Having Conversations about Race with Toddlers and Preschoolers
This post is part 2 of our series on teachings kids about racial injustice. You can find part 1, “Courageous Christianity,” here.
If I’m honest, when I first read that children start developing racial biases around five years old (see the chart below), I didn’t believe it. That seemed too young. I didn’t believe that children were exposed to enough racial bias beyond their home by that point to have developed subconscious opinions, especially if they hadn’t started at a preschool or kindergarten.
Moreover, a child’s understanding of race wasn’t something I felt that I could influence much. Yes, I work in children’s ministry, so I can ensure there are books, toys, and volunteers in classrooms on Sundays that reflect a diversity of ethnicities; but I don’t have children of my own, so preparing to have conversations with kids about race didn’t seem applicable to me.
A few weeks after encountering this chart, I went to a park with some kids I was babysitting. I sat on a bench with one of the boys, who was six years old at the time. As the other kids ran around the playground, he looked at me and said, “I’m glad I don’t have brown skin.” His matter-of-fact statement hit me like a ton of bricks. I was upset that he said and believed that. I felt embarrassed that I hadn’t believed kids his age could develop racial biases, and I felt ill-equipped to have further conversations with him. But I also felt honored that he’d been comfortable enough to trust me and express his thoughts out loud.
Young kids don’t feel hesitant about using skin or hair color to describe another person. And talking about someone’s physical characteristics when describing them is not necessarily bad. However, we must help kids recognize the varying degrees of worth or value we are associating with those physical characteristics. The way my six-year-old friend talked about brown skin devalued its worth.
I realized two things at that moment.
First, what we say and do at home early on really matters. Racial biases don’t just come from exposure outside of the home; there’s also exposure and conversations inside our homes.
We must give more credit to kids. They notice more than we think, and their brains are already making connections with those things they are observing. Kids are constantly listening. It’s not just the conversations we’re having directly with kids; they also overhear adult conversations. Making sure kids understand the vocabulary we’re using will empower them to feel like a part of the conversation, and it will show them that we care about the questions and wonderings they bring to us.
It’s also important to have honest, age-appropriate conversations with preschoolers about racism and prejudice—what it used to look like in our country and what it looks like today. For example, you might point out how kids tend to gravitate towards other kids who like the same toys or who play the same games at recess as them, and they tend to leave out those who don’t. Unless such favoritism is addressed at the heart level, it continues to develop into adulthood. In adulthood, we gravitate towards comfort as well; we move into neighborhoods where people like to do the same things we do or look similar to us, and we tend to leave out those who don’t. This is why it’s necessary to repeatedly encourage your kids to play with and invite others who are different from them into their circles. Think about the lasting impact that sort of conversation about favoritism could have for a child.
And remember, as these conversations happen and kids have questions, it’s completely okay to say, “I’m not sure about that. Let me do some research and we will talk about it later, okay?” We are growing and learning ourselves, and it’s important for kids to see us humble and joyful to learn.
Second, I realized that this is an area where I have more influence than I initially thought. My response to the boy’s statement was stumbling and lacked eloquence, but I pray for more of those opportunities, for the sake of growth in all of us. As volunteers and staff members in children’s ministry, the relationships we have with families really matter—and not just for the sake of better classroom management.
If we are going into our families’ homes beyond Sundays—to babysit, for dinner, for fellowship and friendship—we are going to be (and should be) trusted adults in their kids’ lives, and we will get to have honest and difficult conversations with them. We are going to have the opportunity to show children—with our words and actions—how we treat and talk about people who look different from us. We have a responsibility to be a part of this worthy, necessary, and important conversation with kids.
So, when kids bring up conversations about race, don’t avoid them or shut them down, even if you aren’t their parent. Talk about the realities of how God sees our differences: God made people, a lot of different types of people. He made people to be like mirrors, reflecting him and what he is like. God created us to know and love him. And he knows and loves all of us, every different type of person. If we only knew people who looked and acted just like us, we wouldn’t know very much about the true God; and if we only loved people who looked and acted just like us, it would be really hard to love the true God.
Though this is not what the conversation with my friend looked like in the park that day, I know this to be true, and I deeply want him to know this truth, too.
So, I’m going to take advantage of the influence I have. I’ll share with our kids the truth about God’s design for diversity in our classrooms on Sunday, while coloring at the kitchen table, after soccer practice, and on park benches in the afternoon. It’s okay to fumble and need a do-over; it’s inevitable that we will mess up such a difficult conversation at some point. But we should be open-handed and expectant and eager to try again and again.
CONVERSATION STARTER:
Self Portraits Craft (See the picture above)
You’ll need: Construction paper, crafting materials (scissors, markers, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, etc.), glue and/or glue stick
Instructions: Have each member of your family make a self portrait from the crafting materials available. Once everyone is done, talk about the differences and similarities between everyone’s character traits: You have black hair and I have red hair;” “We both have brown eyes.” Finally, thank God together as a family for creating each of you differently and, in his image, equally loved by him.
Say: There are no two people on earth who are exactly the same. Some people, called twins, might look the same, but their personalities and how they act aren’t the same. Why do you think God created everyone to look and act differently?
DISCUSSION:
It’s important to discuss the meaning of words adults often use when talking about race and provide simple, concise definitions of these terms to the children around us. Using terminology that is mutually understood is an important first step in engaging in conversations about race with young kids. Here are a few terms to start:
Diversity means differences. God made people to be different in many ways including skin color, hair types, abilities, languages, and so much more. Celebrating diversity is like celebrating God, because he is the one who made us all different.
Inclusion means helping people feel like they belong. When we include people, we listen to them and welcome them into our lives.
People of color are all the people who are not white (peach-colored).
“Colorblindness” is a concept that means ignoring the fact that people have different skin colors. When we act “colorblind,” we are saying that having different skin colors doesn’t matter. But, in reality, our skin color and ethnicity matters to God. We should celebrate the diversity God gave his people.
Prejudice means we have unkind thoughts toward people simply because they are different from us.
Racism is believing and acting like my skin color or culture is better than someone else’s.
Oppression happens when people who have lots of power use it in a way that is unfair or racist toward certain groups of people.