Studies from the American Academy of Pediatrics show that babies as young as six months old can observe race-based differences, and children as young as two years old can internalize racial bias.
Starting the conversation about race and cultural diversity to young children is important, but as parents many times we wonder how to approach this topic in a sensible way. How do we influence our children's thinking about racial diversity through our conversations, books, movies, and other resources?
Here below is a list of resources for you and your family on this crucial topic:
ORGANIZATIONS ADVOCATING RACE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD
Embrace Race:
An organization supporting Healthy Racial Learning in Early Childhood. So many valuable webinars, articles, blogs dissecting the topic from many angles and stakeholders.
The Conscious Kid
An education, research, and policy organization dedicated to equity and promoting healthy racial identity development in youth. Check out their hugely popular Instagram for a daily dose of inspiration!
The New York Times: Resources for Teaching About Race and Racism
A curated collection of over 75 lesson plans, writing prompts, short films and graphs relating to racism and racial justice.
Learning For Justice
Providing free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Focusing on being a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people.
Raising Race Conscious Children:
Blogs, podcasts, workshops, parent stories to support parents and teachers who are trying to talk about race and diversity with young children. The goal of these conversations is to prepare young people to work toward racial justice.
PARENTING BLOGS ABOUT TALKING TO KIDS ABOUT RACE
Family Embracing Diversity
Lots of excellent resources - games, books, and guides from a mom raising a multi-racial child. Download her FREE diversity games for toddlers PDF to get yourself started!
Mixed Race Family
A blog for parents raising multi-racial children in the UK. They also have a very large Facebook group supporting parents raising multi-racial children.
Asian Lit for Kids
An Instagram feed introducing books for kids with Asian characters.
NOTEWORTHY ARTICLES
Talking to Children about Racial Bias (Healthy Children)
30 Anti-Racism Activities for Kids (Happy Toddler Playtime)
Anti-Racism For Kids 101: Starting To Talk About Race (Books for Littles)
How to teach your kids to be unbiased with toys and play (Genius of Play)
A guidance on social-emotional support for mixed race children in the US (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)
How to Talk to Kids About Race - A video by The Atlantic
‼️ ‼️ ‼️ DID YOU KNOW? LITTLE BEAN'S TOY CHEST IS LAUNCHING OUR OWN GAME TO TEACH LITTLE CHILDREN ABOUT DIVERSITY! WANT TO KNOWMORE? CLICK HERE
The Tiny Activist
An independent online bookstore of two passionate educators who dream of changing the way we learn about marginalized cultures.
Books for Littles
Engaging children’s picture books to discuss hard topics with the next generation of kind and brilliant leaders.
13 books for kids that celebrate all things Asian (Read Brightly)
Raising Anti-racist Kids - An age by age guide for parents of white children
A book by Rebecca Gianapp, available in both digital and hard copy
Raising World Children - collection of books and resources to give parents a broader world view empower families to create that perfect balance of modern thinking, evolving cultures and their own heritage, by author Aditi Wardhan Singh. Her Facebook group Multicultural Readers Unite - Raising Children with World Stories is a great place to ask questions about multicultural books.
Cultural Compassion: A list of picture books featuring protagonists of color
