To ask about language around skin colour at nursery

[gollyimholly]

Hello,

Posting here for traffic mostly. Does anyone know how skin tones/colour/race is introduced at nursery age?

We are Asian Indian and I come from a culture where the beauty standard is that more tanned skin is not as beautiful as less tanned. I've been very careful with language and how my 3 year old DD is exposed to it. Eg. My sister grew up thinking she wasn't very pretty because people would so flippantly comment on skin colour etc and she was more tanned than what the average idea of pretty was.

Anyway, DD this morning said a teacher at nursery said her "skin is dark" and her brother's skin is "bright". I was just wondering is this something that is taught at nursery? I am trying to understand what context this was said in and whether they may have been learning about different cultures. But at the same time asking DD without drawing too much attention to it isn't easy.

Also WIBU to ask nursery what context this was mentioned under? Eg. Are they learning about the world or was it a random (but seems a bit out of place) comment by a teacher.

TIA x

A lot of Children in Ireland have been taught that their skin is peach, it is, it certainly isn’t white, it’s pink, purple, red, white so peach is the best described.
We use white.
Some white people have dark skin. I would say brown or black, it’s up to you how you want to say it.
Dark/ light are very different although used to describe daylight, it’s also used bad vs good. evil vs heavenly. I don’t think it’s right to use to describe a person. Maybe I am wrong.

The member of staff is unlikely to be a teacher, to start with. If adults can't get the titles of staff correct, when they will be listed prominently in the setting, I'm not sure how OP thinks that the staff can possibly know the nuances of terminology around skin colour in her family.
Young children are often taught to choose crayons etc to match skin colours when drawing classmates/family members. I imagine the discussion about skin tone arose from that.

I disagree. Your analogy doesn't work for me.
There's a whole group of staff that are in the classroom. The difference is, this staff member's title is a specific title and all I need to do is ask and find out. She was never formally introduced to parents. On the other hand, the conversation around skin tones is not always clear with exactly what words (or job title in your analogy) are OK to use.

I wouldn't have a problem with 'dark' (although perhaps not ideal) but would have an issue with 'bright' being used to describe paler skin. I think it is fine to ask the nursery about how they deal with this. You don't need to mention a specific incident if you don't want to.

Young children are often taught to choose crayons etc to match skin colours when drawing classmates/family members. I imagine the discussion about skin tone arose from that.
Then teacher should suggest choosing a colour close to your skin tone, some of us are brown, some black, some peach, choose a colour.
Not some of us are light and some of us are dark (skinned). No.

This seems sensible.

Perhaps they were drawing their family and child asked for recommendations on which colour would be best for her/her brother and teacher said 'brother is brighter' as in a different shade.
Conversations with toddlers happen randomly im sure it wasnt a planned lesson.

I always find these topics interesting and how different people describe skin colours as 'negative' etc. There are massive layers of hypocrisy in it all too that I will never understand.

The phrase " tall, dark and handsome" for example, nobody would batter an eyelid at that description of an man. But referring to a child as 'dark' is negative?

From my old experience, children will often use their own language when describing skin colour. My DD described a black child as having 'brown skin'. I think that is fine, and she was probably referred to as having different skin as she is half Chinese.

I think as long as she knows that all skin colours are beautiful then that's the most important thing.

Sounds more likely that your DD mistook the descriptions of light (not bright) and dark.

My child recently sat in the pharmacist saying "where's the black one gone? The black man is in the little room", describing the black pharmacist and I died inside because even though there's nothing insulting in that description I do find it rude to describe people solely by their race. Then the tall, ginger man walked out and she said "now the blue one is here". Ginger guy was wearing a blue shirt. Pharmacist was wearing a black shirt. She didn't notice their skin colour, it was their shirts. 🤦‍♂️

Why would ‘tanned’ be better considering it’s mostly used to describe skin colour made darker by the sun?

Are you in the uk? Are the nursery staff different races?

Tbh I would be a bit hmm that teacher described a baby skin tone as bright.

If your worried, go in and have a fave to face chat. Kids can repeat things incorrectly or pick up things wrong.

No, it CAN be racist if used in a derogatory way or if value is attributed to darkness or lightness of skin.

There is absolutely nothing racist about saying someone has darker skin than someone else. It’s a factual descriptor. It’s exactly the same as saying someone has darker hair than someone, which might be offensive in a culture that values blonde hair - but in essence is just objectively true, and not racist at all.

This is such a sensitive area regarding skin tones. To use the terms "bright" to describe skin tones is a term used amongst certain cultures. Does it make it right, no.

But that will give you an idea of which specific staff member you may need to address.

Most children settings will often allow children to select their own colours that they feel define their skintone. It may not even match.

However be mindful of languages you choose to describe your child's skin tone. As we know colourism exist amongst certain families, as well as the generalized racism amongst ignorant members of society, as much as we like to pretend it doesn't.

Because she compared it to her sibling’s skin that was “bright”.
Bright is a positive word.
Saying “your skin is dark whereas your brother’s is bright” is implying the little girl’s skin is not bright because it’s dark and therefore implying her dark skin is a negative quality.
The teacher might not have said it maliciously or meant it in that way but the terminology isn’t great especially towards young children.

I find it extremely unlikely that a three-year old is reporting this conversation correctly and I also find it unlikely that the teacher - or whatever she was - used the word "bright" to describe the skin of a child that she's barely seen according to OP

Yes, we're in London.
The member of staff in question is of Arab origin. I do not think her intent was bad at all. And this is all going off of what words my 3 year old said, and like you say I am very aware she may not be remembering the words or retelling it correctly.

I will have a face to face chat I think. But I think I feel more "brave" doing it over the phone.

OK, so if the teacher said it in a comparison way, I can see where you're coming from, but I think it's unlikely and OP needs to clarify this.

My guess is that the teacher didn't say it about DS at all. And perhaps DD has some things jumbled up. However, I do also know DD is very good at articulating herself and has very good command of language. It is unlikely she would use other words than the specific ones used.

When my kids were at nursery, they did a topic called 'knowing myself', where they looked at similarities and differences, likes and dislikes and did self portraits. Skin tone was discussed alongside hair colour, eye colour, hight etc. As just another caricaturist without positive or negative connotations.

I felt this was a better way to do it then not mentioning it and turning skin colour into a taboo subject. Though, I'm from a majority race, so maybe don't have the same insight as other who have reason to find it problematic.

Most nurseries want to teach inclusion and understanding how we vary from one another, I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask if they are learning about skin colour and to ask how they talk about it. Any good nursery will be mortified if they have inadvertently been using language that's offensive.

Even if they have been learning about dark and bright in terms of colour/light in general, it's worth finding out if this was inadvertently applied to skin colour. We call hair brunette or blonde or even ginger (which lots of people don't like!), it's fine to talk to the staff nursery about whether everyday language is appropriate for skin and hair colour - it isn't always.

Definitely, I’d approach in a “this is what I’ve been told but thought I’d check” way rather than accusatory.

Are you worried that the member of staff may have racial prejudices?

I think you could approach it as in asking what language they use around skin tone and diversity. Rather than saying my dd said this

But she might have misheard as even adults can misheard things in a bisy classroom, as I said above. I bet the words were light and dark, descriptive and opposite.

I find it helpful to word it like "I just want to clarify so I can explain to DD" - it's really really common for things to get a bit lost in translation when young children are involved because their language understanding is not yet as nuanced as an adult's, and they will frequently report things which sound a bit alarming because they have simply chosen the wrong word when explaining something back, or taken things out of context. I think when your child is very verbally proficient it is easy to assume that they have much better linguistic understanding than they do, but three is very very early in this process.

Even if your DD does not usually do this and you don't think she has, children of her age really commonly do. Nursery staff are well aware of this and will have navigated misunderstandings around things children say many, many times. It makes it a really handy way to introduce a topic if you're concerned about something which might have been said at school/nursery, because you can start with curiosity and it's clear that you're not going in on the offensive.