Top 15 Tips for Talking to Children About Race

It seems like everybody is talking about race now. Everybody, but you that is. Are you still hesitant to talk to your children about race? Do you worry that you’ll say something wrong and your child will repeat it in front of your boss, who happens to be a person of color? Are you holding on to the notion that you “don’t see color”? Do you worry that talking about race will corrupt your child and make them more racist? These are all common concerns for parents today. To help squash your worries I have reviewed and compiled the Top 15 Tips for Talking to Children about Race. It’s your lucky day, right?

Top Tip 1: Start as early as possible talking to your children about race.

To insure that the first messages about race comes from you, you need to start ASAP. Children are consuming information from their environment constantly. They have already made observations and conclusions about your behavior towards people in your family, people who look like you and people who dont look like you. Leaving them to continue developing with theses assumptions can lead to the solidification of stereotypes and later to racist behaviors. 

Race is a category defined by men to group certain people together based on observable characteristics. Some of these characteristics include skin color, hair texture, body type, facial features, etc. Over time race has been used to elevate certain racial groups in status above other racial groups. This discrimination leads to racism.

Racism is the maltreatment of an individual or group of individuals or category of individuals based on their belonging to this man made affiliation.

Top Tip 2: Do some reflection on your own racial identity and help your child reflect on their racial identity.

While many people of color are confronted with questions and comments about their race at an early age, for white people white identity is not clear. Many white people are so inundated by white culture, white expectations and white privilege that they don’t even realize that whiteness is part of the “American Dream” they are striving toward. It is important for ALL people to recognize their race, as well as, the historical and present day significance of that race.

It is important to have conversations about how race is a social affiliation, not biological one. Furthermore, understanding that the “hierarchy” of races has been assigned and maintained through overt and covert aggression helps all children to face racially based challenges from society. Whether you’re raising your child to be an ally, activist, or warrior they need a foundation.

Some foundational truths about race: 

• Race is not real.
• Racism is real and current and harmful to all.
• White is not right.
• White is not default. 
• All races are equal. All races are diverse. 
• Differences between races are minimal. We are 98% the same. Only 2% different. Minimal.
• Silence is the coconspirator of overt racism.
• Explain that there is as much diversity within each race as there is between races, more even.  
• There is no melting pot maybe a tossed salad or a chunky stew, jambalaya or gumbo. 
• Diversity is strength.

Top Tip 3: Explore what whiteness means in your family. 

Additionally further help children identify other contributions to identity such as ethnicity, family history, gender, religious affiliation, regionality, nationality, etc. Once you start paying attention you will notice it everywhere, becasue it is everywhere. However, once you start to see it you will be able to dismantle the falsity and advocate for diversity.

Top Tip 4: Encourage your child’s curiosity and allow them to recognize observable difference when they see it. Help them talk about it by giving them the correct labels, terminology, to voice their curiosity. 

By encouraging your child to ignore skin tones, children learn that there is something taboo about other skin tones. Help your child recognize different skin tones and invite a conversation about the meaning of skin color . 

Top Tip 5: Actively and intentionally seek and provide experiences with diverse racial groups.

Even better to seek diverse opportunities in non stereotypical areas. Examples such as joining an African American chess club or an Asian American basketball team are counter to stereotypes. These types of opportunities help your child to resist generalizations with first hand knowledge of individual variability. This practice (which requires more work) prepares children to counteract and speak up when challenged with the racially biased messages of society.

Top Tip 6: Encourage children to develop friendships with people of diverse races. 

Friendships are probably the most effective and long-lasting methods of overcoming the racial attitudes. Having friends who look different and live differently allows children to voice questions. Then they can learn about differences from individuals and consequently also learn similarities. When talking about children’s friendships with same-race peers and different-race peers encourage them to reflect on discrepancies between stereotypes or biases they’ve heard. Encourage and model these deeper level friendships that do no just reinforce surface level stereotypes of acquaintances.

Top Tip 7:  Be brave and tell your children about your own experiences related to race, your own or others.

Use your experiences as a conversation starter or a lesson learned. Either way your children will appreciate your candor, your honesty, your humanity and your openness.

Share some of your experiences with race that were helpful and harmful from your race identity exercises. It may be especially empowering to share your attitudes and behavior as a child and the impact of that behavior. Explain how your attitudes and behaviors have changed and why or why not

Top Tip 8: Have a discussion about relatives who don’t believe or behave the same way towards people of different races.

Explore your child’s feeling about this and address any concerns they have about being ostracized by those relatives. Explain why you disagree and give personal examples that are related to the attitudes as back up for your viewpoint. Allow your children to see you respectfully confronting family members about racial attitudes or behaviors .

Remember your children are watching what you do as well as what you say. If you model silence they will absorb silence. If you model speaking out they will standing up for what they believe in to their repertoire. 

Top Tip 9: Encourage your child to ask questions and be prepared to answer them openly and honestly and age appropriately.

If your child says something derogatory or asks something embarrassing, be prepared to address it without being discouraging. Always encourage them ask more and ask more in the future. The only way to know what a perosn thinks is through their words or behavior.

Top Tip 10: Start integrating a discussion about white privileged and social injustice as soon as your children can start to understand it.

You can begin the discussions explaining fairness with regard to their daily activities. As they gain more facility, you can add more concepts such as justice, privilege, legacy, inheritance, representation, silence, and equality. If you do not fully understand these concepts seek out more information, books, seminars, mentors, etc. 

Top Tip 11: Attack the myths, stereotypes and biases of races head on. Dismantle the collusion of silence that allows racial attitudes and behaviors to continue unchecked. 

Here are some example of myths about racism: racism is something bad people do, if were all color blind there would be no racism, skin color doesn’t matter, if we re nice to one another we’ll end racism, racism is over (because of civil rights, President Obama, Civil war, no Jim Crow, no segregated schools), more black on black crime than racism, kids are too young to learn about race, white supremacy is just something a few radical sects believe.

Racism isn’t just about color. Racism is an attack on the skin, facial features, body type, hair texture and cultural norms of a group of people. But perhaps most importantly, racism is about economy and capitalism. It’s about supply and demand and the free or almost free labor force needed to outpace the competition.

The other side of the coin of racism is white supremacy.  White supremacy is the racist ideology that says others must assimilate and make themselves more white by internalizing racism and changing themselves into whiteness.  

Top Tip 12: Prepare your child to advocate and speak up for themselves or others respectfully. 

When they speak up, they may be met with defensiveness, denial, and false contriteness, or dismissal. Encourage them to come to you and share these experiences. When they do bring these experiences up modulate your own emotional response and your instinct to take over and protect.

Allow your child to explain. Explore different scenarios that are relevant to the situation. Have your child describe the ideal outcome and brain storm ideas or activities to help other achieve this ideal outcome. If your child did anything they are not proud of or they feel was possibly harmful, talk to them about ways to ask if they can make things better. 

Top Tip 13: Prepare your child to receive feedback about their racist behavior from peers of color and white peers. 

Help them recognize when their behavior and attitudes are being criticized and how to recognize the behavior being targeted.  Remind them that everybody makes mistakes and that humans grow and change so our behavior and attitudes can grow and change too.

Help your child generate an appropriate response to accusations such as “that’s racist” or “you’re a bigot” . Help your child practice giving their own feedback about racial attitudes or behaviors that promotes discussion and understanding instead of shutting down.

Practice acknowledging someone else’s experience, and explaining their own perspective and admitting when they said or did something racist and offering to make amends. Don’t forget the practice having your child forgive a peer who apologizes and generate ways to work together and learn more about each other.

Top Tip 14: Prepare children to recognize that all children of color are not the same and do not view race the same.

For example, It’s important to understand that a person who does not identify as “black’ but has brown skin and other feature will still be categorized as black in this society. Therefore that person will be subjugated to the inequalities, disparities, and injustices associated with being black in this society. However people who emigrated here from other parts of the world will not likely identify with the cultural2 identity of blackness.

And even within this society all black people are not the same. They move through different states of racial identity (including assimilation) and their views, behaviors, and attitudes will likely reflect the variance between those stages. Therefore they may report conflicting statements such as they don’t see color (they can be racist too), no one every treats them different becasue of their race, they dont identify with any race. Everyone’s journey and process is different. 

Top Tip 15: Check-in during and follow-up after to determine how conversations were internalized.

Provide as many breaks pauses and follow up questions as necessary to allow your child to process this complex information. With younger children the conversation my occur in small snippets of interactions throughout your daily routine. Other time conversation may be sparked by a television program, movie, YouTube video or music that your child is consuming or that children are discussing in school. Allow the questions, reflections, comments, comparisons, and conclusions occur naturally. If the question is related to a friend or a character in a book, follow up to ask how the conflict was resolved (if at all). If your child seems stuck during the conversation check in and offer to take a break and come back tot he topic when they are ready. 

Final Notes on Top 15 Tips for Talking to Children About Race

Representation matters. Don’t just all about it be about it. Your child will internalize you’re viewpoints about race well before they can talk about it. Diversity can be in every space of life, home decor, toys, television programs, music, books, and social interactions. You start talking about race well before you start talking about race with your words, behaviors and silence.  

If you would like more information and specific examples about how to implement the tips sign up to keep in touch so I can send you updates about classes and other learning opportunities.

The following are online resources about talking to kids about race.