In the Caribbean, children make sense of skin colour in the world around them through playground games like Brown Girl in the Ring. This is not surprising. Researchers say that a normal part of children's development is associating colour with people, and it doesn't mean that children are developing into racists.Research shows that preschoolers are too young to understand the social meaning of race the way adults do, but they do notice physical differences.
At the age of four they might assign colour to people, but they don't have a concept of prejudice.They will often compare their skin colour to others' in an attempt to understand their relationship to others.They are describing people as they would describe anything else in their world, and they're using an indicator that is important to them: colour. Preschoolers have no concept of race.
What is most interesting is how adults react to children when they associate colour with people.In a 2006 study, doctoral student Brigitte Vittrup decided to test these reactions at the Children's Research Lab at the University of Texas. She tested children and their parents with a Racial Attitude Measure.
After showing children educational videos that deal with race, she gave parents a checklist for them to talk about points in the video. She suggested starting with a conversation about interracial friendship.Some parents got a checklist of topics but no video. The parents were supposed to bring up racial equality on their own.
Five families immediately withdrew from the study. Their reason: they did not want to talk about colour with their children. When questioned, Vittrup said the parents wanted their children to grow up without a sense of colour associated with people.White parents were most uncomfortable speaking about colour and ethnicity, but the white children in this study, who ranged from five to seven, were gathering information about race from the world around them, and using it in their conversations.
In Why White Parents Don't Talk about Race, a chapter in Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, the authors say parents don't want their children to feel intimidated by race and so the topic often remains taboo among parents.Children, however, lack the social skills to integrate their perceptions in a meaningful way."The question is, do we make it worse or do we make it better by calling attention to race?" the authors ask.
This is the fear that most parents have–especially parents of pre-school children.An article in the Journal of Marriage and Family says, "For decades we assumed that children will only see race when society points it out to them.However, child development researchers...argue that children see racial differences as much as they see the difference between pink and blue."
Make no mistake about it, these issues apply to T&T as well.Twenty years ago, when I wrote an article about children's concept of race and colour I received an unbelievable number of complaints from parents who claimed I was advocating racism by even writing such an article.Here, we take racial diversity for granted and generally skip discussions or questions about colour, race and ethnicity. Children absorb their parents' and friends' attitudes and prejudices towards ethnic groups as they grow.
In all the articles I have read, educators and psychologists offer similar advice:
1. Talk about differences in people if children bring up the topic, but avoid placing too much emphasis on race. Preschoolers are too young to process the concept of race, but they will bring up colour. Let the topic come up naturally and keep the conversation at your child's level.
2. Experts say the ultimate message should be that ethnicity is part of a person. Treat everyone equally and fairly. No colour is better than another.
3. When preschoolers bring up colour, parents should find out the context in which they're bringing it up and have discussions that settle the questions in their minds.
4. When children, particularly preschoolers, talk about skin colour, don't panic and make a fuss. Whatever the context, remember they are not yet attaching emotional or social meaning to skin colour.
Today, you can find many books and articles about discussing race, ethnicity and colour with your children.The experts agree: embarrassment or silence gives your child the impression that the topic is off-limits, or that a bigoted remark they hear (and you don't know about) is accurate and acceptable.
Here are some resources to check out:
Child Perspective; Real Parenting Solutions by Emily Geizer Talking to kids about Skin Colour
www.childperspective.com/mindful-parenting/should-we-talk-to-kids-about-skin-color/
Baby Center, approved by the Australia Medical Advisory Board, a step-by-step approach on how to address age-appropriate discussions about race with preschoolers www.babycenter.com.au/a1021924/how-to-talk-to-your-child-about-race#ixzz2OeGwLKUl
Children's Developmental Understanding of Ethnicity and Race by Stephen M Quintana, Applied and Preventive Psychology University of Wisconsin, 1998 global.wisc.edu/multiracial/docs/quintana1998.pdf
Books:
The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism by Van Debra Ausdale
Nurture Shock: New Thinking about Children: Why White Parents Don't Talk about Race by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman