4 year old made comment about skin colour

[Spiceeee23456]

My 4 year old has just said “I don’t like him anymore”(about a little friend)
When I asked “why?” The answer was,
”Because I don’t like people with brown skin”

I am absolutely mortified and in shock. There are no comments/conversations/values/ideals in this house, that judge people based on skin colour.
We calmly discussed this together, I challenged the comments and opened up a dialogue about why people all look different and that this is no basis for whether we like them or not.

Anyone got any further ideas/thoughts?

You are making something out of nothing.

Its no different to a child saying they don’t like someone as they have a big nose, sticky out ears, scaly skin (eczema/psoriosis). Children of that age say what they see.

Just teach your child not to comment out loud on people's appearances no matter what is in their heads.

DH aged 4 pointed to a one legged man on the bus and asked his mum where the old man’s other leg was.

Show them the egg thing, that eggs come in different colours but are all the same inside.

Love this! Great idea 😊

Awesome idea. Cheers 😘

Could he have heard it from someone else? Someone at nursery? A grandparent? Kids come out with really random things but sometimes it could have been a remark by someone.

my MIL commented on my daughters moana doll and she said ‘oh it’s brown doll’ and my daughter just said ‘no, it’s moana’

Did you ask him why?

I dont think that it is inherent. When my 4 year old made a new friend at kindergarten I asked him to point the boy out. "He is the one with the red hat" he said pointing to the only black child in the playground.

My son once said this and his dad is mixed race, we all live together. They had been learning about it at school and I think he wanted to see what my reaction would be ..

I remember reading a similar thread a few days ago and it was pointed out that at 4 children cannot understand race as a concept.

Also point out hair colour as thats incredibly varied and shows how humans can look different.

My son announced the other day he only wants to play with blue eyed people like his sister and dad …. His brother is brown eyed and so am I.

Don't make a big deal out of it just explain you can’t group people on attributes.

I'm an early years practitioner and recently had a call from a parent extremely concerned that her 4 year old had said at the park "I don't want to play with that boy because he has brown skin".

I reminded her that at preschool 50% of the class are non-white children and the child in question had particularly good friends who were Black, Bangladeshi, Nepalese, Chinese and a number of others!

They're learning and don't realise what it sounds like. It's like saying "I don't like Jack because he has yellow hair". Sometimes it's to see a reaction, other times it's because yesterday a child with yellow hair (or whatever) pushed her over. And other times they see a difference and comment on it. Jane is tall. James uses a walker. Luke has black skin.

Yes, of course some children are unfortunately raised with racist beliefs. Generally though, a regular conversation about how everyone is different in lots of different ways will be fine. I like the egg analogy!