DD4 said a girl at nursery is brown.. what to say ?

[vangh]

I always ask my DD about her friends. I say stuff like ' who's your best friend ? ' ' who shall we invite to your birthday ? ' she is 4 in a few weeks.

I asked her about a girl in her class and she said ' yeah she's brown '..

Her nursery is pretty diverse and we've spoken about lots of other children before that aren't white, but she's never said anything like that.

I didn't really know what to say. I know that sounds really stupid probably. I think I said something like, everyone is a different colour.. not sure if that was the right thing to say.

I understand she'll notice that there are different skin colours but I'm a bit surprised she said that and I don't want to say the wrong thing.

For context, we don't ever talk about skin colour at home, so maybe we should. Maybe there are child friendly books that explain this ?

Has your child said something like this and what did you do ?

Md dd did the same around that age, so I showed we my arms which have freckles and daddy's arms which don't and her arms which have some and we talked about all different ways that we are different.

Using the word 'brown' is fine if you're worried about that,

God, this is such a non-issue.

My 5 year old DD has made so many embarrassing comments about people's appearance, including but not limited to skin colour. When she was about 4 she said very loudly in the street "Look, it's those brown kids!" 😳 I've told her so many times not to make personal comments about people. Anyway re: skin colour, I've explained that humans have different colour skin just like we have different colour hair or are different heights because of genetics.

If it helps, we live in an area where there is very little ethnic diversity (remote rural, very very white). When DS was five, we passed a black man in the park. DS said “he’s brown”, so I said something along the lines of “yes, some people have brown skin, some people have skin like yours, we’re all the same inside…” Whereupon DS asked “is even his willy brown?” Fortunately we were far enough past at that point that he wouldn’t have heard us 🙈 We also passed a different black man in the street on a hot summer day and he was wearing a vest over the biggest muscles you’ve ever seen. DS shouted at the top of his voice “look at those BIG muscles!”. I blushed but the guy grinned. I think children just notice what’s most obvious and they’re definitely not colour blind. I just make sure I reiterate that we’re all the same inside (while trying to sneak a peek at the muscles 😅).

@Cwtshcwtsh Oh my god 😂😂

I completely agree.

Everyone sees colour and it can be offensive to pretend that they don’t.

But kids don’t see colour in a negative way, just like they don’t see height or hair colour in a different way.

What your DD said is absolutely fine, she was just be factual.
I probably would have just replied with “ok” or “that’s nice” and not gone into detail about it.

If later on she asks why she’s brown or why her hair is different etc then you can talk about how people are different and it’s because of how we look similar to our parents.

If this was the only black child she said this for it may not even be skin related but could be anything. 4 year old minds work in mysterious ways.

It's fine, they're observing differences. I have not think you need to buy a specific book, but I think in general having books with main characters who aren't white, having dolls with other skin colours etc is a good thing. Also means you will get a practice run at responding to these observations when you're not stood in front of someone who looks different to your DD. You sound like you're really trying to do the right things which is a credit to you.

I think the only issue you should be worried about is this bit - “For context, we don't ever talk about skin colour at home, so maybe we should”.

You definitely should. Lots of books out there to support these conversations. School may even recommend some.

🤣🤣

I remember seeing a dwarf man coming towards us and having huge anxiety because I knew my DD would ask something innocently but very loudly!

Kids aren’t prejudice, they’re just intrigued and are very honest and loud about it.

On the day my DD's nursery had an open day we were looking round and a boy marched right up to my dd and asked her why she was brown. His dad almost rugby tackled him to the ground and took him away before we had a chance to respond.

Just start talking about different skin colours. Read books and watch tv that is diverse. Don't ignore it or feel it's something to pretend doesn't exist.

And don't say it doesn't matter because it does.

I think this is totally normal. My kids are mixed race and when they were three they made a point of saying they were brown and my skin was pink.
we bought an excellent book called Mixed which they loved and covered this

@Gnomegnomegnome Oh god I can imagine! Actually I don't think I've ever discussed dwarfism with DD. The worst is walking sticks...she's totally fascinated by them and won't shut about them anytime someone walks by with one.

“Shades of People” by Shelley Rotner is a nice book.

Oops I meant to tag @Nonomono

I'm a bit gobsmacked you don't have any books with non-white characters? How have you managed that by 2024? The most useful books will normalise and recognise different skin colours and ethnicities, not specifically discuss anti racism.

I am brown, and proud to be brown. I don't mind if a child refers to me that way.

You are trying to be woke. The girl is brown like I am pasty white.

Agree with all the PPs.

Of course people notice skin colour, same as we notice height, eye colour, hair colour or type. Noticing isn't a problem, it's the associations that sometimes go with people's features that are the problem. You did the right thing to remain neutral. Your daughter obviously doesn't hce any negative associations with her friend's colour, don't give her any reason to even question it.

🤣🤣

I have a friend who calls themselves brown and referred to rishi sunak as a fellow brown. He's south east Asian and his skin is not black it's brown.

Please don't be afraid of mentioning/talking about the fact that we have variation in skin colour. Your fear of the word "brown" could make it sound like a negative feature.

It always makes me wince when people have to use the word "black" and you get that microsecond pause before they say "black" and then you see them look at you for confirmation that this is OK.

My ds (he has asd) went through a phase at 4/5 of talking about skin colour, I think it was triggered by another child talking about themselves as black and he was then fixated on the fact they weren’t and just how a lot of his friends were light brown / medium brown or dark brown but not black as he said nobody is actually black it went on for months the school were really
good they allowed him to get it out of his system . He did similar when someone once said water was blue and drew a picture as he knows it’s not actually blue !

"Yes, some people are, it's just skin".

We had this, I think it's when they do descriptive words in early learning. Within days, the brown friend was followed by loudly saying "mummy, look, this bus driver is very fat" and comments about passengers' pink hair, glasses or whatever else took his fancy in an unstoppable flow of words. Luckily the bus driver at least found it hilarious. My advice would be to explain that it's good to be able to describe people, but it isn't polite to talk about what people look like in public. And/or avoid buses for a few weeks until the phase passes.