To be really upset that nursery have assumed this is the reason...

[Jc56]

My son is nearly 4 and has been attending the same nursery since 18 months old, his older sister also went here. He goes Monday to Friday and has made strong friendships with another boy his age and his cousin who also attends so he tends to just play with them 2 which nursery have told me many times but they didn't say it was a problem.

Last year, he was friends with an Asian boy who's now left for school. His key worker is Asian and they have a BRILLIANT relationship, she's absolutely amazing with him.

So I was really taken a back today when I collected him and the nursery manager asked if she could have a word with me. She said today, they was doing an activity which involved holding hands with other children and DS friend & cousin wasn't in this particular activity. She said he wouldn't hold hands with any Asian children and maybe it's because he doesn't have many friends outside of nursery who are Asian or that they have a different skin colour so he's unsure 🤔

I didn't even know how to respond, I did point out he's never been keen on interacting with ALL the children and he has just had a few strong friendships. It is not unusual for him to not want to hold hands with other children.

It's really upset me that I felt she was insinuating DS purposely wouldn't hold hands with these children because they have a different skin colour to him, he's a child! And he has made friends with children of different races not that it matters to me or DS so I'm really just baffled why this came out of the blue today. She said they've never had "this" problem with him before now. I'm not sure whether to speak to DS about it or not, the manager said she hasn't mentioned it to him?

I cant understand why she's decided that because he wouldn't hold hands with other children she's concluded it must be because they are Asian 🤔🤔🤔

Would suggest you read Raising Multiracial Children by Farzana Nayani. As a teacher influencing future generations, I'd expect you to be educated on the studies. I've quoted some of them above. Young children are very much aware of race.

@adhsamum, so sorry to hear that you've been treated that way.

it is ridiculous cos children of that age dont have a clue about skin colour, nationality etc, even if their parents were racists!?!
wait for reply & take many deep breaths before replying ....

Honestly very young kids make decisions based on things we may know nothing about. It would seem that the education staff is projecting what they believe to be the reason your child didn’t want to hold hands based on a preconceived idea of theirs, perhaps? A child is not obliged to hold hands if they do not want to. You know you’re are not racist, that’s all that matters. If it’s bugging you (it would bug me) and you believe they think you’re/your family are racist I’d write and say you feel that a judgment has been made upon your family unfairly and you’ve no idea why race has been brought in to the fact your child didn’t want to touch someone else.

Apologies, maybe my wording should have been ‘children can recognise difference but aren’t inherently racist’

@Jc56 was there a follow up meeting on this?

Projections are weird sometimes, I’ve had a few over the years. I remember a preschool one was in my child’s notes that my child (age 2) was noted to be ‘culturally taught to sit on the toilet when seeing and staff were to be aware.
We’re not English but I’ll bet most English people also have just trained two year old boys sitting on the potty/ toilet at first rather than constantly cleaning up their aims at aiming.
Another one was ‘ds appears not to know the names of his reported siblings’. He was about 18 months. God only knows how that conversation went, but I’m guessing he stared into space instead of answering questions or something. It was (again) such a weird insinuation.