teach son about his background?

sweetsheep84

FBaby wrote: »

whereas I understand you asking advice on how to deal with this issue, especially in regards to discussing it with your son so he can provide a response he is proud of, I don't understand your title at all. How does this account to bullying? A curious 4 year old actually asked your son directly (rather than making comments behind his back), surely that's the exact opposite of bullying? What did you expect the child to do? Not mention his skin colour at all? Why? If a child in the class had an accent, would you consider it rude for your child asking him why he has an accent and where it is from?

Me and OH have always taught him about his background since he was little. Always tell him to be proud of who he is. I have not seen him this upset about not wanting to go to school. I did notice there are other ethnic backgrounds in his class so I got bit worried with his reactions towards this situation.

sweetsheep84

nixe wrote: »

just say hes lucky georgous etc as he has 2 colours in him i agree
with majisola
could you have a word the teacher and get her to explain it with him helping her.
my son came home from school saying he is being bullied.
he said they keep kicking the ball at him.
next day i marched to the school demanding to know why and who are these childrens mothers i wanted action.
she goes where/ are you xxx when they kick the ball at you?
he says he is goal.
face went blood red and i made my way out the class room
just wishing the floor would swallow me up.

:rotfl:that is why I do not want to go marching in asking all questions

nixe

sweetsheep84 wrote: »

:rotfl:that is why I do not want to go marching in asking all questions

haha i certainly learnt a lesson that day

pigpen

Could you not speak to the teacher and they do a 'lesson' where they talk about people and their skin/hair/eye colour?

Our school has 20% population from other countries, there is a lovely atlas in the office with pins in the places the children are from so for us different skin colour is rarely mentioned. In foundation (nursery-yr1) they have the occasional input about such things, they have done graphs showing how many children have a certain hair colour or eye colour or skin colour.. they did shoes and all sorts of other stuff too, they measured each other to see who was tallest/heaviest etc.

Why is this not something he already knows about? I would be proudly telling mine how Great-grandad and great grandma travelled from wherever to here (I do infact but our familes were from Ireland and Sweden so no obvious difference to each other besides my lot had flaming orange hair and his didn't, and OH's family from Holland) and their story leading you to yourself and partner and your children.

We all have a desire to know where we come from your sons story just sounds a lot more interesting than most!

I would say this is not bullying just the blunt childish way children find out about their world, being new your son is a topic for discussion and if they have not seen his dad they might wonder why he is different to you.. these are just things mine have come up with over the years.. DS1 when about 5 or 6 said his parents were snowmen when his 2 friends asked why he was not brown like them.. possibly not the most accurate answer lol. I am not a snowman, honest!

Poppy9

sweetsheep84 wrote: »

Me and OH have always taught him about his background since he was little. Always tell him to be proud of who he is. I have not seen him this upset about not wanting to go to school. I did notice there are other ethnic backgrounds in his class so I got bit worried with his reactions towards this situation.

I am wondering if you are actually making your son feel different in the way you are telling him about his ancestry and he doesn't want to feel different.

i.e. I have a French friend and her DD refuses to speak French and used to get upset and ask her to stop talking funny! She is 15 now and still will not speak French.

Children are great in that they just ask what they want to know. i remember when DD was reception age and one of her classmates asking her why she had no front teeth. We were in supermarket checkout and his mother was mortified but DD wasn't bothered and just told him she had knocked them out and new ones wouldn't grow till she was 7!

tibawo

Having mixed race girls I have had no issues at school, elder one is only girl in our town to have dreadlocks. They both are curious and with their dad not around I have always explained things clearly. I cannot really grasp why it is an issue now, where has he been these last four years?
Sorry to be blunt but I'd even had the why is my sister a darker shade of brown than me then if we come from the same daddy by the time she started school.

Gazing_On_Sunsets

My cousin is mixed race, and I clearly remember as a kid, asking him why he was that colour. Because if dad was black and mum was white, I said he should be stripey like a zebra. So we both went downstairs and asked all the adults why he wasn't stripey.

After everyone had finished roaring with laughter, we were told that it was more like paint. Mixing the brown paint with the cream paint made a mid-brown, and that was why he was like that. Being kids, we were both perfectly satisfied with that.

So, you said in the first post he didn't know how to answer - how about an answer like that? It's clear and easy to understand. Might work.

balletshoes

Poppy9 wrote: »

I am wondering if you are actually making your son feel different in the way you are telling him about his ancestry and he doesn't want to feel different.

i.e. I have a French friend and her DD refuses to speak French and used to get upset and ask her to stop talking funny! She is 15 now and still will not speak French.

OP if you've always made your son aware of where you and his dad come from, and that he is a mix of you both, it might just be that he doesn't want to be different to the majority of his classmates, and it might just be as simple as that.

My DD went through something similar when she started school. In nursery she was proud of being different, when the class did a taster in other languages she was happy that they did "her" language and she could help teach the other children.

But in primary school, even though there were lots of kids in her class who weren't stereotypical white English, she didn't want to be different from the majority. So she didn't call attention to her differences, and made an effort to blend in more (ie talk like the other kids etc).

She is 11 now, fine about her hereditary mix, and feels like she fits in, as she's realised there are probably more kids than not of her acquaintance who are a "mix" of some kind or other.

sweetsheep84

pigpen: thank you. Me and OH have always told him what his background is. I am sure he knows because he can actually answer that question when an adult asks him but will defo have a word with the teacher.

Poppy9: point taken. Will look at it in another way. Thank you.

tibaow: I am still with his dad. We both tell him where we are from (eg showing pictures of where we grew up, culture, etc). It is just not nice seeing my child being so upset about going to school and so not wanting to talk about this.

Gazing On Sunets: that made me laugh. I will try think of something hilarious for him. Thank you.

sweetsheep84

balletshoes wrote: »

OP if you've always made your son aware of where you and his dad come from, and that he is a mix of you both, it might just be that he doesn't want to be different to the majority of his classmates, and it might just be as simple as that.QUOTE]

Maybe. Just not nice seeing him so upset about school.