how do you handle questions about skin colour? no offence meant by this post BTW

[helsi]

My dd (2.11) was with me in B&Q at the weekend and a black man was behind me in the queue. She looked at me and said "look mummy a chocolate man". I didn't know where to put myself and I apologised to him(he seemed ok) and I quickly changed the subject. However, the same thing happened last night when she saw another black man on TV and again said the same thing. I just told her that he wasn't and that some people have different skins just like we have different eye and hair colours.

She is very young and so doesn't understand but was wondering how other people would handle it and how you would feel or deal with it if you had been the person in the queue.

My DD is mixed race.

When she was about 2 she started going through a phase of pointing to every black man saying he looked like Daddy. I was quite suprised about this as I expected her to notice the varying shades in her family at a much later age.

As others suggested, though, it was approached very matter of factly and now she has a fair grasp of people looking different and coming from different origins.

It also helps that she goes to a very multicultural nursery where they often have discussions on the different languages spoken at home, where different people go on holiday to visit family etc.

Now she is 4 and has us in stitches with her comments:

"Daddy don't turn the light out I won't be able to see you"
or
"Mummy your skin just glows its so bright"

One of the sweetest things was when my nephew, aged about three at the time, automatically started waving his hands around at a cousin of ours who is deaf and who signs.

Dn didn't say anything but just assumed that he should not talk, but use his hands, when trying to communicate with this cousin.

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww bless!

I thought a lot about this type of thing before ds went for a playdate with a child who has neurofibromatosis. He obviously looks very different from anyone that ds has ever seen before. Suddenly it occurred to me that it was as simple as that. So I talked to ds about how people come in all different shapes and sizes and he has yet to see just how different many people are. The playdate was a great success. Afterwards, I sat down and wrote a little story with the same theme and got pictures off the internet of people with different body types, skin color and also prostheses. He has never commented about skin color btw, but I wanted to include that anyway.

He loves reading his "People" book as he calls it and I have been invited to read it at the local library for children's hour tomorrow!

I just do the same as everybody i guess ...that everybody is different. ds and dd are both mixed race (as am i) Ds once referred to their dads skin as pinky pale...and said 'poor daddy'. I asked him (slightly concerned) why he said that...and he said ' because daddy always says i am lucky to have some of your brownness'
Funny how such innocent comments can be turned over in their little minds.