How do you explain Race?

Not long ago, we took DD and DS to the local park which is always full of children.

Where I live in Australia there is a huge amount of new immigrants from Africa... anyway, DS was on a see-saw and this little Kenyan girl got on the other end to ride with him and he said at the top of his voice "Look at her, she's got chocolate all over her" :oops: :oops: I was so embarassed I didn't know what to say, but seeing the little girl appeared not to hear him, I decided to discuss the issue later.

And then DD has made comments about "that man has a dirty face" (when he's actually black)

So how do you all explain race to your kids? Mine were not being racist, they are too little to be racist - they are just curious.

DH and I - when DD made another comment about "the man with a scary black face" on TV - just launched into a lesson about how God made all kinds of colours of people and different people and there is nothing wrong with being different or different colours. Everyone is special etc.

Now DD has stopped commenting about other races so much but she tells me "I have yellow skin" and I will just say "Yes, it looks yellow, but people call it white, God makes all different colours of people"

We also have a globe which we use to tell the kids about other countries

DD was a little disappointed that there are no pink people however ROTF.

[pa_wife]

I think you are doing a great job of explaining already. I think every child goes thru a phase of calling other races different names, not derogatory names, just something they can relate to, i.e. "chocolate."
Oh, tell your dd that there are "pink" people, I am often pink after a day in the sun! [weathersun] [angelpink]

[luvmy4sons]

You did a great job explaining it. Another way is to show her puppies and kittens. They come in all kinds of colors, but they are all cats and dogs. People too. We come in all kinds of colors but we are all people! :D

[justmeNmine]

When I talk with children about race, we talk about skin color as a physical characteristic, such as hair color, eye color, etc. We have a book about the human body that also talks about melanin and pigmentation... I think it is important to teach children (as you said) that God made everybody different on the outside, but that we are all the same on the inside :)

[mamaroo]

You could also take your children to the library and pick out a picture book that shows all kinds of different children and adults. I recently took my daughter to a childrens museum that had an incredible exhibit on Japanese children. It had a mock school room and even replicas of their bedrooms. Maybe there's a museum or exhibit near you in Australia.

[imported_rachel]

I grew up in an all white community that had it's racist undercurrents--- but I didn't know about the ignorant side of town until I was much older.

After moving, I visited some friends and the newest member of the bunch was an African American boy. It wasn't easy for him in that town. (Especially with all of us instantly having a crush on him.) Another classmate from that town dated "out of her race" in HS and was shunned for it. Hearing about all of that just made me ashamed to have ever lived there. And I wondered why I hadn't seen it before.

My parents must have done something right. Our church, outside of that small town, wasn't all white. I was friends with a girl who had an adopted Latino brother. More than that perhaps, AmyB set me up on playdates with an African American girl, via the Big Sister program. While my folks kept me from hate-thinking, my sister made sure to take it a step beyond. Maybe you'll run into opportunities like that.

[7thHeaven]

I'm glad that you are teaching them about how God makes everyone different and I think the way your doing it is great! :wink:

I worry about how Sam will see herself when she's older because she's bi-racial and some people around here, black and white the same, teach their children to dislike the other races, which is also the reason why I want to homeschool her.

She's too young to ask that, but when she does, I'll use your method! :wink:

[cjropher]

When I was a preschooler, my mother sometimes would substitute teach at a native school. One time, they were having what they called pow wow days and I got to go. I had been there before and hadn't been concerned but when I went to my mom's classroom for something, I came running back to they gym, the only little blond girl there, and very loudly told her, "Mom, there's Indians in your room!!!" I didn't see a difference in them until they started putting their costumes on! It's funny now, but my mom was really embarrassed!

I was in elemetary the first time I remember seeing someone who was black. I saw this woman in church and I thought she must have dyed her skin because of course, her hands weren't dark! I asked my mom after church, "Mom, did you see that lady, she coloured herself all black except for her hands." At least I told her about it later that time. Though I'm sure my parents had a good laugh about that one. Mom explained to me that people have different colours and likely sang Jesus Loves all the little Children. My ds loves that song though would like to see green people!

It's not different than when your kids see someone with a handicap and are very vocal about that. "Mom, what happened to that guys legs???" The comments that you kids made don't sound bad at all. The little girl, if she heard would wonder who had chocolate all over her face, and adults would realize that he's just being observant. We look different and they want to knw why. I would tell them just like everyone else that that's the colour of skin that God gave them and leave it at that.

[ChamomileFriend]

I'm glad that you are teaching them about how God makes everyone different and I think the way your doing it is great! :wink:

I worry about how Sam will see herself when she's older because she's bi-racial and some people around here, black and white the same, teach their children to dislike the other races, which is also the reason why I want to homeschool her.

She's too young to ask that, but when she does, I'll use your method! :wink:

My son is mixed also and I do worry about that for when he is school-aged. We live in a pretty diverse area, but I don't want my son to feel like he has to "choose" one race over another when he develops his identity as people tend to self-segregate- I want him to know he can be friends with anyone and also personally identify as more than one race/ethnicity.

We make sure that his toys (like his Fisher Price Little People train set) have people of all different colors and races and try to find books that show people of different colors also so that he will be comfortable in his own skin and with others who are darker or lighter than him.

I have always lived in neighbourhoods with lots of different races so it probably did help me not to be so narrow minded as my Mum is a racist - so I was immerced in her negative comments about other people from a young age.

No way I am going to teach my kids stuff like that!

[ChamomileFriend]

This thread made me keep an eye out for toys geared toward racial harmony/education for young children, this game looks good and it won an Oppenheimer award - it is like the memory game but multicultural:

http://estore.websitepros.com/DollsLikeMe/Detail.bok?no=284

Do they have a lot of TV programmes in the US geared for kids which depict all races? They do in Australia... particularly playschool where they have "dolls" on the show which are characters and they are all races, I think it's really clever myself. They don't make a big deal out of it, the characters are just portrayed as "people" which is great.

I think you're doing a great job.

I was raised by a father from the deep south, but I rebelled :wink: ...I was in a pretty rough school and generally seeked protection from who ever was the biggest :lol: I do recall bringing one of my friends home and having my parents make her feel so uncomfortable that she called her mommy...and we were in the 6th grade :shock: It was then that everybody found out how poor we were and rumors started flying that my brother and sister were really my parents :roll:

What really burned me was the 1mo that my daughter went to my old school, I realized that there were certain children (probably my old friends' kids) that she wouldn't go near..I didn't teach her this and I know my husband wasn't in the picture at that time..

I tried to ignore it and encourage her to get to know everyone...I just couldn't figure out why she was so stand-offish and down right RUDE to the other children...Then she confessed to me that her granny had ordered her to stay away "from the brown kids"..

I was furious and felt like my years of teaching her had all gone down the drain..I never could quite get that thinking out of her head..One of the reasons I pulled her from school, quit looking for a job, and started all over again....Now we're back to seeing beauty and people, not colors..

Now if I could just get her to quit pointing out when people carry extra weight or smell kinda not so nice :oops:

[mommyto3]

my huband is a supervisor for a very large nursery in our area. every year he has off shore workers. his all come from mexico. my children have been around them since the day that they were born. my 6 year old, from when she was 1 to almost 2, was more comfortable around them then she was anywhere else. she calls them all her friends. they have been teaching her spanish words and every month or so, make mexican food and we go over and enjoy it. when she started jk her class was very small only 8 kids and 3 of them were africian american, and 1 was from china. i remember her teacher telling us at her interview that she want to tell the class something during school. and she told the class the this girl was her new friend and that she had very nice dark skin, beautiful brown eyes and a very nice smile. we have always told our children that everyone is the same on the inside and that we all have feelings, and that our outside might look different from everyone else and that God made us all special.

once we were at a small children's amusement park and there was a man who was missing his leg, in the line in front of us. my daughter Kwynn asked him what happened to his leg, he told her that God needed to take his leg back to heaven. she smiled at him and said, God probably gave your leg to a baby who needed it more than you. and he just smiled and told her that she was probably right. kids !!!!

[Rach]

we have friends and family that are all races, and we live in a metro area, so it's never been an issue here.

Aiden brought home a firefighter picture he colored in school like the first month of Kindergarten, and the fireman was black (colored with a good choice of brown crayon). I was just so proud. He simply thinks of people as people.

Neither of my parents have ever said anything racist and always taught us to judge people by their attitude and character/personality not their race.
We don't live in a very good area so we have a lot of issues with our neighbours and we are 1 of only 3 families in the street that are white. So it has been very hard to not discriminate. I try my hardest to remember that it's just the area we live in. It's hard though because we've been threatened by them (that they would get the Black power gang to come over and beat us up) and even been hit on the arm once when we got involved when one of our neighbours dogs was attacking another dog and they were just standing there watching. Paul didn't think and he went over and told them to stop the dog from attacking this other dog or he would phone Animal Control. So they got mad at us for sticking our noses into their business and hit Paul and me on the arm.
We had our garden shed set on fire :shock: Our letterbox has been tagged. And we've been broken into once.... which is amazing since I thought it would be something that would happen a lot. But we have taken all the security measures to make it as difficult as we can for them to break in. We've had stuff stolen from outside... clothes on the line etc... And we get people turn up at our door asking for so and so. And then one time someone came by asking if we were "selling" :shock:
And some kids threw eggs at our house. :x
Oh and we had some kids take one of our rabbits and torture it and kill it.
It's been pretty quiet here over the last year or so... *TOUCH WOOD* Maybe the bad neighbours are slowly moving on...
If we could just get rid of the ones in front of us and the ones on the left hand side... but then we will most probably get new neighbours just as bad. I can't wait until we can move to a better area. :wink:

I forgot to say that I think you are handling the questions perfectly. :D

[crys]

You were totally right. Kids are observant and yours didn't mean any harm. I love that we serve a very creative Creator!

I'm half Japanese and half English, so grew up feeling awkward. If only someone had praised God for His handiwork instead of showing dispair over my skin colour or eyes! I would have understood that, I'm sure.

I grew up "back in the day" though, and people were amazed that I wasn't missing limbs or mentally diminished because of the racial blending. Things are improving overall.

How to explain to our kids about racist feelings they might encounter? That is the hard part, especially when it pops up in our churches.

Mommyto3 that story about the man who lost his leg was so heart warming awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

You did a great job explaining it. Another way is to show her puppies and kittens. They come in all kinds of colors, but they are all cats and dogs. People too. We come in all kinds of colors but we are all people! :D

We did it the exact same way! God made us all the same, just different colors like the puppies and kittens. Aaron was really able to relate to it that way.