To think that someone from the school should have informed me

[User998877]

My dc are two of a handful of mixed race dc in their school.

Today ds (9) with ASD had a disagreement with another dc from his class, as children do... The other child ended the argument by saying to my ds...

"Well at least I don't have Autism, brown skin and big afro hair"

DS doesn't lie, due to his ASD he is brutally honest at times, so I believe him. Apparently they were both told off (fair enough) for arguing, but nothing was said to this other boy for his comments towards ds.

I've just tried to ring the school but has gone straight to messaging... I'm surprised no one from the school has rung me.

The 'ginger' comment the child meant to use was equally meant in a derogatory way.

I didn't mean that the 9 year old didn't know that they were being rude, just that we seem to worry more about some insults than others forgetting the fact that the child didn't know about our perceived (and fairly arbitrary) order of offensiveness.

Let's pretend that your son said, "you're fat", the other boy said "you've got brown skin".

Both meant in a derogatory way. I would not distinguish between the insults at this age as both the children simply meant to insult without understanding the historical implications behind 'brown' and that calling a child 'fat' could drive them towards anorexia or other MH issues.

It should be logged as a racist incident. It's also disability hate speech

Why? They are a child. What benefits do you think 'logging' will have? If children are unaware that adults see some comments as rude but acceptable and others simply as unacceptable, why do you want some logged?

primary schools especially seem keen to put racist remarks from kids down as them just not understanding the full implication of what theyve said

See, you understand @nutshell

DS's last school were massively heavy on anything potentially racist

Yes, "baa, baa rainbow sheep" etc

@che not that kind of heavy. More anything that could possibly be looked at in a way that could be racist (like a six year old using 'chocolate face') was like the single worst comment any child could ever make and required meetings and reports and warning and a huge palaver, even when the comment didn't merit it or clearly wasn't racist.

@lalalalyra - yes. That seems ridiculous. Last term I was covering in year 2 and they were talking about dressing up as book character. A child wanted to "paint myself dark brown and get black hair" to be Handa. They had no idea it would be frowned upon (I'm not entirely sure why, but that's for another thread).

Children should be taught kind vs mean but not given labels like 'racist' or 'disability hate speech'.

At 9 years old a child should know this type of language is wrong, regardless of whether they have a deeper understanding of what racism means. All school talk about this subject often.

IMO the school should come down hard on any child using language like this. This is not to say that I believe the child is a racist only that they need to understand the seriousness of using this type of language.

At 9 years old a child should know this type of language is wrong

Absolutely. Nice vs bad. Polite vs mean. Friendly vs bullying. Not calling them racist or disablist.

An insult is an insult. It is only when you do understand the deeper connotations of a particular slur that you can put insults onto a scale of offensiveness. I don't think this applies to most 9-year-olds.

Not minimising what happened to your son - it's appalling - but I love the terrible Mumsnet legal advice that appears on these kind of threads.

An insult is an insult. It is only when you do understand the deeper connotations of a particular slur that you can put insults onto a scale of offensiveness. I don't think this applies to most 9-year-olds.

I disagree, and whilst I'm not interested in labelling children, they need to get the message loud and clear that this type of language could land them in hot water.

An insult is an insult. It is only when you do understand the deeper connotations of a particular slur that you can put insults onto a scale of offensiveness. I don't think this applies to most 9-year-olds.

IMO you could argue the same for may adults that use this type of language, this does not excuse it or make it any less offensive in the eyes of the law.

this does not excuse it or make it any less offensive in the eyes of the law.

Yes it does. The word used is 'intend'.