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Dear Care and Feeding,
My 5-year-old son, who is (like me) white, won’t stop saying the N-word. He seems to have picked it up at school from one of his Black friends. We’ve taken the usual steps, explained that this is a bad word, put him in time-out, and taken away toys and devices, but he continues to say it. We’ve never spanked our kids, but I think this warrants it. My wife disagrees. I don’t see any other options. I don’t want to spank him without my wife’s approval, but I think she is out of line here. Am I crazy?
—Don’t Want to be the Father of a Racist
Dear Don’t,
Spanking your child will not teach him not to be racist. It will teach him that physical force is the appropriate way to make yourself clear when you’re not getting through to someone any other way—it will normalize hitting. It will not change the behavior you object to, and because kids who are spanked tend to become more defiant, I can promise you that it will do more harm than good.
“The usual steps” have been of no use because none of them have addressed the issue head-on. Any sort of punishment—taking away toys or privileges, time-outs, yelling at him—will not make it clear why he should never use the word. It will only make it clear that you disapprove (a lot) of his using it. And if your hope—your assumption—is that your disapproval should be sufficient reason for him to quit it (the “because I say so” method of parenting), you are in for a long, rough stretch. Ultimately, it’ll lead to a less-than-healthy, less rewarding, and less loving relationship with your son as he grows up.
Let me add that telling your young child that the N-word is a “bad word” is meaninglessly authoritative—it’s no wonder that this strategy hasn’t worked either. Tell him why he shouldn’t use the word. Tell him that it has been used throughout history to demean, humiliate, and degrade Black people, and that even if he thinks he is using it without malevolence, any invocation of the word is an act of violence and racism. If he protests—as he likely will—that his Black friends say it, you can talk to him in an age-appropriate way about why his saying it is different from his friends who are Black saying it (in other words, this is not a conversation about reclaiming a word and taking the sting out of it—which I think would go over the head of most 5-year-olds). You might just say that it’s one thing to say something about yourself, it’s another to say it about someone else (a gross oversimplification, to be sure—and it doesn’t account for the many Black people who consider the word too repulsive to be used by anyone, ever—but it’s a place to start with a child this young).
PBS ran an interesting story on the N-word as “the atomic bomb” of racial slurs that’s worth listening to, or reading the transcript of, as you educate yourself. And I think educating yourself would be helpful here, as you take this moment as an opportunity to educate your child. (Which is always a better idea than hitting him.)
Link
My 5-year-old son, who is (like me) white, won’t stop saying the N-word. He seems to have picked it up at school from one of his Black friends. We’ve taken the usual steps, explained that this is a bad word, put him in time-out, and taken away toys and devices, but he continues to say it. We’ve never spanked our kids, but I think this warrants it. My wife disagrees. I don’t see any other options. I don’t want to spank him without my wife’s approval, but I think she is out of line here. Am I crazy?
—Don’t Want to be the Father of a Racist
Dear Don’t,
Spanking your child will not teach him not to be racist. It will teach him that physical force is the appropriate way to make yourself clear when you’re not getting through to someone any other way—it will normalize hitting. It will not change the behavior you object to, and because kids who are spanked tend to become more defiant, I can promise you that it will do more harm than good.
“The usual steps” have been of no use because none of them have addressed the issue head-on. Any sort of punishment—taking away toys or privileges, time-outs, yelling at him—will not make it clear why he should never use the word. It will only make it clear that you disapprove (a lot) of his using it. And if your hope—your assumption—is that your disapproval should be sufficient reason for him to quit it (the “because I say so” method of parenting), you are in for a long, rough stretch. Ultimately, it’ll lead to a less-than-healthy, less rewarding, and less loving relationship with your son as he grows up.
Let me add that telling your young child that the N-word is a “bad word” is meaninglessly authoritative—it’s no wonder that this strategy hasn’t worked either. Tell him why he shouldn’t use the word. Tell him that it has been used throughout history to demean, humiliate, and degrade Black people, and that even if he thinks he is using it without malevolence, any invocation of the word is an act of violence and racism. If he protests—as he likely will—that his Black friends say it, you can talk to him in an age-appropriate way about why his saying it is different from his friends who are Black saying it (in other words, this is not a conversation about reclaiming a word and taking the sting out of it—which I think would go over the head of most 5-year-olds). You might just say that it’s one thing to say something about yourself, it’s another to say it about someone else (a gross oversimplification, to be sure—and it doesn’t account for the many Black people who consider the word too repulsive to be used by anyone, ever—but it’s a place to start with a child this young).
PBS ran an interesting story on the N-word as “the atomic bomb” of racial slurs that’s worth listening to, or reading the transcript of, as you educate yourself. And I think educating yourself would be helpful here, as you take this moment as an opportunity to educate your child. (Which is always a better idea than hitting him.)
Link
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As for what he should do - well, first of all, it's not too early to start talking to your child about race and racism in America.
But moving past that - the columnist touched on this, but I'll say it again: there's more to parenting than punishment. For one thing, punishment has diminishing returns, to the point of negative returns if you go overboard. And while I agree that racial slurs are the sort of thing it's hard to go overboard on, the context here is that the child is five and, I'm guessing, is not really saying this with any particular animosity if LW suspects he learned the word from Black friends.
So the thing to do is to treat this like any other bad word - a straightforward and consistent response with all your emotions taken out of the picture. Yes, decent people have emotions when we hear our kids using those words - but they're not helpful here.
A time-out every time is what's called for, and without the feelings. If your kid is trying to get a rise out of you, don't give it to them! Just a reminder that "This is a mean word, and I don't want to hear it" and the kid gets 5 minutes of time-out. If it repeats during the same playdate or the same visit to the playground or whatever, then the second time is a quick trip home, again, with no serious emotions attached... except for a reminder that of course you'll always leave the playground (or whatever) if the kid simply asks, there's no need to get in trouble too.
Do not let your kid push your buttons, and do not fall for the trap of thinking that if some punishment is good, more punishment is better, a particularly stupid trap if some punishment has yet to show any results. It doesn't work that way. You want the right amount of consequences for the right results.
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Well said
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than they will out of punishment.
My mother once violently washed my mouth out with soap for saying "bloody" and it had the effect that I now swear far more than I otherwise might - and you can prise my swearwords from my cold dead hands.
Punishment can = digging heels in and doing MORE of the thing.
I would hate to see the kid become entrenched in saying the N word because he was punished :(
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But that advice is unlikely to go over well in this context, and honestly, since there *is* no appropriate use for a white person to use a slur that does not apply to them, I don't think it's overkill to stick with an age-appropriate and consistent consequence. And that's pretty much time-outs.
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