What happened to compassion ??

[Sachs]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20090223/tuk-one-ar med-cbeebies-host-scaring-chil-45dbed5.html

[pastafreak]

Thiss has got to be one off the worst examples of narrow-minded bias I have ever seen.The way to overcome fear is to be exposed to it...not to bury either yours or your childrens heads in the sand,hoping the scarey thing will go away.
If the BBC has to 'climb down' and move this young woman into a more 'appropriate' slot-then that will be madness. Little ones will always be scared of things that are new to them......tho as we know-most of those things are not harmful at all...To remove whatever it is in a misguided attempt to 'protect' them is doing them more harm than good.

[sqad617]

stoke.....to be honest it doesn't make me feel unsettled now, and in fact he talks to me about it and I realise how much HE is embarrased about it.

Annie, I see wher you are coming from but believe me a brown face does not equate to a deformed arm, as brown faces are now the rule, in fact children will soon be scared if they see a white face.

[obNOXious]

Exactly squad ' a brown face is now the norm' ...sooooo....if you're kids are exposed to people with physical disfigurements and disabilities they too ' become the norm' and the kids fail to even notice them. My ex wife had a friend who was quadroplegic ( think Steven Hawking style of disability and you have the way this man looks) and my kids grew up with this guy being a guest in our house, THUS they pay no attention to people with disabilities at all. It's THAT simple... exposure to things negates the fear of them.Easy.

[stokemaveric]

lol squad a white face in some parts of the uk is a rarity lol

[annie0000]

Where I live a brown face is still a rarity. In the recent school inspection one area for development was to increase the multicultural eductation within the school. I can see why they struggle, there is my son's friend who is from Saudi Arabia, and the only other ethnic minorities they have are a boy from Croatia and another from Canada. They do however have 2 kids in wheelchairs and another with quite severe disabilities and is undergoing lots of surgery on her face - including that procedure where they inflate a bag under the skin in order to make extra skin - I think they are trying to form a nose for her. There is also a boy with mental handicap who goes to a special school 4 days a week, but comes to join his peers at the primary one day a week. The school only has 200 pupils.

Strangely, the only comment we have had about any of these kids is that the boy who only comes one day a week has the same name as my elder son which pleases him enormously!

Kids will be curious rather than frightened and a simple explanation always seem to satisfy them. I would really like to meet all these frightened toddlers which probably don't exist. What we might find is a load of bigoted parents.