Written by Kia Mackey
Talking about race with your kids can be a sensitive and confusing subject. But, these conversations are extraordinarily important to have and can strengthen your relationship with your kiddos too!
To help start the conversation, we have gathered our favorite tips to share!
1. Preparation!
Good news - you are already doing the first step!! To start this important discussion with your kids, you need to make sure you have some background information!
Discussing race with your kids, no matter their age, is important, but only if it is done in a constructive way.
How do we do this? Luckily, there are so many wonderful resources available to help with this very topic; we’ll leave some at the end of this post!
This will help you build a solid foundation on how to approach talking to your children about racism.
2. Ask around!
Your discussions about race are going to be very unique depending on where you live and what your kids already knows. Pick your friends’ brains to see how they talk about race with their kids.
Don’t be embarrassed to ask for help! Talking about race does not come easily to many, but when you learn how to do it effectively, it will be incredibly beneficial for both you and your children.
3. Take advantage of opportunities to talk about race.
This is where your knowledge of talking about race with your kids comes in. You do not need to go into a full fledged, lengthy discussion every time race is brought up, but please, please, PLEASE, do not dismiss a question about race from your kids.
Instead, talk through it.
For example, in 6 Things White Parents Can Do to Raise Racially Conscious Children, Bree Ervin recalls when her daughter brought up a lesson on Thanksgiving where she learned that the Native Americans and Colonists “hated each other”. Bree and her kid unpacked this idea, using kid friendly language and ultimately landing on the lesson that the colonizers killed the Native Americans because they feared each other, not because they hated each other.
Talking to kids about violent or scary racially-charged events can be difficult, but it is important to strike a balance between using “kid friendly language” (which is already ambiguous) and sugar-coating the story.
Your main goal is to make sure your kids understand the injustice against the marginalized group that you’re talking about. It wasn’t until the end of high school that I learned the truth behind the story of Thanksgiving; I would have been thankful if anyone had started a conversation about race with me much earlier.
4. Talk about others’ differences constructively
Have you ever had to hush your children and apologize after they pointed something out about someone else that was offensive? Although most times kids do not have the intention to hurt the person they are referring to, it will happen at some point, and it will be uncomfortable for all parties involved.
Instead of sitting in the embarrassment, it is important to address what your kid said. After apologizing to the person the comment was pointed at, walk your kid through the reasons why what they said was hurtful, and give an example of how they can talk about differences in the future.
Rachel Garlinghouse, in 7 Things to do When Your Kid Points Out Someone’s Differences, suggests to not only use these instances as teaching opportunities for the child, but also for the parent. Rachel suggests for parents to evaluate the diversity of people that you surround yourself with and how you interact with people different from you. I would take that a step further and urge parents to also evaluate the diversity of the people who your kids spend time around as well.
As the pandemic has limited the amount of people that can be around you and your kids, you can also introduce people who are different from your kids through books, movies, and shows (see next tip). It is important that you emphasize the celebration of people’s differences as an addition to the beautiful diversity of the world.
5. Share books, movies, etc. with children that realistically present people of color.
Often in mainstream media Black folks are depicted as either athletes and performers, or as someone who is in trouble with the law. Yes, the media has improved this problematic depiction over the years, but there is still a lack of representation of Black folks and other people of color in the roles in between these tropes, like as scientists, lawyers and more.
This is why it is important to be mindful when picking books, movies, and other forms of media to share with your kids. Make sure that the media you choose depicts the diversity and complexities of individuals within populations of color. I am not saying to never show your kid a famous Black athlete, but make sure that they also learn about people like NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson (a great kids version of Hidden Figures can be found here).
Books, movies, and shows are a great place to start talking to your kids about race because they bring up the conversation via a platform that is familiar to them. If you need help finding books for your kids, you can check out our blog post and book review on the 5 Best Books for Raising Racially Conscious Kids!
6. Balance the hardships and accomplishments of individuals within a race.
This is one of the more difficult steps to master, but it is great to keep in mind when talking about people of color. Firstly, when talking about people of color, you do not want to introduce them as a token minority and move on. Rather, you want to mention them naturally in conversation. Instead of presenting someone as amazing just because they were Black and a scientist, present someone as amazing because of their accomplishment, while also noting their race.
Try choosing figures that are relevant to your kids’ lives, like Marie Maynard Daly who helped figure out how what you eat affects your heart. Additionally, while performing one of our at-home science experiments with your kids, you can bring up a scientists of color whose work relates to the experiment!
As important as it is to highlight the accomplishments of Black folks and other people of color, it is also important to acknowledge the hardships that these individuals had to go through, or are still going through today. It can be little notes, like mentioning the fact that at the time pediatrician Angella Fergunson was applying to medical school, many Black women were barred from acceptance into medical schools because of their race and gender.
Not acknowledging hardships that people of color go through because of the color of their skin erases the problem of systemic racism, which is not a message you want to teach to your kids. Overall, doing your best to include both the accomplishments of and hardships faced by people of color when introducing them to your children is important for them to best learn about the race as a whole.
The hardest part is starting the conversation.
I believe if you made it all the way to the bottom of this post that you genuinely care about your kids’ perception of race, and this alone is enough to power you through these important conversations.
Did we miss anything? Comment below any other strategies or tips that you use in teaching your kids about race!
More resources for how to talk about race:
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