"Daddy, I don't think I like brown people" - Oh god now how do I deal with this one?

[Wills]

dd1 (8yrs) is under diagnosis for Aspergers. Unfortunately she goes to a mainly white school but although the area doesn't have the ethnic mix of where I grew up (Hackney) nevertheless I would have thought there was enough of a mix for her not to see differences in colour. Apart from hunting out the nearest Steel carribean band any other suggestions?

Did she say why? Maybe it is just because she doesn't get on with a particular child and has generalised her feeling of dislike.

Not sure how to word this but is there anyone you know who is black and would be happy to chat to her so that she can see there is nothing to be worried about?

books on celebrating diversity etc? Amazon have a few. Ethnic toys?

Loads of my old work colleagues. Unfortunately we moved about 2 years ago and I left work and have gradually lost touch. Oddly enough I haven't come into the ethnic world I'd hoped to find which is a shame.

dolls with darker skin? books with lots of characters of different ethnicities?

Try to find out why. Can she explain?

Get a book about genetics if there's one for the right age, so she can understand why everybody looks different?

This might be a problem if she finds differences hard to deal with but you could try stressing to her that everyone is different e.g. different eye colour, hair colour, height etc and that skin colour is just another difference and that differences are ok.

Spot on dustystar. I'm guessing that a new child has started at school and she's focusing on them being "brown" etc. She hates change and finds it incredibly difficult to deal with. Even so that doesn't mean I should leave her with that as an issue and nor do I want her publically pointing out "brown" people in the streets in a loud voice which she is also likely to do!

My ds has AS so I know just what you mean - why can't they learn to whisper this stuff lol.

A particularly clear voice that can carry a long distance should definitely be down as one of the defining features!

My eldest DS1 (now 16) was like this at this age - stating the bleeding obvious. Walked up to a bald man and said "You've got no hair" as if the chap hadn't realised. We also lived in a very "white" area - not a large ethnic mix and certainly no one at his school (only 32 pupils in it) so he did ask in a loud voice "why has that girl got a brown face". Fortunately we were in an Autistic Society run playscheme at the time so, hopefully, no offence was taken .

He also thought every black man was called Dave (after Dave Benson Phillips). We just kept explaining to him (in language he could understand) why he couldn't go round saying things that he did and explained peoples differences to him. It did sink in eventually.

Good name though