21 month old and identifying characters/ people by their skin colour

[TheMagicPudding]

So my 21mo is my first child and recently when we have been reading stories, she has been pointing out when a character is 'black'. She does this in the same manner as identifying a girl/boy/ fairy etc but doesn't mention any of the characters being 'white'. We don't differentiate or talk about people's colour at home so I'm guessing it's come about from nursery but I'm a bit unsure of how to proceed.

Obviously she is correct that a character is black and I will confirm with her she is correct but simultaneously I want to avoid being black as the sole identifying feature of the person. I will try to direct her attention to another aspect of the person such as being a pirate for example or looking at whether they are happy or commenting on their beautiful dress etc. We recently when out for lunch and their was a mixed race toddler at the next table and I was worried about my DD announcing she was black. She didn't and just announced she was a 'girl' instead.

I don't know whether I am massively over thinking this but don't really know how best to work with this situation...anyone got any advice or suggestions? I guess I'm just really conscious about what it looks like I'm teaching her!

Thanks!

No advice. My 20 month old can neither say boy nor girl nor differentiate between them. Also saying black instead of brown is impressive, my 6 year old still says peach people instead of white . My 20 month old also can't actually say or identify colours so really no advice at all.

This is very odd as DC in general don’t notice people’s skin colour. Obviously nursery must be pointing it out, which is also odd.

my dc is the same age and can only identify everyone that isn't an adult as "baby", so it's really impressive they can identify girl and boy.

i would ask nursery about the type of books and nursery rhymes they read and sing as this could be part of it and i would also suggest buying some books where all the characters are black so this isn't something that can be used to single characters out and allows for more focus on different aspects.

That's odd, my two never seemed to differentiate as any books or films were like real life - a mixture of skin tones, so they never pointed out anything different to them.

What on earth

My little ones are a couple years older than yours and they've never mentioned what colour someone is...

My D many years ago always called her best friend brown Hema (name changed). All the other children In her room were white and so it was an obvious thing for her to notice. She called her it all the time for a short while. Hema's mum didn't mind as it was just a 3 year old being innocent. There was no prejudice just observation. We ignored it and a few weeks later the colour was not mentioned. Just her name. They remained really close until Hema moved 2 years later. It was a stage that she noticed differences , we always replied as a positive thing. That differences are good whether it be clothes, toys liked, whatever. It's how you frame it.

I guess when your DD says something like 'look at the brown girl mummy' you could try saying 'the girl with the pink hat'/the girl waving her hand...type of thing?

I'm trying to remember when my children were toddlers but I don't think they mentioned differences in skin colour until they were nine or ten years old. But they had a lot of schoolfriends with many different nationalities so skin colour wouldn't have defined somebody either.
A friend of mine told me that her child who attends a small village school, describes the only black child in her class, as black (and girl's name) even though there is only one child with that name in the class. I'd find that particularly annoying tbh but friend seems to think its reasonable.

Not much help OP. I'd ask the nursery if they had any suggestions and explain that it makes you uncomfortable.

My 3 year old started referring to a friend as "brown <name>". I told nursery, and told my child not to say it again. She did one or two times more but now has stopped. I believe she got it from another child at nursery. No advice as I probably didn't handle it correctly, I had no idea what to do.

My DS suddenly started noticing skin color when he'd just turned 2. He pointed out that he has brown skin and his friend Liam has pink skin. That sort of thing. I think that's just natural toddler curiosity.

Your DD saying black rather than brown suggests she's overheard it somewhere?

A friend of mine told me that her child who attends a small village school, describes the only black child in her class, as black (and girl's name) even though there is only one child with that name in the class. I'd find that particularly annoying tbh but friend seems to think its reasonable.

It's not always a negative thing, one of my friends loved being the only 'coloured' (1970s) child in her school. I think we (white people) are brought up to not mention skin colour and always see it as marking someone out, when in reality a child should be comfortable with who they are and with differences in people.

I use a walking stick and sometimes children will ask, "Mummy why does that lady have a stick?" mums tend to be embarrassed but it's just curiosity.

I struggled with a class I taught that had two students (teenagers) with the same name who were referred to as 'white X' and 'black X' but both students were completely OK and referred to themselves by those names.

OP

I would bet even money there is a black member of staff.

There is nothing wrong with talking about different skin colours. You can get wax crayons that are 'people' colours.

Thanks for all your responses! I am planning on asking the nursery how it's come about ie black children in her group or teachers etc and see how exactly they talk about these things. It just took me by surprise that out of the blue she could identify characters in this way because it isn't something we do or would discuss at home in this way.

And we do talk about other aspects of the person, like I said 'yes they are black. Look at how beautiful the fairy is' or 'look at her colourful shoes' etc.

At home it's something we can talk about, I'm just concerned about being out and about and her speaking like this, but I suppose If she did my response would still be the same, to acknowledge but also talk about their lovely dress or their lovely hair or something?

It's also difficult to navigate because she is still so young so I'm not sure what she's understanding and what will just go over her head.