House of Commons or as CEOs or in other positions of authority or privilege is irrelevant because you don't see colour

The fact that all your friends are white is irrelevant, it just happened that way because well after all you don't see colour

The fact that all the TV shows your child watches, all the books you read them feature predominantly white people and where black people are featured it is often a mere token nod to diversity is not relevant as after all it is just coincidence, you are colourblind, you don't think about colour.

The fact your child only has white dolls, well it just worked out that way you didn't plan it. You are colour blind.

The fact you decided not to correct your child when he chooses to be unkind to another child because of his skin colour is fine because you and your child are colourblind and he didn't understand what he is saying.

Racism is not just using racial slurs to someone or physically or verbally assualting them because of their skin colour, the reason racism is so insiduous and painful is because it is mostly perpetuated by well meaning people who choose not to see it.

To be a non racist requires work, a lot of it, it requires thought, it requires seeing colour and doing something about the discrimination that people of BME heritages face. Being colour blind is comfortable especially for white people but it is not non racist.

As for the OP, why wouldn't you correct your child, what he says was unkind, if he said "I didn't share because he was stinky" wouldn't you tell him that wasn't a nice way to speak or because he was fat, had a disability, was a girl. Being unkind to someone because of something about them especially something intrinsic about them is always wrong. Why didn't you tell him that? It would be a first step for him in growing into a non racist adult.

No mwah op is not to blame for something out of her control. She has said she is not racist and does not speak like that. When she got home she corrected her child. I am not saying they should not be corrected, but a toddler cannot be responsible for what he says, an 8 year old can. I presume that if her ds says something like that again and she is there, she can correct her ds. Really to read piggys story, that's why it is important to correct and discipline a child if you hear something nasty. But to call a 3 year old racist and to have that Lable follow him through his schooling over one comment he said when he was 3 is just unacceptable, especially if this has never happened since.

I dont think you need to make big deal of it.If you know you dont say racist things then she wont grow up racist.

My children had never seen anyone black before,and then a family from Zimbabwe moved in not far away,we had them over to play one day and when they had gone i heard the kids say

"I like Jojos skin,its brown"

"yes,dark brown,like chocolate"

"I wonder if he tastes like chocolate?"

"He does,I licked him"

As for the OP, why wouldn't you correct your child, what he says was unkind, if he said "I didn't share because he was stinky" wouldn't you tell him that wasn't a nice way to speak or because he was fat, had a disability, was a girl.

So what was I say to my DS? It was nasty to call the child 'black' which is just a statement of fact and which just draws attention to the fact that there might be something 'wrong' with that?

I don't believe he was being unkind, he just did not want to share and seeing previous incidents of snatching being dressed up as 'sharing' I am of the mind that he shouldn't be forced to if he does not want to. I was not there so don't know if this other DC did that. DS's room is very busy so it's quite full on being with loads of other DC all day and I think he probably wanted to play by himself for a bit for a break and he should not be questioned by the staff for wanting to do that! I would go nuts myself if I had to spend the whole day 'sharing' with other people.

It was an opportunity to talk to him about other DC looking different to him and that we are all the same inside and it is nice to play together. I really didn't want to make a big thing of it.

You would because he would not share because tge boy was black. That is not nice and not something you encourage your ds to do. As a parent you nip it in the bud. It was not like your ds said "Oliver"is black fir example, yes that is a fact, but to not share with Oliver because he is black is unkind and not nice.

Yes op as a parent you have to encourage sharing, especially once your ds starts school.

Personally,if it were me and my child said "I didnt want to share with him because he is black" i would say "oh why not?There is nothing wrong with having back skin.I think black skin is beautiful.And anyway we are all the same on the inside"

Aeroflot I quite clearly stated that I do not believe for one minute that DS did not want to share because the DC was a different colour to him. He has no understanding of racism.

Then you encourage him to share, and what toothurty has said

I do encourage sharing. I also encourage standing up for and asserting yourself.

I have 3 older DC who have managed fine apart from DS1 who will use my money to buy food and drinks for anyone who pretends they have no money on their school lunchcard and never gets it reciprocated!

It is surely quite likely he didn't want to share because the child was a different colour than him. It is developmentally appropriate for three year olds to start to want to form groups around similarities

Another day he might want to play with this child but not another because this time he wants a boys only group and doesn't want to play with girls.
In both circumstances surely an adult would point out it can hurt people's feelings if we tell them we don't want to play/share because of something about them.

That's not saying having darker toned skin is a bad thing. I am sure your son would be hurt if this child had said he didn't want to play with him because he was white because the other child would be implying something intrinsic to him was bad.

On another note, all this shite about "black skin is beautiful" and "ooh he looks like chocolate" is still not okay. You are reducing someone to their skin colour, they are the 'other', just like the 'exotic'. I can't articulate right now why it infuriates me but I might come back later if this threads still about. It's fucking insulting even if it is 'positive'.

So in short people don't actually know what to do and how to do it because reading this thread there are so many different opinions.

So is life.

Don't beat yourself up about it OP i'm sure your 3 year old will end up to be a decent human being and person with a mother that cares for him as obviously as you do.

I should also just add that DS does play with this boy regularly. His is a common name that comes up when asked who he's played with and they often hug when I drop off and pick up DS from nursery as well. He is not a boy that he is unfamiliar with.

truffle what if they self identify as mocha coloured, how does that fit?

And OP don't worry I think you've managed to enrage the PC brigade, I'm sure all will be fine. I don't for one second think you are some raving racist raising white neo Nazi children. It's one of those things your child does where you think OMG where did they learn that.

Some Afro/Caribbean people call themselves chocolate coloured, like some call themselves olive skin

DP labels himself the chocolate love god sometimes I have tried to explain that self praise is no praise... Hehe Jesus he calls me Casper or milky bar I don't get offended, it's done in jest.

One thing we did learn however is NEVER quote lines from jango unchained in Tesco!