What Anti-Racism Resources Are Actually Appropriate for a 5 Year Old? Parent Tested Tips
It was 72 degrees last Saturday, we’d just grabbed blue raspberry popsicles from the cart at the edge of the playground, and my 5-year-old daughter Lila was wiping sticky juice off her chin when she pointed across the mulch. “Mom, why is that girl’s hair brown like mine but all bumpy and shiny?” I froze for half a second, fumbling for words that didn’t sound awkward or like I was telling her she shouldn’t have asked. The girl’s mom looked over and smiled, so I kept it simple: “Everyone’s hair grows differently, isn’t that cool? It looks really pretty.” We went off to climb the slide after that, but that night I sat on my couch and typed “anti-racism resources for 5 year olds” into Google, because I knew that one off-the-cuff line wasn’t enough. I wanted resources that met Lila where she was, not resources made for teens or that expected a 5-year-old to grasp concepts that I still struggle to explain.
Most of what popped up was either too heavy or too abstract. There were long lists of books about civil rights that talk about segregation and violence, and workbooks full of discussion prompts that would go right over a kindergartener’s head. I ordered a few that had good reviews anyway, just to test them out, and quickly learned what doesn’t work. One book opened with a discussion of systemic inequality that I couldn’t paraphrase in a way Lila would get, and she got up halfway through reading to go dig out her stuffed rabbit and never came back. The workbook I bought had fill-in-the-blank prompts about fairness that Lila just colored over with purple crayon. I started to think I was overcomplicating it, until I talked to my friend who’s a preschool teacher, and she reminded me that 5 year olds think in concrete, not abstract, terms. They don’t need a lecture on history right now – they need to learn that noticing differences is okay, and that everyone deserves to be treated kindly.
The first resources that actually worked were picture books that focus on everyday joy, not trauma. The first one that stuck was The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler. It’s full of bright pictures of kids playing all different activities, from climbing to swimming to painting, with simple rhymes about how skin is just the “suit you live in” that doesn’t change what you love to do. Lila stopped halfway through and pointed at a picture of a Black kid jumping rope and said, “That’s Javi from my class! He can jump 10 times in a row!” That’s exactly the point I wanted to make – differences don’t keep you from being friends who do the same fun things. Hair Love by Matthew Cherry is another one we read at least once a week; Lila loves the story of a dad learning to do his daughter’s braids, and she always points out how shiny the beads are in her hair. I was skeptical of Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi at first, but it turned out to be fine for our purposes – Lila thinks the simple drawings are silly, and the short lines about “see all colors” give us a quick jumping off point to talk about what we notice when we meet new people.
It’s not just books, either. I found a 30-minute Spotify playlist called “Little Antiracist Sing-Along” that we listen to on the drive to preschool every morning. All the songs are about friendship and being yourself, sung by Black and brown artists, and it’s upbeat enough that Lila dances in her car seat without even realizing it’s a “lesson.” The easiest, lowest-effort change I made was just swapping out two of the dolls in Lila’s toy bin. I’d had three light-skinned straight-haired dolls for years, so I ordered one with tight curly hair and brown skin, and another with straight black hair and almond-shaped eyes. Now Lila does their hair every night before bed, and she practices asking before she touches “their curly hair” just like she learned to do with other people’s. It’s a small change that takes less than five minutes to order and makes a huge difference in how she talks about different hair and skin tones in real life.
Two weeks ago, we were at a family cookout, and my great aunt reached to touch the hair of my cousin’s 4-year-old daughter, who’s Black. Before anyone could say anything, Lila piped up from where she was eating a hot dog: “You have to ask people before you touch their hair, right Mom?” It caught everyone off guard, but my cousin laughed and said that’s exactly the right rule. Last week at the playground, I watched a little boy tell the same girl Lila pointed out months ago that her braids were weird, and Lila marched right over and said, “They’re not weird, they’re just different. Wanna play tag with us?” The three of them ran off before I could even say anything.
I still don’t have it all figured out. I’m still looking for new resources that fit as Lila gets older and asks harder questions. Some days she says something awkward that I have to gently correct, and some nights we skip the new book and just read her favorite unicorn story instead. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that you don’t need a huge, expensive curriculum to talk about anti-racism with a 5 year old. The best resources are the small ones that fit into your everyday routine: the books that feel like stories, not lessons, the small toy swaps, the songs you sing in the car. Right now, my job isn’t to teach her every complicated part of racism in America. It’s just to give her the small, simple tools to be kind, to see people for who they are, and to speak up when someone’s being left out. That’s enough for right now, and that’s all I can ask for.
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