How to talk to DD about skin colour

[chairmeoh]

I overheard my DD (6) chatting in a group the other day and she was describing her friend the other day as having brown skin.

The conversation wasn't anything more sinister than they were drawing each other and DD was describing to the person getting the colouring pencils out.

I didn't pull her up on it at the time because I didn't want to have the discussion with a group of 4 6yos, including the friend being described.

I know that I need to educate her on this. But how? She can see the colour of the skin she was describing, but I dont know how to tell her that she should use the term 'black' instead without making it a issue that might make her look at her friend as 'different'.

Advice very, very welcome!

I love the fact that children, without any prejudice, simply say what they see. Brown skin. For them it won't be an issue worth thinking about... simply a matter of which crayon matches my friends skin.

I'm not an expert by any means, but my gut feeling would be to let her friends with brown skin tell her the terminology they prefer. Or maybe their parents might help.

My elderly parents still use the rather embarrassing terms 'coloured' and 'dark' .... But somewhere along the line I learned the politically correct language.... and it wasn't from my parents!! So I can only assume I learnt it at school or perhaps from friends saying "I'm not coloured, I'm black"

I remember at a very young age (primary school age) being embarrassed by my parents terminology.

I can't see anything there to be worried about?

I think that my instinct is to let her learn in her own way too, and I don't feel that she is wrong by what she was saying.

But I worry that she'll offend someone before she learns the correct terminology.

At what age is it unacceptable to still be referring to 'someone with brown skin' rather than a black person?

Ive got brown skin and happily refer to myself as brown if fir example someone needs to recognise me. I think while she is sayinng it in a non offensive tone any age is fine.

I would worry about this. Even if her friend is black, she would be using a brown pencil to draw her so saying she has "brown skin" isn't an issue.

My own (black... brown skinned) DD went through a phase of drawing herself in pink with yellow hair (ie white and blonde) because she wanted to look like Elsa! (We had to have some serious words.) At least your dd is taking different skin tones into consideration.

Sorry, that should read "wouldn't" worry about this!!

Thanks everyone for your responses.

That's interesting Purple. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I'm just anxious that she doesn't offend anyone. Thanks for your thoughts.

I've got brown skin- honestly "coloured" is offensive, and down other words are obviously very rude ( p**i, n-word, etc)- I can't see how saying brown skin will offend anyone!

We've been through this a bit with our two young DCs and respond with something like "yes, that's right, and you've got brown eyes and I've got blonde hair". At this age I also think it's good that they are noticing differences, but may need a little encouragement to realise that we are all different in our own ways, and that's a good thing.

y 6 yo DS describes his friends as having brown skin. I don't worry about it. my Dbro did try to explain that he should be using the term black but my DS said that is silly because they don't have black skin, they have brown skin.

My DS goes to a school which has a large proportion of Asian kids.

When he was in nursery/reception he used to describe his friends as having either peach or brown faces. I thought it was quite cute. He's now year 6 and understands and uses the 'correct' terms.

Even though peach is a crap description of 'white' skin!

I think like others have said, the terms being used aren't offensive and your DD along with other children will learn about this throughout life - let's face it, we have here a group of adults discussing this without 100% certainty on what is 'right' or 'wrong'

DH is mixed race, his family have brown skin and do not identify as being black. This is due to their ethnicity which is not obvious to most on looks alone. If someone called them black, and most certainly if someone corrected a child describing them as brown to then call them black, they'd be a bit inwardly (they also wouldn't be offended and wouldn't embarrass someone trying to simply be respectful, but the reality is 'black' wouldn't exactly be the correct term here).

I think it is good to teach that there are words that really aren't acceptable (eg half-caste, n-word, p-word etc), or also describing people's skin with a negative tone or any association beyond the superficial (eg behavioural characteristics). You can teach generally accepted terms as well. But I think they will learn mainly by mixing with different people and finding out how those people prefer to be referred to, if it ever even comes up. I grew up in a racially diverse area and we never mentioned our races, it just wasn't relevant to us until mid-teens when we all became more aware of racism in different aspects of society beyond the explicit.

I also don't think it's an issue, i talk about skin colour to my toddler in a matter if fact way, he's younger than your dc but if I started saying he'd was white (when he's more of a pinky-beige-yellow colour) and his cousin was black (when she's actually more of a brown colour) it would really confuse him. Within our family there is quite a variety of skin tone, I don't think children know that there is any prejudices associated with skin colour and I believe the best way to talk about skin colour is in the same way you would talk about eye colour/hair colour/texture/height.

An option might be to read books where the characters have differing skin colours and answer your dc's questions through the books if you don't feel comfortable doing it in front of friends.

TLCohmy out of interest how do your kids discribe themselves or if they are too young how do you discribe them?

I'm mixed race (Dad mixed race, Mum white), OH is white so our children look well tanned, but as all the other under 5's in the village are white (as are their parents of course) I guess it will be noticed, and tbh I don't particually like to be discribed as black as I'm more than half white, so It would feel very strange for my kids to be discribed as black.

Also I'm an expat so I guess the English word I tell people should be somthing OK for them to repeat outside of the village when they meet other black/brown people. I'm a worried about this as my OH used the n- word when we met, thinking it was acceptable as the only black people he had really met was when serving in the army with Americans and they all said it to each other and were happy for his sqaudron do the same. I guess because they found it funny as they obvoiusly weren't being ofensive.

Brown skin is fine! It's factual. My DS describes his dad as having brown skin and he and I have white skin. He doesn't know terms like mixed race, black etc yet and that's fine. He's only 6 too and I think it's far more relevant (and less divisive) for kids to understand that people are people who look different to each other rather than getting them to categorise everyone by racial groups before they even understand what that means.
Racial/ethnic differences are social constructed beyond physical appearance so as far as a 6 year old knows the only thing that is different is the appearance. Everything else is politics that they can get their heads around later.

Thanks again everyone for your comments.

Its really interesting to learn how others address this, and that most don't 'address' it as it isn't an issue that needs 'addressing' IYSWIM!

I guess I've been too wound up with wanting to be PC, that I was in danger of foisting labels onto people. Lesson learned.

I don't correct DD (4) on her terminology. She says she has pink skin and she does! In the same way, she doesn't necessarily say a friend has blonde hair but for example today said shiny golden to describe her friend's hair. When she asked me why people have different coloured skin and hair I said that we are like dogs. Dogs come in all shapes and sizes and colours and people are the same. She went away happy with that.

purple DC are too small to describe themselves but when we fill out forms for them it is always the 'mixed other' box. If we are asked in person we use their overall ethnic mix (Anglo-Asian-Caribbean), if we say 'mixed race' we get super confused looks as around here people automatically equate mixed race with one black parent, one white parent, and it doesn't feel right to choose one particular race when that isn't the case.

I've spoken to my (older) children about this, explaining that what is considered the right word to use changes over time, and it's important to use the right word because if you don't people can get upset with you.
Sadly, if even a young child inadvertently says something deemed to be racist, they can get into real trouble over it.

TLC yep it's weird - people don't "get" mixed when there are more than 2 ethnicities.

I remember being about 10, and we were told to draw ourselves in class. I started to colour my picture of me with a pink pencil, before the teacher came striding over and for some reason got mad at me & said "don't be ridiculous, you're white, you need to need a white pencil!" I remember looking at my arm and thinking "but it's really pink, my skin", and the White pencil was a chalk-white colour! It's adults that place these labels on people, children think far more matter of factually and logically - her friend is brown, therefore a brown pencil is perfect. as a child I think that's ok. My husband is japanese - he doesn't look "yellow" at all (according to adults this is his race's colour, ffs), my niece draws him as brown because he's so tanned lol. I think telling them at such a young age that the term "brown/yellow" or whatever isn't accepted by some people would just really confuse them.

most don't 'address' it as it isn't an issue that needs 'addressing'

I don't think that it's something that doesn't need addressing - in fact I think it's quite important to discuss culture and ethnicity with young DCs, but I think there is nothing at all wrong with your child's perception of different races nor the language used in

Another person here who doesn't think describing someone as having brown skin is in any way offensive, and I don't think it has ever been offensive.