Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Works (And What Doesn’t) For My Kid
It was a dusty Tuesday afternoon at the neighborhood playground, and I was brushing crushed Goldfish crumbs off my jeans when my 5-year-old daughter Lila yelled across the mulch. “MOM! Why is her skin chocolate color and mine is vanilla?” The other mom, sitting on a bench by the slide, looked up and smiled. I waved back, my cheeks hot, and walked Lila over to say hi, answering quickly that people just have all different colored skin, just like we have different colored hair. It was fine, but that night, I sat down at my laptop and typed the question I’d been avoiding for months: what anti-racism resources are actually appropriate for a 5 year old?
I pulled up half a dozen parenting lists, ordered three books off Amazon that got rave reviews from other parents. When they came, I flipped through them that first night. One was a detailed introduction to the civil rights movement, with photos of segregated water fountains and protest marches. Another talked about racial violence and police brutality, in words I couldn’t imagine wrapping Lila’s head around. I read a page out loud to my partner, and we both winced. Lila still cries when our feeder goldfish dies, and she thinks “fair” means everyone gets the same number of cookies at birthday parties. Big, heavy, systemic concepts aren’t part of her world yet. When I tried to read the simpler parts of the civil rights book to her at bedtime, she interrupted me halfway to ask if we could get mint chocolate chip after school tomorrow. She had no frame of reference for what I was talking about. That’s when I realized I’d gotten it wrong: I was trying to teach 5-year-old anti-racism the way I’d learn it as an adult, not the way a 5 year old thinks.
I called my sister, who teaches pre-K at a local public school, and she set me straight. She said little kids don’t think in abstract terms. They notice difference first, before anything else. If you ignore that, they get the idea that difference is something you can’t talk about, which is how unexamined bias starts growing. The point of anti-racism work with 5 year olds isn’t to teach them the entire history of racism. It’s to give them words to talk about difference, normalize that difference is okay, and model that it’s safe to ask questions. That changes everything when you’re looking for resources.
I started over, swapping out the heavy books for simpler options that meet Lila where she is. The best one I found so far is The Skin You Live In. It’s rhythmic, it’s silly, it talks about all the different shades of skin, how we do all the same things no matter what we look like – climb trees, hug our parents, eat popsicles. No big heavy stuff, just names the difference and celebrates it. I also love Last Stop on Market Street, which is about a Black boy riding the bus with his grandma, and it gently talks about noticing different kinds of lives without being preachy. I tried one of those “we are all exactly the same” books early on, and Lila closed it after two pages and said “no we’re not. Mia has curly hair and I have straight. Why does the book say we’re the same?” She was right – pretending difference doesn’t exist doesn’t help anyone. It just makes kids think you’re lying when they can clearly see the differences with their own eyes.
Resources don’t have to be books, either. I got a $5 pack of multi-cultural crayons, the ones that have 12 different skin tone shades with names like pecan, honey, and vanilla bean. Lila draws a new portrait every week, of her, her friends, our family, and it’s become just a normal thing to talk about what shade matches who. We also have a cheap 24-piece floor puzzle that shows 20 different kids from all over the world playing, doing different things. We put it together every Sunday morning while we drink our hot cocoa, and when Lila asks questions about why this kid lives in a tent or why that kid wears a different shirt to church, we just answer simply. No big lectures, just straight, small answers that fit her level of understanding.
The best “resource” I’ve adopted isn’t even something you buy. It’s letting Lila ask questions out loud, instead of shushing her when she points out something different. A few weeks ago, we were in the grocery store checkout line, and there was a Sikh man ahead of us wearing a turban. Lila leaned over to me and said “why does he have that towel on his head?” Instead of hissing “don’t be rude” and pulling her back, I smiled at the man and said “my daughter is curious about your turban, would you mind telling her a little bit about it?” He smiled, and told her it’s a special piece of cloth that’s part of his religion, that he wears it to remember his family and his beliefs. Lila nodded and said “that’s really cool” and that was it. No awkwardness, no big lesson, just a normal conversation.
Right now, Lila’s drawing of her and her best friend Zara, who is Black, is taped to our fridge. She colored Zara’s skin with pecan and her own with vanilla bean, and scribbled both their names at the bottom. I still don’t always get it right. Last week, Lila asked why some kids don’t have enough toys, and I fumbled the answer, told her we’d talk more about that when she’s a little older. I’m still looking for new resources, still sometimes panic when she asks a question I don’t know how to answer. But I’ve stopped looking for big, perfect curriculums or heavy books that are made for older kids. For a 5 year old, it’s enough to have simple words, small everyday conversations, and resources that meet them where they are. That’s the work, right now, anyway.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Works (And What Doesn’t) For My Kid