[Closed] Parenting advice needed - racist child

Ask him to justify that statement.

I would think that anything he could come up with could easily be countered by any number of well-known people.

You're all good. Your kid is too young to be/not be racist.

He'll just have heard it in the playground and repeated it. I did it myself when I was a kid - used the "n" word because I'd heard someone else say it. My parents gave me the chat about tolerance and I didn't do it again.

Fair chance he's heard that from someone else. As far as I know kids that age don't tend to formulate that sort of opinion independently. Worth trying to find out?

Just forget it, you've spoken to him/punished him that's all you can do. He's only 7, he was probably trying to be as mean as he could be. I doubt he is really racist.

Ask him to justify that statement.

better still, why he said it, since it could've been genuinely just an obvious characteristic (as in "ginger/fat/skinny/short/poor/rich/spotty people are the worst kind")

Our 7 year old boy was at after school club and felt he was being treated unfairly by an older kid so turned round to him and said 'black people are the worse kind.' Little bastard.

Please tell me youre not calling your own son alittle bastard`.

My eldest is 7 and I can understand that feeling that you're out of your depth. I feel like that when my two are arguing about a football so god know how you feel.

Sounds to me as if he's picked it up from somewhere else and that's what I'd be worried about. Not that he'll become a rampant racist, because with you as his parent that's not going to happen. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Don't see it as a label, he probably doesn't even fully understand what hes saying. It's a passing comment picked up from somewhere else and repeated without him thinking about it. He's not racist. Sounds like you handled it well.

He's not knowingly done anything more wrong than anything else he's done wrong without knowing. Obviously the outcome is very different but the severity of the outcome wasn't what he expected or unintended.

Correct him about it in the same way that you'd correct him about anything else.

My feelings ( as a non parent) is that that is quite enough fuss to make over it. If he hasn't got racist attitudes from you he has probably picked up the phrase in the playground

Kids are daft and will repeat any old bollox, I once pronounced as the whole family ran to the car for a day out 'last one to the car's a virgin!'. Might be worth thinking about where he picked it up from, my niece came out with some inappropriate stuff turns out her paternal grandmother (who is a tit) was, inadvertently though idiotically, putting the words in her mouth.

It's kids!! My Mrs wanted the ground to swallow her when my eldest came over and proclaimed "that brown boy had hit him" 😆

He's 7, unless he's wanting a Britain First membership and Mein Kampf for Xmas I wouldn't worry. Kids just repeat things and at times say daft things to get a reaction. Christ I remember some of the horrible shit we used to say in upper juniors. E.g. girls give you aids 😯 WTF?!?

My first thought was that he's repeated something he's heard someone else say, without really thinking what it means. I'd ask him where he's heard it said and explain why it's unacceptable.

I think you over reacted.

How is your son racist?

He lacks the emotional maturity to fully understand his comment, it's impact and long-term affect on the victim.

My son (6) says things as he's learning but also likes to provoke a reaction. Anything negative doesn't get blown out of proportion but talked about.

Don't call your son racist.

When my son was 5 he called me a fuggin d*head. I asked how/what- he said 'well you swear, you called someone a idiot'. He thought idiot (a negative) is the same as actual swearing. Rather than flip and ban pudding I explained to him. Educate 🙂

Kids say what they see, and/or what they know hurts. They haven't learned politics or sensitivity yet, it's up to you to teach them.

I would treat it as an opportunity to talk about the fundamental equality of all of us, and, while letting the punishment stand, draw a line under it afterward.

It is unlikely he is [I]actually[/I] racist; he probably just heard that kind of talk somewhere.

That said, it is important that he never forgets how serious an offence racist talk is, and your concern suggests he never will.

[Related anecdote: I grew up in a multi-cultural environment with a best friend who was black from Barbados. Once, when I was in grade 4 (sic), I called him the 'n-word'. He beat the shit out of me. His words were 'You can call me anything, but don't dare use that word ever again.' I was just trying it on, but it was a lesson I never forgot.]

could've been genuinely just an obvious characteristic (as in "ginger/fat/skinny/short/poor/rich/spotty people are the worst kind")

this is what I am thinking

ginger/fat/skinny/short/poor/rich/spotty people are the worst kind"

Oh leave me alone!!!!!

He said spotty, not scotty.

Oh right fair enough

Bit of a pc over reaction?

Or don't you remember being 7 and saying stupid stuff you didn't even understand? Ask your own parents, they'll soon remind you? (what, you didn't take advice or think it through before flying off the handle?)

Sounds a bit like the op is more horrified what people might think of *them* by proxy, rather than putting the child at the heart of things.

A simple, non patronising and honest open explanation might have not gone amiss. Now your child is going to be too terrified to discuss it, or anything similar in the future due to your extreme over reaction.

Dumb honky!

I think you should phone the police.

FFS Are you Kyle's 'mom' from South Park the Movie?

#blmuk

You can replace the word 'Black' with many other words, kids are cruel and will focus on anything that is different or hurtful. At 7 years old there is no way they understand what they were saying - it was just a heat of the moment thing in an effort to say the most hurtful thing they could in that moment. The black kid on the receiving end wouldn't have understood either, they would have taken it in the same way as if he was ginger haired and had been called 'ginger' or any other word. Kids are not little adults. They are not politicised at that age.

My youngest said a similar thing to me when she was 4, thankfully to me and not the kid. Kids just pick up on differences between people, they are very observant. These are the opportunities a 'decent' parent will take to start the teaching process with their kids.

I blame the parents ... 😆

It's just naivety/stupidity of a SEVEN year old

Don't over-react out of your own humiliation .... (please don't take that as a dig .... id be super embarrassed as well)

Oh .... and he'd have learn nothing.... unless you've sent him to bed with no puddling

😀

I would make him read/watch Roots. 😉

fwiw -I agree with ro5ey and co..

Perhaps in his limited life experience so far, black people really are the worst kind, because of the older boys nastiness. In time, he will come to realise that arseholes come in all different colours.
I'd classify myself as racist in his regard because I'd consider Asians as the worst people to buy/sell a car from. Based on my personal experience rather than any inherent dislike of a particular race.

Maybe sign him up to a far right group so he can see what utter dickheads white people can be.

At 40 odd YO, and as probably the least homophobic bloke / other half combo in our circle i had a serious falling out with a gay mate.
One verbal insult finally got through to me and rung my bell, and yup, out come the "queer" and other tired old insults to the point that another mate took me to one side and said "Stop, this aint you"

So what im getting at is if a liberal minded educated adult can resort to the lowest point scoring to verbally hurt another, why is it so unusual for a nipper?

Go with the above advice, shrug it off as a kids one off outburst and find positive examples rather than negatives

Making it clear why what he's done is bad makes sense. When I was 6 I was made to sit with the only black kid in our class because we didn't get along. No one explained why and I assumed it was out of spite because, irrespective of race, I thought he was a knob, and he thought the same of me. In hindsight I think my teacher thought I was a massive racist, and if that'd been explained to me I'd probably have thought about it differently at the time.

I think you over reacted.

Indeed!

when I was at primary school, exactly the same age, we had a new girl from Bangladesh start in our class. One of the boys decided one day in the playground it would be a good idea to start dancing in circles around her chanting chocolate face, chocolate face. As we heard the chants I remember we were all stood there in astonishment, we were looking across at each other and everyone was thinking this is just weird, we all instinctively knew it was wrong. She began crying loudly and the teacher on duty quickly intervened to pull him away and he was taken indoors for a good talking to. The girls friends rushed over to help. This would have been 1977-78.

OP being a parent is always testing. I would not acuse you of an over-reaction, you took firm action over something that was unacceptable. I would say you should talk through the situation, be supportive of his fristration at the bad treatment but reiterate the colour related reaction is unacceptable. If he takes all this onboard you can roll back the xbox/footie ban after say a week.

Nothing to add to what has been said i don't think he is a racist and i do think that a massive sanction for a first offence is an over reaction , i would have settled for a talk an apology and a loss of one days treats/privileges (less if the unfair treatment point had anything behind it.)

Watch out - I have a nephew who is 19 and is now the "Tory boy" equivalent of UKIP. Constantly going on about Johnny Foreigner.

Fortunately since he is an adult I've told him to shut up as I wasn't interested in hearing his bilge. 🙂

That's 100% uncling for you.

Our school was predominantly afro-carribean/white/Sikh Indian so it was never an issue. My bestmate however went to a school with one Indian boy who they nicknamed 'chocolate face'. He knew no better. No one corrected them and it was only as he progressed in school that a self realisation dawned on him. He's now a better bloke. A bloody good bloke.

7 year olds are the worst

I don't think you've been too hard, and I think coming down hard on this should be an opportunity to explain that this isn't the same as saying "all you blue-eyed folk are the worst", and explain to him that although you could swap "black" for many other words and make a similar point, in the real world people really are, very regularly and very unfairly, discriminated against if they're black, whereas rarely are if they have blue eyes, are left handed or whatever. And that makes it all the more "off-limits" and that the punishment reflects how important this topic really is to you as an individual. If you haven't already, maybe a chat about how everyone has things they don't feel strongly about, some things they do feel quite strongly about but are willing to discuss and some things that are [b]VERY VERY IMPORTANT[/b] to them and on which they'll not budge and inch, and that this is one of them for you.

I'll also agree that since that topic does seem to be very very close to your heart, your kid isn't racist, and will probably turn out to be a good egg.

If the kid gets the above, and is genuinely sincerely sorry, and you feel it's appropriate, you could even discuss if you couldn't shorten the punishment as long as he's got the point.

My kids are still younger than yours, so they're making me doubt everything I do on some much more basic stuff. My time to doubt myself on more complex social issues will come 🙂

Oh .... and he'd have learn nothing.... unless you've sent him to bed with no puddling

...just as long as it wasnt black pudding .....

Surprised at some of the flippant replies. Think I'd be equally concerned. In your position i'd be talking to the school. There might be a schoolyard culture of this sort of thing which they don't know about. When I was that age we just did what ever resident big/hard lad said. If it's something similar it's easy to stop.

Is trying to teach your kids from an early age not to be racist 'pc'? 😯

I don't think you've been too hard, and I think coming down hard on this should be an opportunity to explain that this isn't the same as saying "all you blue-eyed folk are the worst", and explain to him that although you could swap "black" for many other words and make a similar point, in the real world people really are, very regularly and very unfairly, discriminated against if they're black, whereas rarely are if they have blue eyes, are left handed or whatever. And that makes it all the more "off-limits" and that the punishment reflects how important this topic really is to you as an individual. If you haven't already, maybe a chat about how everyone has things they don't feel strongly about, some things they do feel quite strongly about but are willing to discuss and some things that are VERY VERY IMPORTANT to them and on which they'll not budge and inch, and that this is one of them for you.

FFS....he's SEVEN!!!!

FFS....he's SEVEN!!!!

Yeah but, have you met a 7yo these days? Mine quite ably googles anything on the planet using an Apple Mac and sulks at one look of a PC, is learning about Myan history, long division, multi dimensional physics, and is better now at sport than I am today. He also eats more fruit than I do, avoids drugs and alchohol like they don't exist - an altogether advanced human being fwiw.

I don't see why politically correct liberism and social etiquette couldn't be Tuesday nights homework.

FFS....he's SEVEN!!!!

He could have friends with these views, and they are polluting his.

Take this opportunity to show him some of the great black role models there have been in history, so he has other information with which to adjust his views.

Conversely also show him some of the terrible white personalities from history.

Like a personal "Horrible Histories" lesson.

Massive over reaction. He's 7, he's picked this up from someone else. All that was needed was a chat asking why he said that and then an explanation as to why it was wrong. All could have been done with no histrionics and no excessive punishments. Banning from football and beavers for 2 weeks? Please. Oh, and did you really call your son a little bastard?

He has had the xbox taken away and banned from Beavers and football for a fortnight.

Both football and Beavers are very positive activities, especially in the context of learning about and understanding 'other people', and developing important social skills. I don't understand the logic of withdrawing those as a punishment, I think you have over reacted but with good intentions.

I had this but with sexism, and a slightly older boy. I simply explained firmly it was wrong and led by example, repeating the message over the coming weeks and being observant. I commanded enough respect and authority that it didn't need 'punishment'. Not a dig, but something to think about. In my view if punishments are needed for minor attitude adjustments, there are bigger issues.

Massive over reaction. He's 7, he's picked this up from someone else. All that was needed was a chat asking why he said that and then an explanation as to why it was wrong. All could have been done with no histrionics and no excessive punishments. Banning from football and beavers for 2 weeks? Please. Oh, and did you really call your son a little bastard?

Quite! (And.... I'm not known as a tolerant Dad!)

FFS....he's SEVEN

I have no issue with an "excessive punishment"[its not] for a racist outburst but i dont think your son is a racist and I applaud you for taking the right steps to ensure this remains the case.

I expect my children to understand racism is never acceptable and they have understood this from an early age

what is the relevance of this ? are you saying a 7 year old cannot learn or understand ? That only happens with adults on the internet.

Did I say a seven year old cannot learn or understand? Go back to sleep Junky.

Morrissey could pen a song about him?

Has he seen the Simpsons movie?

Maybe you remember the time your (White) three-year-old told his (Black) babysitter that he was glad his skin was “nicer than hers” or the time your five-year-old shouted that the (dark-skinned Latino) man at the end of the grocery aisle had “dirty skin”. At that moment maybe you wanted to shrink away in horror, disown your first-born, and forget the myths of blissful parenthood. What was going on there? How did you perfectly delightful, well-meaning, angel of a child, whom you’d raised to be so polite and socially-appropriate, suddenly take on the shape and sound of a raving racist? If you are like most parents, your child certainly never heard you say something like that.

Or maybe you are one of the parents, like many who enter my laboratory at Yale and like my closest friends and relatives, who explain that your child is definitely not aware of race—in fact, your child is that very product of Dr. King’s vision—able to treat others based on character rather than skin color.

In my experience as a developmental psychologist, White parents tend to fall into these two camps—those who recall in horror embarrassing incidents in which their children made racist comments to strangers or loved ones—and those who are certain their children are colorblind. In reality, our studies suggest neither portrayal is quite right. In fact, children are not blind to race. Instead, like all of us, they notice differences, seeing that some people have darker or lighter skin or curlier or straighter hair than others. What’s more they notice that these features of people’s faces, hair, and bodies seem to mean something because in nearly all towns they predict (to a lesser or greater extent) the neighborhoods people live in, the places they shop, and the cars they drive. White children often learn very quickly, that simple questions or comments about these observations are shut down, stopped, and hushed with incredible velocity. Children become aware that this topic must be important because unlike their other questions, these ones go unanswered and leave their parents with looks of worry.

As evidence, Rebecca Bigler and her colleagues at UT-Austin found that nearly all White mothers in their research study adopted a “colormute”/ “colorblind” approach when discussing a book that was either directly or indirectly about race with their 4-5 year old children; most chose not to discuss race at all. (In case you wonder why I’m focusing on White parents here, previous work has demonstrated that as opposed to White parents, parents of minority children in the U.S., do talk about race and ethnicity quite regularly.)

Now you might be asking yourself—why not avoid talking about race—after all most of us don’t want our children obsessing with the concept. Well there are many reasons, but one of the most persuasive to me has been recent work showing that children often come to their own (sometimes worrying) conclusions about race and if they think they can’t discuss them with us, then these theories do not get checked. After all, children are smart and inquisitive and as such are trying to understand the world around them. As they do so, they often create explanations for why things are the way they are.

Another study by Dr. Bigler demonstrated how children’s logic in trying to understand race can go awry. In a study conducted in 2006 (published in 2008) before Obama was a candidate for president, Bigler and her team asked a group of 5-10 year old children why they thought all 43 presidents to date were White. She offered possible explanations and a whopping 26% of children endorsed the statement that Blacks could not be president because it was presently (in 2006) illegal! It’s doubtful anyone taught their children that it was illegal in 2006 for a Black person to be president, however children, reasonably I might add, searched the world for a possible reason why this would happen. How could 43 presidents in a row all be from the same racial background?! Certainly illegality would explain such a disparity. Thus not talking about race with your kids can result in surprisingly problematic views about race. (For surprising kid logic in domains outside of race, check out my favorite episode of This American Life).

What’s more, decades of research suggests that even if parents are not talking about race, children are noticing it, so avoidance will not make it go away. By 3 or 4 years of age, White children in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe show preferences for other White children. For example, while parents of children in the storybook study above predicted that their children would show no race bias, the children did on average tend to favorite Whites to Blacks. Results like these demonstrate that those very same White children whose parents insist their children do not see race, walk into research labs across the world and, when presented with a line-up of possible friends, are quick to select the White ones rather than the Black, Asian, Hispanic, or Indigenous ones.

So how do we get our kids to be non-racist if avoiding talking about it is not the solution? Well one thing’s for sure—your kids pay attention to who is around them and who you spend your time with. Bigler’s storybook study mentioned above finds that the 4-5 year old children of parents who have more diverse friends show less racial bias than the children of parents who have less diverse friends. What is more, a study done by Bar-Haim and colleagues in 2006, showed that growing up in a multi-racial environment versus a mono-racial one produced differences in race-based responding in children only 3-months of age! This and other work suggests that one clear thing parents can do is to not just talk about race and challenge children’s assumptions, but model through their own behavior, the importance of interracial interactions and relationships.

- Psychology Today

In other words, want your child to be less racist OP? Have more black friends, you subconciously racist bastard lol.

We don't tell our kids off unless they knowingly do something bad. If a kid has no idea what he's done then there's no point in all those sanctions. You're just going to make him miserable.

You have to explain why it's wrong and what it means to say those things. THEN if he still does it knowingly, you take steps.

Exactly. I also stand by my opinion that the punishment is massively over the top.

Maybe sign him up to a far right group so he can see what utter dickheads white people can be.

Do UKIP allow such young members?

TomW1987 - very interesting article.
fwiw my 4/yo little boys best friend has different colour skin to him.
It's been fascinating listening to them, talking to each other,about their differences.They seem happy that people are different.
He still calls her "stinky" though. 🙂

Reading this thread makes me appreciate I've got all this within the four walls of our house, so it's easy for our kids to appreciate "differences".

I've had to discuss my son referring to his friend as the "fat one". It wasn't done maliciously, so I just politely educated him that some times people get upset about you referring to them in a way that's different to others, "fat" being one of them. You have top be careful, otherwise how do you start to describe a person if you've removed all ability for a child to use any of the obvious descriptors? So imagine if they can't talk about size, colour, height, gender, hair colour - and then ask them - " so who is Matthew then?" It falls to common sense for the parents and education for the kids IMO.

My 8 year old got in trouble at school for calling another kid 'fat'

Yet when I complained when a kid called him 'gay'; I was over-reacting as they are 'just kids'

Schools are so wrapped up in singling out why people look different, they give not a toss if someone is singled out for any other reason.

Superficial and shortsighted

All schools, or just that particular one Scott?

Maybe sign him up to a far right group so he can see what utter dickheads white people can be.

I don't think being a dick is limited to white people!