Is my 4 year old racist?

[Gameofmoans81]

We moved several years ago from a large multicultural city to a small predominately white coastal town and I have always felt uncomfortable with the lack of diversity here and the impact it may have on my children.
Well it seems I was right because my 4 year old has started saying awful things about brown skin and I have no idea what to do about it. She has said it is ‘yucky’, ‘not clean’ and she doesn’t like it. She has definitely never heard anything like this at home so is it coming from nursery or is it her own judgement??
I challenge her on it every time and have opened a dialogue about skin colour and race but she is still saying she prefers ‘pink skin’ and I’m worried now that I may even have made too big a deal about it as it’s all she talks about! I’ve always made sure she has a wide range of toys, books, tv that include different races, my best friends daughter is mixed race but unfortunately with living here these are her only first hand experiences of anyone who isn’t white and I’m sure this is why she is like she is. My partner says she’s young, it’s normal, don’t worry she’s clearly not going to be a racist adult but I’m absolutely mortified, it makes me want to pack up and move straight back to the city.

has anyone experienced similar and have any advice?

The area we live in isn't massively diverse, South East and not particularly rural but still nothing like my east London upbringing. DS has never and would never make comments like that and is the same age. I'd be very worried about what they've been hearing

Agree with PP, I have 2 (1 mixed race and one not) and would be very concerned if I heard that from either of them. Your DD is hearing that somewhere and I’d be worried where. My youngest is interested in skin colour but only to the extent of asking why people are all different colours, how it happens, what it means etc. Childhood curiosity is normal, what your DD is saying really isn’t.

securely attached children develop very clear ideas about what their own tribe look, smell and sound like. This is a normal stage of child development. I have cared for foster children with attachment disorders. If a child does not have these fears and feelings about "others" they are very vulnerable - for example, I had an 8 year old girl follow a complete stranger into the gents and slide under the cubicle door to join him because she like his smile. YOu can see the sort of situations this "tribal recognition" protects you from

This is where out unconscious bias comes from. |It is innate, but severely damaging in modern life. Similar to the male instinct to take risks, show off, fight etc - it worked out in prehistoric times, because women needed physically strong men, and also society had more boys than needed, and could afford to lose plenty

What I am saying, is this is she isn't any more inheranly racist than anyone else, but having siad this, it needs stamping out, now, and you need to not worry that she has had these thoughts and feelings, but make sure she doesn't carry them forward

We don't live in a diverse area and I'd be worried what they were hearing because yes she is being racist.

My DS has never made such a comment nor have any other children I've known. I'd be furious and want to find out where she is hearing this from!

My children have never really remarked on anything like this. Apart from my daughter assuming all brown skinned people are Muslim, as her friend at school is. I think your daughter must have heard this somewhere, and I'd be talking to the nursery anyway.

if you are sure it’s not something coming from within the home environment then I would have a quiet word with the nursery just to ask them to keep an ear out for things incase it’s coming from another child

I live in an area that isn’t diverse either. Maybe it’s something they’ve heard from another child. I talked about science mainly when this cropped up, the reason people have different skin colours is due to melanocytes, genetics and environmental factors. People move around more frequently now and you can mitigate environmental factors through sunscreen and vitamin supplements. That people have different skin tones is a demonstration of the wonders of evolution.

They either took it on board or were so bored of this chat that it hasn’t come up again 5 years I later.

As a stretch do they have a mud pit to play in at Nursery?

I can quite easily see a scenario where someone in an universe nursery would say "let's clean those mucky brown hands until they are nice and pink again" if the light skinned child had been playing in the mud. It would be quite easy for the child then to infer brown skin = dirty from that particular experience.

No child is innately racist so unless she is being exposed to some radical thoughts somewhere it's probably a miscommunication that shouldn't be too hard to correct.

I think she’s heard it from somewhere.
4 year olds don’t really notice these things.

She’s hearing it from somewhere 🤷‍♀️
Children don’t come out with that sort of crap by themselves

that is not true, all children who are securely attached have prejudices and biases, which may be racist.

Agreed

I really don't think it has anything to do with where you live

We live in an area that is not very diverse. We do have a number of Asian family members, but they do not live close. We have always had books etc with different types of families and characters with different coloured skin. There are only three children in my son's class who are not white.

He has never commented on the colour of anyone's skin other than to complain that he did not have crayons that were skin coloured for him or his friends. I found that Crayola does a pack with lots of skin coloured shades and he was happy.

Four year olds are not racist. It’s either something heard elsewhere which would be concerning or it’s something else that has led to this pattern of thinking.

one of mine went through a phase at the same age of saying he didn’t like dark people. This was because of an incident with a black delivery driver when we had our path lights broken he sort of appeared suddenly out of the dark passage and freaked DS out. I don’t think he understood it as disliking people with different skin colours he was just annoyed with this one entirely blameless man!

we obviously talked to him in an age appropriate way about why that wasn’t appropriate or right.

all these people who think children are not racist! securely attached children are hugely prejudiced! If your child isn't by the age of 2, then something is wrong

Give it a rest, @Nimbostratus100

Seriously, I don’t want to get deleted for troll hunting but is there anything you aren’t an expert on? It gets a bit tiresome.

Anyway, all children can have beliefs and opinions that are not kind, so to speak, but they really should know by four not to verbally express these. And besides, are all these children never watching CBeebies; that is extremely diverse, as is just about every book I have ever read with DS!

Don't panic op. I am sure she won't grow up racist. As a young child she doesn't understand the implications of what she is saying. You can start to explain, in an age appropriate way, and revisit over years to come.

My daughter has said some racist seeming things, so I know how mortified you feel. She has insulted a school friends black hair, mid argument, trying to hurt her. She copied this from another child. She's commented on skin colour and said she doesn't like brown skin. This seems to be her own opinion, not copied. I've had parents come to me to raise both issues. Dd understands from adults reactions that these things are somehow quite loaded. My responses have varied between it's rude to comment on people's physical appearance, and I have explained simply what racism is and a bit of history, she's 8 now so can understand more. She's seen things in museums that we've used as conversation starters. They've covered things a little bit at school including doing things like talking about where classmates come from, putting pins in a map, celebrating that diversity. I'm sure it'll all come together.

Children are not racist unless taught this. You need to find out and ask your DD who she has heard say these things. My DS is 8 and he met a Russian boy at holiday camp. They played together despite the language barrier kids are not bothered about skin tones.

If its an issue it's because it's learnt behaviour. Google book dynasty lots of ethnic minority fun books explaining race in a light hearted way.

Thanks all for the messages it’s really helpful. I do think she’s heard something somewhere and will be speaking to nursery. She said it was because they couldn’t see chocolate to wash it off so the mucky hands comment could be something??
I have done a lot of explaining about melanin etc and thankfully she is saying less insulting things now but I’m still concerned about where it came from.
she definitely hones in on the blonde haired blue eyed aesthetic despite my best efforts not to expose her to this and being brown eyed and brown haired herself!
I just really think that if we lived somewhere more diverse and half the class and her friends were non white she wouldn’t have said this stuff. I do also worry about the amount of attention she knows these comments get her so am trying very hard to educate her without making too big a deal but it’s hard. It just feels a shame that she’s already concerned with how people look in any regard.

We live in a racist culture, so yes, small children pick up on things and then because they have no filter they feed it back explicitly. They aren't being racist but they are telling you what they have learned/noticed. Adults (especially white) usually don't notice these things because we are used to them and take them for granted, or try to minimise out of politeness.

The best thing to do is keep pointing out/explaining the opposite, without worrying about it or making it into a big thing. For example you could say things like:

Somebody having brown or pink skin doesn't tell you whether they are clean or not. Being clean is about how much you wash your body. Everybody gets dirty, and we have to wash ourselves to get clean. People with brown skin and people with pink skin get dirty and wash to get clean again.

That person doesn't have brown skin because it is dirty, it's just a different colour. Just like X has brown hair, and Y has blonde hair. X's hair isn't dirty, it's just a different colour. It's brown even when it has just been washed. (If you have pets, you could also show this - animal skin is often coloured like the fur, so you can look at their paws or tummy or move the fur apart gently to look).

Point out black characters on TV or people in their class or teachers at their school etc who they like and say "X is black and they are a nice person." If you don't currently have much black representation in your books, TV etc consider seeking some out.

Somebody having brown or pink skin doesn't tell you if they are a good or a bad person. That's not something that you can tell about somebody from their skin colour. You should look at what people say or do. If they say and do nice, kind things then they are a good person. If they say or do mean things, they aren't a nice person. The colour of their skin doesn't make a difference.

At four, it's totally normal to be very black-and-white about things (pardon the pun) because they have to go through a stage of understanding binaries/opposites before they can see nuance and shades of grey. That's why everything is always extremes and rigid at four. People are good or bad, nice or mean, clean or dirty. They have to try and make sense of the world using this framework. You don't need to pretend that race and skin colour don't exist, because they aren't stupid and they do notice. But explaining that it is unrelated to attributes of the person themselves can help them not to use that as a marker.

I'm pretty sure when they did a test on 'Child of our time' nearly all the children most wanted to be like the blonde haired blue eyed child - even those who weren't white! The idea that children don't see colour or differences is just not true - but how bothered they are does vary from individual to individual, some are naturally more laid back than others etc - and isn't necessarily because they've heard racist remarks somewhere. Kids can take against anything for all sorts of bizarre reasons that sound absolutely ridiculous to an adult.

I wouldn't get angry or punish her for the silly things she says, just tell her that no child no matter what their colour is going to miss chocolate on their arm! I wouldn't assume that living somewhere more diverse would definitely make a difference though - one wrong word from a black child could easily have her declaring that all black children are horrid. You just need to keep seeing what if anything is behind the things she says and keep explaining it to her if the conclusions she's drawing from a situation are not correct. She'll definitely get there, you don't need to move house!

Thank you, I do think I am probably projecting my own discomfort about moving here, it was quite a shock to the system that I’ve never got used to.

I don't believe all children are racist, what a strange belief.
Of mine, the only one who displayed any reaction to skin colour was the embarrassing toddler who cowered away from black men - in lifts, stairwells, small rooms etc. Hideous and awkward . I ignored him and just smiled, made a pleasant unrelated comment to whoever it was (modelling). I'm sure I spoke to him somewhere else - didn't want to address it there and then as no idea what he might say.
Grew out of that, now all of them are perfectly civilised and inclusive beings.

Op I would model positive behaviour when you can, and be quite firm on 'we don't say hurtful things like that' or 'you are wrong, brown skin is easy to clean' and just keep up simple responses.

I grew up in an all white area and never thought or said bad things about non white people. I knew it was wrong, my family and school taught me it was wrong. I would come down quite hard on those comments after the first instance.

@Nimbostratus100 being securely attached to a parent who is white NEVER makes a child racist. Hearing racist crap and being exposed to racism and having racism modelled as good makes a child racist.

It’s not enough to not be racist, we have to be anti-racist and call that shit out.