How to Talk to Your Kids About Race and Racism - PART 2

3 min read

Dominique here. I'm the author of the post: Talking To Your Kids About Race Isn't As Difficult As You Think on The Montessori Room's site.

I’m back for Part 2: Answers to the your questions about how to talk to your kids about race and racism.

I've decided to answer two of the most common questions I got from that post:

1. Where do I start learning more about this so I can make sure I’m prepared to have these conversations with my kids?

My best advice is for you to start with your preferred medium for learning.

Do you like watching documentaries?

Then check out Deconstructing Karen on CBC’s The Passionate Eye.

(Note: you can stream it for free on CBC Gem, but you need to create an account first).

Are podcasts your thing?

Then NPR’s Code Switch is a must.

If social media is your go-to source for information, then these are all good accounts to follow:

The Conscious Kid (Instagram)
Parenting is Political (Instagram)
For Toronto parents - ETYMVillage (East Toronto - Your Modern Village) (Facebook)

Note: ETYMV has a document in their "Files" section called "Being in Community: An Anti-Racism Q&A for ETYMVillage". It’s an excellent resource.

And if you’re a Book Person like me, here is a very, very preliminary list of all the books I could actually recommend:

Some of my Best Friends (Tajja Isen)
Me and White Supremacy (Layla F. Saad)
Assembly (Natasha Brown)

I also want to share some books you can read with your kids, because it is critical to start these conversations early:

Our Skin (Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli & Isabel Roxas)
The Day You Begin (Jacqueline Woodson)
Skin Again (bell hooks, Chris Raschka)

By the time a child is 3 or 4 years old, they have already started picking up on the power dynamics among different types of people.

So starting these conversations even before they ask is important for helping them to make sense of the things they may already be aware of, but don’t know how to properly interpret or contextualize.

2. How do I teach my kid to be an ally if they hear racist things at school?

Because our kids are so young, my advice is to teach them that "allyship" is
really about friendship, support, kindness, and respect. Just as with grownups, the focus should be on the impact of the racist thing, and not the intent of the person who did it.

Allyship can look like giving the impacted student a hug, or offering to play with them.

It can also look like helping the student to move away from the other student who said the racist thing, or even going with them to tell a teacher (if they want to), so that your child can corroborate what was said.

On the other side of things, if it is your child who has said something racist, I don’t recommend responding in a loud or angry way, especially if it’s the first time they’ve done something like this.

(You should be upset, of course, but this is one instance where I think it’s good to give yourself a "time out" until you’re able to speak calmly - yet firmly - with your child.)

Again, the focus should be on how hurtful those words were, and that just because someone is different from them, it doesn’t mean they deserve to be hurt.

If, after this first conversation, your child continues to say racist things, then you’ve got to do a bit more work.

You need to find out where they’re learning this language in the first place, and why they’re using it. Having a community of other anti-racist allies / like-minded parents is essential for this, so I highly recommend finding one, if you’re not part of one already.

Our Shared Responsibility

As I said in my previous email, one of the most effective ways to challenge racism is to distribute the emotional and intellectual labour of doing so more fairly.

Much of the advice I’ve given you doesn’t only come not from my professional expertise:

It also comes from the lifetime of invisible, undervalued, personal experience I’ve gained trying to figure out how to survive and thrive as a Black person in a society built on the assumption of white cultural superiority.

This work is not just mine to do alone. As parents and caregivers, we all have an even greater responsibility for creating a more just and equitable world, because we are literally raising the next generation of humans.

And it’s never too early to start.

___________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Dominique Riviere, Ph.D. is a seasoned equity advocate with more than 40 cumulative years of lived and professional experience. She’s also a voracious reader, an unabashed chocoholic, a classically trained ballet dancer, and mother to the world’s most inquisitive 7-year-old.

She is also the Founder of Fictive Kin Equity Lab, a digital community for Highly Sensitive People to learn how to leverage their sensitivity as a social justice superpower.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Race and Racism - PART 2

1. Where do I start learning more about this so I can make sure I’m prepared to have these conversations with my kids?

2. How do I teach my kid to be an ally if they hear racist things at school?

Our Shared Responsibility

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