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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

"sid isn't nice, because he's black"

46 replies

LilacBump · 03/02/2006 13:24

sid, being the black man from cbeebies...
anyway, that's what DD (4.5) told me this morning and i was gobsmacked by her statement. DP and i are very much against racism or any kind of judging on looks etc. i asked her more about it and she went on to tell me that all white people are nice and black people are not. all i could tell her, as i was so shocked by it, was that she should like people for who they are, not because of what they look like. is it best to ignore these statements and just explain it like that?

OP posts:

charliecat · 03/02/2006 17:33

All the children did, regardless of thier own skin colour.

MarsOnLife · 03/02/2006 17:33

lilacbump

I think that yes you should provide some toys and books etc that show a more multicultural world.

I'm of the opinion that someone (probably another child) has said something to your DD. It happens. My friend's dd came home upset because a couple of children wouldn't play with her because she has black skin and so is dirty and not nice. It doesn't matter where they got the comments from, they passed them on and that mattered.

I agree that if the only authorative figures she sees are white then of course she's going to accept it as the norm and anything out of the norm is wrong.

She's only young, but she is learning about her world. Incidentally, I don't think you should make a big thing about buying her a black doll. I just think that you should get it the way you would get any other toy and make no real comment. And when you add books to her bookcase, look for some more diverse books. Any good bookshop would have plenty to choose from.

Don't worry you are a good mum. It's just that none of our children can be wrapped in cotton wool and only hear and see the best things. It's how we deal with and teach them to deal with, the crap that is out there.

Issymum · 03/02/2006 17:35

You're right Charliecat. I remember that. I thought it was one of the better tests in Child Of Our Time and it did help me interpret DD1's behaviour.

Arabica · 03/02/2006 17:40

When DS was about to start Reception he startled me by saying that he would choose as friends, 'people who have skin like me not people who have black skin' (DS is blond and Caucasian looking). I was a bit freaked out, as we live in a multicultural area and he is used to meeting non-white people, and his reception teacher is black.
TBH I think he was just scared about the concept of meeting 30 strangers, and was worried about how he'd know who was nice and who wasn't and thought he might feel more comfortable with people who looked like him. On day one, faced with a roomful of kids he'd never seen before, all differently coloured, he went straight up one of the African/Caribbean kids and started playing with himand has never mentioned skin colour againphew!

Anchovy · 03/02/2006 17:48

I agree. Our new nanny is black and I think it is a very positive thing for the DCs (white) to have someone in a position of "authority" over them who is of a different race to them. The nursery school DS went to was very mixed, although not at the teaching level.

Anchovy · 03/02/2006 17:54

Sorry, meant to add on an analogous point, DS was very frustrated last weekend when Big Cook Little Cook had the sign language interpreter at the side. He said something along the lines of "that's not what I want and why don't people do what I want, not what they [deaf children] want". (This is doubly embarassing as his aunt is deaf and his uncle a sign language interpreter). For him it was just frustration at not being able to follow his favourite programme and a fairly natural response based on his reality that he is the most important person in the world. TBH I don't think it matters too much where it comes from - what I think is important is how you deal with it and the message that you give out about those sorts of comments. (Message was duly given!)

Nightynight · 03/02/2006 18:46

I would just explain to her that skin colour is nothing to do with how nice a person is....Ive explained similar sort of things to my children at a similar sort of age.

Incidentally, if you put black cows and white cows in a field together, they separate into 2 groups according to colour. I think it is an instinctive reaction to want to be with other beings who look like you, but we are humans so we also have the power of logical thinking

JennyLee · 03/02/2006 18:56

It is weird how children get that impression my ds is light olive skinned like me yet even he realised that it is percieved as a negative thing in this society, even though I try to tell him what a beautiful colour he is, and he was ashamed to hold my moms hand, who looks very Spanish, it was not untill we went on holiday to Mexico and he met all his fmaily that he reaised that being brown was okay and he is not like that anymore, and has never been racist but I could tell by him saying 'why can;t you dye my hair blonde' or 'why didn't you make me why like Daddy'that he knows it is considered inferior somehow he just knows. maybe from tv and Advertising and the kids that sometimes exclude him and treat him differently

JennyLee · 03/02/2006 18:57

its meant to read white like daddy

FrannyandZooey · 03/02/2006 19:25

I would tell her she is mistaken, in the same neutral way you would if she read a word wrong, or got someone's name mixed up, i.e. without sounding disapproving. Then respond with a firm and positive statement that models the attitude you would like her to have, e.g.:

"We like to be friends with people who are different colours."

I think simple statements like this are more effective at this age than having a big discussion about racism. Also, bear in mind children do tend to do what you do, and not what you say - if you have only white friends, they may draw their own (natural) conclusions from this. Not suggesting you run out to make a token black friend! However unless children interact with people of other colours in their lives they may assume there is a good reason that you only mix with whites.

Tortington · 03/02/2006 19:30

or depending on your childs nature it may appeal to him if you ask him about a white person who isn't nice.

and then you can say you get horrible people of all colours you can get nice people of all colours too.

Original poster

LilacBump · 03/02/2006 19:37

thank you all so much for your comments and advice. i've just been reading through the posts added to this thread after i went offline earlier.
i had a chat with her earlier and asked her if someone had mentioned something along the lines of black people not being nice, but she said she had thought of it herself. i still don't see how she would come to that conclusion as we always try to bring across the message that looks/religion/nationality don't matter. she does see things very stark. for example she is very harsh on people that eat meat and we've had to stress that yes we are vegetarian, but other people can eat meat if they want to.
i mentioned a few black people that she knows personally, like our dentist and window cleaner (sounds a bit daft, but like i said earlier, our community is mainly white) and she agreed they were nice friendly people.
unfortunately i didn't get a chance to talk to her teacher at nursery. i will buy her a black doll and find some books in the library, but generally i will not try to make a big deal out of it (i want to though, but it seems better to not to, she's only 4.5!). she seems to realise i wasn't impressed by her comment as it was hard to hide my feelings about it at the time.

OP posts:

littlemissbossy · 03/02/2006 19:41

I'd ignore it. FWIW my DS used to call his (now) friend at preschool "that nice little brown boy"

MarsOnLife · 03/02/2006 19:48

it won't hurt her to know that you were unimpressed.

All will come right. My neighbours dd came home from her grandparents once and started saying the n word and the c word whenever she saw black people on telly. (not the see you next tuesday word). She wasn't being rude just... oh look mummy there's a c etc. Her mum was really shocked and told her that it wasn't a nice thing to say and that black people would be upset. Her dd said, but we don't know any black people. My friend said what about Mars? DD replied... but she's not black. She's Mars. Her mum decided not to make a big deal and all was okay. My friend has never been so embarrassed.

They all go through it and come through it. I think it's all about discovering their world. Bit like the "Mummy is he a man? Does he have a willy?" really.

Mercy · 03/02/2006 19:48

I agree with MarsonLife about not making a big deal of it, just gradually buy books, toys etc that are more diverse and not comment.

I have very light brown skin and black/brown hair and my own dd makes occasional remarks about peoples skin and hair colour. I don't particularly comment other than to explain that people from other countries sometimes look different to her.

btw, a family friend was being bullied by a child at school, called paki and other such lovely names. Bully turned out to be his brother's best friend. Children can be v irrational!

flutterbee · 03/02/2006 20:08

If you are really worried why don't you do the good old eye colour experiment with her (or hair colour etc) we did this at juniour school and I still remember it as the best way to explain how it feels to be singled out for something you have no control over that makes no difference to what kind of person you are.

chipmonkey · 03/02/2006 20:31

We had this issue with ds2 aged 3. He commented that he didn't like black people. On questioning it turned out that the only black child in his montessori class was also the most badly behaved and ds2 had been punched/bitten etc by him many times. We pointed out that this was not because X was black but because X was simply a naughty boy. This luckily proved true for him when he met other black children who were better behaved, including X's little brother who was a little angel in comparison ( Bit of a Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter situation!) We've never had any race issues since.

Tortington · 04/02/2006 00:08

my kids picked up racism from school around the time of the oldham riots. i duly informed them of their ancestry, that made them think.

kylesmybaby · 04/02/2006 02:53

i am have a 3.5 year old mixed race son. last nite one of the girls who plays with him in nursery's older brother (6) came up to me and said so innocently i know why ds is a bit whitey and a bit blackey. i was gobsmacked - he went on to say its when a white person marries and black person they have half whitey and half blacky child like ds. ds was there but i dont think whe really knew what was being said. i think the boys parents had probably been trying to explain to their children about different coloured skin. although i did chuckle about it it has started to made me think. we all want to protect our chldren from getting hurt. ds has never mentioned the colour of his or anyone elses skin. although whenever we see a black man in the street or on telly he says mummy theres my daddy (highly embarressing in public lol)

sandyballs · 06/02/2006 14:45

My dd said a similar thing Lilac, and she was a similar age. I was also horrified but on further questioning I realised that it was just literally the colour black she didn't like, that particular day. I think we can sometimes read too much into these things.

DominiConnor · 06/02/2006 14:49

Actually the black bloke seems rather better than the average. Several other men on there do look like cariacature paedophiles. Perhaps that's how the BBC chooses kids presenters ?

At 2.0's last school there was about 40% non-white kids. There was one who had a large scale skin problem, and some older kids started saying they shouldn't play with him, makiing his life even harder. As it happened the child was asian, and the school would have come down hard if that had been the issue, but from the child's point of view it was just as bad as racism. Yet the school just saw it as within the bounds of general social behaviour. Was part of the reason that we found a different school for 2.1

I don't see racism as a problem in itself. It is a symptom of many other defects in the raising of many kids. Skin colour is just an excuse for bullying and other bad behaviour. I went to a school with exactly one asian kid in it, who was also very big for his age, was never bullied.
But kids were picked on for anything ranging from football team supported, not wearing a new school uniform to random choices that the kids couldn't have explained themselves.

Racists need someone to blame for defects in their own life. When denied the "use" of a race as a target, they will identify other groups, by religion, or if all else fails hairstyle and clothes (remember mods and rockers ?)

Choosing to define yourself as "us" as opposed to "them" is a powerful bonding in some groups, and many people see "belonging" as a moral force in itself.

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