Parents must be mindful when speaking about diversity

A FRIEND’S five-year-old returns from school, saying she played with a girl who was black and had beads in her hair.

“Wow! That’s really interesting,” responds her mum. “Tell me more. What colour do you think she’d describe you as — beige?”

How parents treat difference will be the starting point for how children interact with those who are ‘different’, says family mediator Fiona McAuslan, who suggests being mindful of the language we use. “We talk about people being different from us, as if we’re the blueprint, rather than being different from each other, with no blueprint,” she says.

What’s the best way to respond if your child comes home and says, ‘There’s a really fat kid in my class’? How do you take the opportunity (and run with it) to teach your child something valuable about interacting with difference? Ask the child to tell you other things about his classmate, suggests McAuslan.

“What’s her name? Jenny? Is Jenny the same age as you? What games does she like to play? By responding like this, Jenny becomes a person who’s overweight rather than ‘the fat kid’. You’re showing we’re all more than just one thing.”

If your child’s group of friends are focusing on a perceived difference, you need to help him think about what’s going on, advises McAuslan. “Ensure your child knows they can talk to you, that they can keep talking to you. Ask: ‘Why are they being like they are? What are they afraid of?’”

Work out with child how the right thing can be done. This could be standing up for the targeted childPerhaps a parent or teacher needs to intervene. “Someone needs to intervene if there’s a mob thing going on. It’s hard for one child to stand up against a whole lot of others. The parent could say to the teacher: ‘this is what I’m observing. I’m asking you as teacher to keep an eye on this and to figure out what to do’.”

McAuslan believes that, as a nation, we don’t have many generations of living with diversity so we’re still learning. We need to expand our children’s cultural awareness of difference — have black dolls, as well as white, and read them stories (or make them up) where the heroes are kids with glasses or children who have a disability.