Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Worked For My Family
The squeak of the playground slide was just fading when my 5-year-old Lila trotted over to me, juice box dribbling down her wrist, and nodded toward the new girl chasing our dog across the bark. “Mom,” she said, loud enough for the girl’s mom to hear over the picnic basket rustle, “why is her skin darker than mine?” I had a half-melted cherry popsicle dripping down my other hand, and my brain went completely blank.
I fumbled through a quick answer that day, told her it’s just like how some people have curly hair and some have straight, that the sun gives our skin different amounts of something called melanin that makes it different colors, and all of it is good. But after we left, I kept thinking about it. I knew that one off answer wasn’t enough, but when I sat down that night to search for anti-racism resources for 5 year olds, I came up empty almost everywhere. Most of what popped up was for middle schoolers and teens—books about civil rights, guides to talking about systemic injustice, lesson plans for high school. The few things labeled for little kids were either just collections of stories with diverse characters that never actually mentioned difference at all, or heavy stories about trauma that I knew would be way too much for a kid who still cries when the turtle on TV loses its shell.
I talked to Lila’s preschool teacher, Ms. Rita, at pickup the next day. She’s been teaching 5 year olds for 22 years, and she just nodded when I told her my problem. She said most parents don’t know where to start, because everyone talks about anti-racism for older kids, but forget that little kids just need simple, concrete stuff that meets them where they are. She gave me a few suggestions, and I’ve tested them out over the last six weeks, so I know what works, what doesn’t, and what you can pull off without a lot of extra time or money.
First, the books that actually landed. The first one Ms. Rita recommended was The Skin You Live In, by Michael Tyler. It rhymes, it’s full of bright pictures of kids with all different skin tones playing together, and it never tries to overexplain anything. It just says that skin is what carries us through our days, that it comes in all different beautiful shades, and that we’re all better when we’re together. Lila asked me to read it three nights in a row, which is the highest compliment a 5 year old can give a book. I tried Something Happened in Our Town next, because I saw it recommended everywhere, and I have to say it was too much for our family right now. It centers a police killing of a Black man, and Lila kept asking after I read it if someone was going to hurt our neighbor Mr. Gary, who is Black, when we went walking. We put that one on the top shelf to pull out when she’s older. The other book that worked perfectly is Hair Love, by Matthew Cherry. It’s about a Black dad doing his daughter’s hair for the first time, and it’s just a sweet story about family that naturally centers a Black experience without being heavy. Lila loved talking about how different Zuri’s hair is from hers, and that’s exactly the point.
Then the activity that ended up being my favorite thing, and it didn’t cost anything. Ms. Rita suggested mixing tempura paint to match your own skin tone. I already had white, brown, and yellow paint in the craft bin, so we pulled out cardstock on a rainy Saturday and got to work. Lila mixed and dripped for 20 minutes, adding tiny drops of brown to get my shade, more pink for hers, and a lot more brown for my husband’s. She kept narrating the whole time: “Yours is like caramel! Mine is like strawberry shortcake! Dad’s is like chocolate chip cookie dough!” When we were done, we taped all three swatches to the fridge. A week later, when we ran into Mia—the little girl from the playground—at the library, Lila grabbed her hand and dragged her all the way home to see the swatches, and asked if she wanted to mix hers too. “Yours looks like coffee with cream,” Lila told her. “It’s my favorite color.” I didn’t prompt that, that was all her. That’s when I realized it was working.
What I’ve learned through all this is that for 5 year olds, anti-racism doesn’t need to be complicated. Their brains don’t process systemic injustice or hundreds of years of history yet. They notice difference, that’s just what kids that age do, and if we tell them not to see color, we’re just teaching them that difference is something bad to not talk about. Instead, we just need to help them name difference, celebrate it, and learn that leaving someone out because of how they look is wrong. That’s enough for right now.
The only other concrete thing I changed is how I react when Lila points out difference out loud. I used to shush her if she said something about someone’s skin or hair in public, because I was embarrassed. Now I just lean in and answer simply, right where we are. If she says “that person’s hair is really long and braided, why is it that way?” I say “It’s a style that lots of people love, it looks so cool, doesn’t it?” No big deal, no hushing, just normal. That’s way easier than pretending we don’t all notice, and it teaches her that talking about difference isn’t rude, it’s just normal.
I also found a 5-minute Sesame Street clip called “Different Colors, Same Friends” that Lila asks to watch sometimes when we have 10 minutes before dinner. It’s just Elmo and his friends talking about how their skin is different colors, singing a silly little song, no heavy stuff, just fun. It’s free, it’s easy, and it reinforces what we talk about at home.
I still don’t have all the answers. Last week, Lila came home from preschool and said a boy wouldn’t let Mia play dinosaurs with him because “she doesn’t look like us.” I sat with her on the couch, we talked about how that must have made Mia feel, and I told her that what she did—saying she wouldn’t play either if Mia couldn’t—was exactly the right thing. I know as she gets older, we’ll need new resources, harder conversations, more complicated lessons. For right now, though, these simple, low-key things are working. We have three good books, a pack of tempura paint, and a rule that we talk about difference like it’s normal, because it is. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.
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