My DS 6 was called a racial name, scared to go to school....

[mumnotarobot]

hi mums, dads and carers.
This morning my DS age 6, woke upunlike his usual self, claiming he had a tummy bug, he didnt feel well, he wanted to stay home its raining etc etc. Of course i checked him out to see if there was something wrong with him as he is not ususally one to stay away from school(only child) looks forward to going to school for peer interaction. So you can understand my immediate worry. I wanted to get him talking and give me the real reason for why he didnt wnat to go to school.
He told me no one plays with him and he is generally on his own. And also he has had a few incidents with a kid who ive heard off before and has a reputation of being 'unkind'. Anyways this boy has shoved and pushed my DS and a teacher witnessed this and put the boy on time out. My concern is why teachers dont pass on this imformation. However i wanted to know how how this had been going on and if there were other incidents. Then my DS told me my worse fears he had been called a racial name which i dont think is worth repeating.
I didnt want the approach to be, ok stay at home. As i know first hand that this is not the way out. So i told him i will be speaking to his teachers about what he had shared with me and if this would be ok with him. He said yes. I went to the school and spoke to the teachers but to my surprise it was almost like they hear these things everyday. I was told there will be checkups etc and meeting with TA's and both kids. I ve since recieved a phone call telling me about their update. I was pleased as it seemed they have dealt with things urgently. However why do i get the feeling they are making it seem that theyre just kids and sometimes these things happen. Maybe my DS was looking for attention. Which ever way you look at it which adult would tolerate another member of staff to call them a racial name, especially if this person is genereally unkind to you.??

I am not usually one to run to school with issues but i just feel as though the way schools deal with things and treat you as a parent makes you feel like you ar making a big deal out of nothing.

I needed to know who else may have experienced this nd how did you go about things. Was the school helpful??

can i assume no one has experience bullying and racism??

I would say they aren't taking it super seriously because kids of 6 do not understand the connotations of racism at all - they don't mean it in the same way a grown up or older child does. Or maybe I am a country bumpkin with kids that are just a bit too inncent.

They are 6 - you are getting it all wrong by comparing it with adults being racist IMO.

Leave it how it is and see if anything else happens.

Agree with Madame. To assume that a six year old is sophisticated enough to understand and deliberately apply a racial slur is a bit out of a leap for me.

TBH I think to a certain extent they are just kids. I am not suggesting it shouldn't be dealt with but at this age it is more likely to be poor behaviour ratherthan racism.

But that is just my opinion and i could well be wrong.
As you describe it as your worst fear perhaps you are much more sensitive to it than the school understand

are you in England?
AFAIK, an incident like this would be classed as a racist incident which schools are obliged by law to record and take action on. they have to keep records and report to local authority.
Does not matter if the other children 'don't understand' it's the schools job to make sure your ds is safe from racism.
They also have a duty to ensure all pupils grow up understanding what racism is.
You were right to go to the school. May be an idea to ask to see their race equality policy- they have to have one.

Reminds me of my primary school days. At the time my parents were in Switzerland (1970's)and i got quite a bit of abuse just because i was British.
They said i was inferior to the Swiss, but then the Swiss think everyone is not as perfect as they are.#
Just hope they have improved since the 1970s

Thanks for that Madlentileater, i was beginning to feel that i have blown this out of porportion. Im from north london.
But i agree completely. If my DS understands the difference between race and knows to call a person of a different race to ours a derogatory name, is 'unkind thing to do' to me that should mean this other kid should also be taught the same. And it is up to schools to ensure that kids are tuaght racism. They have recorded this incident and will be keeping a closer eye on this other kid. But it is so important as parents we dont sweep aside incidents such as these as there merely kids. Serial killers were once 'just kids' and if someone had paid closer attention to their odd behaviourial patterns maybe things may have turned out differently for them as adults.

Agree with what madlentileater said.

I have firsthand experience of bullying, and of being the parent of a bullied child, and I know how much it hurts.

Firstly, you have handled this the right way - talking to the school and letting them deal with it. It may be that you haven't been told about the shoving incident because the school had dealt with it and schools often prefer to keep things 'in house' - they don't want children going home and getting in trouble again at home if they've been told off in school, is what I was told. They were probably monitoring the situation to make sure that it didn't recur.

With regard to the racial nickname, again, I suspect that they want to talk to the child concerned and monitor the situation. It may be that the child concerned is just repeating a word that they've heard somewhere else and it doesn't necessarily reflect a racist attitude in this child, iyswim.

If the incident is a 'one-off' and is not repeated after they've talked to the child/ren concerned, then the school has successfully dealt with the situation, and hopefully you and your ds can draw a line under it too - though I am not in any way attempting to belittle the hurt you are both feeling.

It might be worth asking the teacher if this subject could be addressed in 'Circle Time' - so the whole class can be made aware that using nicknames based on race, gender, hair colour etc etc is unkind and unacceptable.

Just one thought, though. A single incident of pushing or name calling isn't bullying - it's nastiness and needs nipping in the bud, but imo it is when the behaviour is repeated more than a couple of times that it turns into bullying - which is why I say it should be nipped in the bud at the first or second instance.

Children of any age can be nasty, in my experience, but not all of them are bullies by any means.

To illustrate this point - my ds2, aged 13, suffered a horrible incident where his pe shorts and underwear were pulled down by another boy in pe. He was absolutely mortified and upset as you can well imagine, but the school dealt with the incident so quickly and firmly that he felt reassured that he was safe there. It also helped that his friends rallied round and supported him straight away, which tells me that the school has a good supportive ethos and that bullying is not tolerated by the children either.

In the wake of this incident, the boy concerned had to come to ds2 and apologise, and since then they have been on reasonably friendly terms.

I hope that you and your son have a positive outcome from this nasty situation, and that things don't escalate into bullying for him. He is very lucky to have a mummy who has reacted so quickly and positively to support him. Although I was older at the time, when I went to my parents in tears at the sustained campaign of bullying in my final year at primary school and then in senior school too, they told me that sticks and stones would hurt my bones, but calling names couldn't hurt me!! Utter nonsense, and after that I didn't even think of going to the school - after all, if my own parents weren't going to help and support me, how could I expect the teachers to do any better?

I was in a primary in Oxfordshire in the 70's . I was endlessly called paddy and some girls put pretend bombs in my desk .

I still think that they were just copying what they had heard and had no real notion of what they were doing other than winding me up.
But it is entirely possible that i am dim aboutthese things.

thanks stayingsunnygirl. We had a meeting after school woth the teacher. And for now it does seem as though it is a one off incident. I am ever the optimist and i am aware that just because i teach and equip my son before he leaves the home that in life there will be all sorts of ppl. And sometimes not very pleasant. It just saddens me that kids are sujected to such things. And as you said this other kid may have heard it said and simply repeating what he heard. Interestingly though he didnt repeat it to a kid that wasnt black. So makes you think just how smart kids are, and many times we tend to under estimate their intelligence.

i dont know why you think this kormachameleon. I guess you have been fortunate to aviod bulying and nasty remarks made towards you, now as when you were growing up. I am simply sharing what i experienced with my young child who does not deserve to be subjected to behaviour like that. And also hopefully rasing awreness to parents and carers. At times we say things radomly and our kids have ears. And although we may not mean what we say, they pick up on it and will take this to school. Affecting innocent kids like my DS.So if it seesm to you that this is my aim, i urge you, that is wrong.

lol...at least u makin me laugh. I am not uptight. Its just i was never expecting to hear my son like that...i aplogise. xxx

I had a lot of problems with ds1 (reception class) in his last school. Everyday he would come home covered in fresh bruises and saying two boys in particular were bullying him. I spoke to his teachers on various occasions and made notes in his school diary, on one occasion he came home with foot prints on his coat where he'd been trodden on, of course without a witness I only had his word to go on and the school said it could have happened while the coats were hanging up.

It's awful, I really sympathise. On one occasion ds1 made a comment which the teacher classed as racist (don't play with him he has a brown face) and I was hauled up on the coals, I pointed out that half my family share the same ethnic background and are darker skinned so I don't know why he came out with something like that, other than grasping at straws because being nice to them didn't work and neither did fighting back so he looked for an obvious difference to point out maybe.

What eventually did work was the teacher sitting the three boys down together (in Year 1) and talking with them about being kind etc and they all signed a pact to look after each other. It made such a big difference.

We then moved house and school and he's had no problems in the new school, he comes out happy and full of fun, it's nice not to dread the end of the school day and wonder what state he'll be coming home in.

So without knowing what was said to your ds I can't comment on whether maybe the boy didn't mean it the way it came out. But you need to keep putting pressure on the school to sort this out as it can just go on and on.

TBH, I don't think the school is doing enough here.....this happened to my black child in yr 2 and the school reported the incident to the LEA, to their parents and notified me.

If I'm honest, I thought it was very over the top, given they were 6/7 year olds and very good friends of my child. Infact I knew it was not said in malice, but just something they've seen or heard.

However in the end, I agreed with the way the school dealt with the situation.
Its part of their responsibility to teach acceptance/race awareness to kids of all races and it should be part of their PSHE.
You need to ask for their policy on racism/bullying.