When children I work with make racist comments, this is how I respond

‘He’s more involved in the violence and disorder than any other defendant I’ve seen coming through these courts, adult or child.’

These comments – from a judge prosecuting a boy of just 12 for his part in the recent unrest in Manchester, after the horrific murders of three little girls in Southport – have shocked many, as has the involvement of other children and young people.

Sadly, as a Black psychotherapist working with children and young people in NHS services in London, I am not surprised that children were among those involved. 

That’s because far-right sentiments and racism don’t suddenly appear in adulthood. It often begins in adolescence when individuals are most vulnerable to radicalisation.

I regularly engage with young people from diverse backgrounds, where issues of identity and other sensitive topics frequently arise in our sessions. 

Sometimes I bear witness to their painful experiences of racist, homophobic, ableist, or xenophobic bullying. Other times, that prejudice and bigotry is directed at me. 

I recall working with an adolescent boy who expressed deep fear and resentment about travelling around his neighbourhood, which had a significant Black population. 

His comments escalated from a vague complaint about ‘roadmen’ to making explicitly racist remarks about ‘Blacks.’ 

He was careful to clarify that he wasn’t referring to ‘good Black people like me’ – as if that excused him subjecting me to denigrating and hateful diatribes about a group I belong to. 

Over time, and with good supervision and sustained reflection, I resisted the urge to condemn him or to be blinded by my outrage. All while making it clear that I was not a punchbag and that his words and actions had an impact. 

I said to him at the time: ‘You’re trying to reassure me that you think I’m a good Black person, while also trying to provoke me to react in a hostile way so that I can confirm your stereotypes.’

Eventually, we were also able to uncover that beneath his hostility and provocations were feelings of shame, vulnerability and helplessness.

In every case like this that I deal with, I’m always careful about how I react and I try to focus on the meaning behind the behaviour for each individual child. It is almost always the case that underlying the hateful beliefs are a range of emotions linked to ordinary fears about growing up.

If, as a society, our only response to young people’s extreme views or actions is a moral panic and punitive measures, we risk missing some of the underlying concerns that my conversations with them uncover – ordinary worries about adolescence and navigating an increasingly uncertain future, which can lead to violence and hatred, if unaddressed.

Over time, as children and young people develop trust, they are able to explore sensitive topics. 

And when they say troubling things on these topics, they do not merely reflect the state of society; they remind me that the potential for cruelty in adolescents is not unique to our era but is part of the broader human condition.

I explore both the child’s perspective and my emotional responses, which might include feelings of anger, disgust or shame

When addressing issues like misogyny, racism, antisemitism, and other forms of hate speech in therapy, child psychotherapists approach these conversations with curiosity. Even though we’re human too and we can get angry or upset, we try to think about the meaning of this anger in relation to the patient. 

But when a child expresses offensive views, or frightening ideas, I still have to resist the urge to react defensively or shut down the discussion. Or even jump to conclusions, which would be almost everyone’s instinct. 

Instead, I explore both the child’s perspective and my emotional responses, which might include feelings of anger, disgust or shame. 

Adolescence is a time of striving for independence and crafting a unique identity. Exploring the fringes of social norms, including transgressive behaviour in areas like sexuality and politics, is often part of this process.

With adolescence increasingly lived online, the quest for identity and peer group affiliation, a key feature of this formative stage of life, is complicated by the polarising nature of social media. 

This environment can trap teens in echo chambers, exposing them to increasingly extreme content. The far-right exploits this, offering boys and young men simplistic explanations and a sense of belonging in response to their teenage angst.

The manosphere or misogynist influencers like Andrew Tate often come up in the sessions I have with children.

Although it is concerning that boys are exposed to this material, I don’t think that this necessarily means that they will continue to have these views in adulthood.

In adolescence, there is a process of individuation, where boys can try and emulate ‘extreme’ versions of what they consider to be masculine. This can help them establish an identity that is separate from girls.

Child and adolescent psychotherapist Maria Papadima wrote in a recent blog that the label ‘toxic masculinity’ can be unhelpful when reflecting on these issues. It can lead to a polarity where the psychological dimension of boys and young mens’ expressions of masculinity can be easily dismissed.

This doesn’t mean we should excuse violent or hateful behaviour, nor that it should go unpunished or unchallenged. But we must be robust enough to, in some environments, tolerate a certain level of extreme behaviour or language as part and parcel of adolescence – while protecting these young people from causing irreversible harm to themselves and others.

Responding in an overly punitive way or with condemnation – including treating children as adults in the justice system – may be tempting, or feel natural.

But in my view, it could have the opposite of the intended effect, pushing adolescents further into the arms of far-right or extremist demagogues who offer quick, easy solutions to the problems of navigating adolescence.

And if there is one thing I’ve learnt in this line of work, there is no such thing as an easy solution to existence.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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