DS made racist comment at school

[ellie09]

I have a DS age 7 who has ASD and he struggles quite a bit socially.

I am utterly appalled and ashamed by what I have heard this morning. This wasn't any thing directly to me or by the teacher.

DS apparently made a comment to a girl in his class saying he "didn't want to play with her as she has brown skin". This apparently blown up in a private group chat on WhatsApp that I was not aware of. I hadn't had any communications from teachers or other parents, so I was confused.

His best friend at school is a Muslim boy and his granny is Brazilian. He has grown up around different skin colours from a baby. We have had a serious conversation today in which I have told him he must apologise to this girl tomorrow.

However, I am also angry that this has been put on a WhatsApp group before anybody has even spoken to me, I assume the teachers aren't even aware. Of course, this has caused outrage in the group chat (and rightly so!) but I can't help but feel this was wrongly handled by the other parent as this is a group of 7 year old children and issues like this can escalate very quickly.

How do I handle this moving forward? Do I request a meeting with the head teacher and make them aware of the incident etc?

I feel really sick at the thought of walking my child into school tomorrow, knowing that most will be judging based on what they have heard.

Btw, I'm not in the group chat - screenshots were sent to me by another parent.

Nonsense, the fault lies entirely with the parents who maliciously cast judgement on a 7 year old child without knowing the whole story, same as a lot of people on here.

The teacher delt with it at the time and the two children involved were happily playing again 2 mins later. It was even a minor incident. If I had to report everything like this I would be talking to parent's for about an hour each day. Other kids who were not even involved went back and told their parents and it got twisted to be something else completely. Don't have to look far to see were they got this trait from as their gossipy parents spread the misinformation all over Whatsapp. Bet not one of them will acknowledge what they have done on the WhatsApp group or learn from it.

What exactly do you think the parents have to complain about? Embarrassing themselves on a WhatsApp group by just taking their child's word for it? Being nasty people who participated in ostracising a little boy? Being too stupid to not question their childs story?

Oh dear, all the MNs upset that it wasn't actually a racist incident and your son wasn't to blame. Some are still trying to find a way to blame you.

Soul searching would be difficult for an unconscious racist

yes …this.

This is so typical of mumsnet with posters jumping on the bandwagon blaming the OP when it’s already clearly been explained by the school ‘there is nothing to see here’.
Talk about poking with a big stick for no absolute reason, get off your high horses it’s over, solved, done with, forgotten!
And while you’re at it teach your children not to pass on classroom gossip, do something useful instead.

Someone needs to soul search and it's not op.

I've been on the other side of a situation which is similar but not the same...

When they were 4 years old, a little boy (autistic) in my daughters class, chased her, pinned her down and told her he was going to kill her. Then he bit her. She still talks about this now a few years later - and she was scared of the boy for some time afterward.

I did get told that it had happened by the school, and got reassurance that the school were trying to manage the situation.

I never once spoke to the boys parents about it - I accepted that at age 4 the child probably had limited "blame" - but I did in my mind blame the parents. I couldn't understand where the child (who was very young!) had learned play/language like that? The biting I could accept more (due to the SEN issues) than the threat of "killing" her.

But I have spoken about it with other parents in one on one situations where their child has also experienced similar / other unpleasant behaviour from the same boy. I, like any other parent, am interested in protecting my child. And as above, I don't really feel I can blame the boy who bit her (he is a child too) - but I also can't just accept that it is OK that my child will be verbally assaulted and bitten.

So for your child to be talked about in another group setting doesn't surprise me. I do think however you should have heard it from the school first and I think it's shocking that you didn't if they are aware.

I get that the comment about her brown skin may have come from nowhere - but it will have been harmful to the little girl.

I think you need to try and gently understand from your child what led to them thinking saying they wouldn't play with someone because they're brown was OK? My expectation is that the other parents will be questioning if they've picked it up from home/things your child is exposed to (other pupils, TV, YouTube). Even if that's not the case.

@imjusthereforAIBU
it's tricky to blame the parents in these situations too. ASD kids especially are very good at picking up and mimicking things they see on TV even if it's just a small moment or a passing phrase. And it doesn't have to be inappropriate for it to have "bad" things in it. In Frozen, for example, they use language like "I will kill her!".

You've probably unconsciously modelled racist behaviour to him - all the mention of "my black friends" in your original post are a massive red flag. Bit of soul-searching needed tbh.

Jesus christ.

I’ve really heard it all now. This thread is absolutely crazy

The teacher has said it wasn’t malicious - but you don’t know what the other child felt. At that age, I would have shrugged it off publicly but I would have felt very hurt and told my mum when I got home.

Those of us who aren’t white experience racism from a young age. I can appreciate your DS may have had no racist intent, but depending on what he said, it might not have come across that way. You say he has issues with social cues, which means it might not have been obvious to the other child that there was no malice.

I don’t think the other child or their parents should have to effectively ‘cover up’ allegations of racism. Part of why racism spreads is because people are silenced.

But I do think some age appropriate education for the kids is a good thing. And education for the parents is also necessary - if children with SEN are in mainstream education, the parents of the other kids need to be made aware of what might be a different ‘normal’.

I think this has all gone down so badly because everyone is judging you and your child by neurotypical standards. Yes, kids with SEN can be horrible - all kids can be horrible - but often some consideration needs to be given to how to interpret what they are saying. Your child isn’t allowed to be racist, but he should be allowed the chance to explain himself.

Basically - no one has really covered themselves in glory. I hope you all move on from this better educated. And I hope the school does a better job of dealing with your DS’s bullies too - the school doesn’t sound great to me, TBH.

This thread is absolutely bonkers

Children will pass on their interpretations on things that hapenned, and we shouldn't discourage them from sharing information about their day with their parents.
But it's up to the parents to filter through that, look for patterns, consistencies and inconsistencies and decide which is relevant and which is not, and if need clarification, contact their child's teacher.

Yes, this child made allegations to their parent, and they shouldn't be covered up, but they should be investigated before being broadcast across the class parents group. OP's child was effectively found guilty by this group without any investigation of the actual facts and any chance to defend themself.

From the op "Apparently there's been a couple of incidences regarding other children in different classes regarding skin colour etc but again, no malice."

The school needs to involve the parents when incidents like this happens. I am in shock that the op wasn't spoken to about it and she is having to find out herself. My child's school has an anti bullying policy and they follow it. They have no choice they were downgraded to inadequate when my girls attended. The parents are more frustrated with the school. If everything was going well there would be nothing to talk about. It might affect some of them in the group. Most schools promote parent school partnership and working together. That's not happening here. The school had no idea that her son was being picked on.

The problem is the school not the op she sent her son to a shit school.

Saying my black friends is like saying my male/female friends.

Not modelling anything.

Autistic black and white thinking is not your fault/affected by how you brought them up unfortunately 💜 Def not your fault!

i would - and have brought it up personally to the teacher, and personally to my own friends, never in a WA chat school group - and the thing that was said to my daughter was 10000000X worse.

Disgusted? What a strong word to use for a 7yo child. Your child. I’d be disappointed and embarrassed but disgusted? How bizarre. You’re pandering to the leftie agenda.

Nah, even if a child had said something horrendous at school, I could never be part of a WhatsApp group where grown adults all get together to bitch about a 7 year old. It's not the way to address things.

Well that’s a reach isn’t it. Another spiteful comment after a very sensible series of updates.

Just to put another perspective up here. I haven't read the whole thread yet. My niece has asd. She had chicken pox when she was nearly ten and was absolutely distraught at the spots and how they changed her skin. She is now at secondary school and recently my sister was asked to come and get her because she wouldn't stop crying and couldn't tell them why. They had had a science lesson about puberty and someone told her she had a spot (she did) and was going to get loads now. All she could say to my sister was 'no spots'.

Children with asd respond to changes badly and it is the change they are scared of not what it is. OP you may have some issues during puberty and my sister is going overboard with social stories and science books so my niece is prepared.

My DS is autistic, he's had both ways of having horrible things said to him, and he's said things without thinking. Incidents at primary school on both sides seemed to be resolved with explanations from staff, a lot of times the kids just needed guidance and explanations. I would never broadcast what someone's child said to mine.

This attitude is another reason why the profession is so difficult, parents expect the impossible. It wasn't an incident. Even now we don't know exactly what was said so you are in no position to claim it should have been reported to parents.

There was nothing for these people to talk about as it didn't even involve their kids. They didn't even get it about the right child. OP made her child write an apology to a child that wasn't even involved. The two children it concerned were playing happily two mins later so it didn't even require any mediation from a staff member. There was nothing to tell OP because her child did nothing wrong.

If parents were frustrated with the school they should have been criticising the school and not a child! But not one of them even emailed the school about it to actually raise it. They all jumped to their conclusions and made their nasty judgements and have ultimately embarrassed themselves.

Even though you have family and your son has grown up seeing this, seeing someone at school who looks different, he’s just at that age where they notice, they don’t know any better and when they comment it’s not out of malice. My son has a coloured friend who he adores but he started coming out with comments at home about brown skin and he was told straight up that skin colour doesn’t matter. Kids don’t notice it all when they’re in Reception but it’s normal that they start noticing differences between people. I wouldn’t be so hard on him and I wouldn’t let others be either. I’m sure you will teach him that it’s not ok and he will learn.

I’m a teacher and a parent of autistic children both at school and at home. This can be a common thing for autistic children to come out with for no reason. It could have come from something they’ve seen or heard elsewhere. And often autistic children then repeat things verbatim.

I think you need to speak to the school to find out the whole context of the conversation and if there were any adult witnesses as well. Then I think the school need to send out a clear message that discussing things on social media around another child’s behaviour is not acceptable as it can escalate something that could have been dealt with very discreetly to outright bullying of a child by adults. Something similar to this happened when my kids were primary and the adults involved in the group message were all contacted about it. The parents need to be really careful what they discuss on group chats about other children and even school staff - this is another one that escalates too. There’s also often someone who screenshots messages and reports them back to the school as well in order to try and rein things in.