How to Find Anti-Racism Resources for a 5-Year-Old (Without Getting Overwhelmed)
My daughter came home from preschool one Tuesday holding a picture she’d drawn. It was a family portrait: me, her dad, her little brother, and a stick-figure girl with brown skin and a big orange bow. “That’s my friend Maya,” she said. “I gave her brown skin because she has brown skin.” Then she looked up and asked, “Mama, is it okay that she’s different?”
I remember feeling a small knot in my chest. Not because her question was hard—it wasn’t. But because I suddenly realized I had no idea what to say next. We had books about kindness and feelings, but nothing about race, and nothing about racism. I’d thought about it before, but I kept putting it off, figuring we had time. At five, she was already asking, and I was already unprepared.
So I went looking. I asked friends, searched online, scrolled through parenting forums. I wanted something age-appropriate, not scary, not preachy. I wanted a resource that could help me explain something I still struggle to understand myself, in a way that wouldn’t confuse her or make her feel guilty about something she didn’t choose.
I found a few things that worked, and a few that didn’t.
The first thing that helped was a book called Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race. It’s a board book, technically, but it’s not babyish. It talks about skin color in a matter-of-fact way: skin has melanin, different amounts, and that’s okay. It also introduces the word “racism” and says that racism is when people are treated unfairly because of the color of their skin. My daughter listens to it like she listens to a book about dinosaurs—curious, not distressed. She asks questions like, “Who was unfair?” and “Why were they mean?” and then she moves on to snacks. The book gives us language without giving her a lecture.
I also borrowed Something Happened in Our Town from the library. I was nervous about it. It’s a book about a police shooting, and I didn’t know if that was too heavy. But I read it myself first, and it’s gentle. There’s a page where the kids ask why some people are treated badly, and the parents say, “Some people believe that because of the color of their skin, they are better than others. That is wrong.” My daughter didn’t have a big emotional reaction. She just said, “That’s not nice.” Then she asked if we could go to the park. For her, that was enough. I realized I was bracing for a conversation she wasn’t ready to have yet. She just needed the seed planted.
The hardest part wasn’t finding books. It was figuring out what I should actually say when she noticed differences in public.
One day we were in the grocery store and an older Black woman was wearing a bright yellow headwrap. My daughter pointed and said loudly, “Why is her hair like that?” I wanted to disappear. The woman smiled and said, “Because it’s beautiful, sweetheart.” My daughter smiled back. I managed to say, “People wear their hair in lots of different ways. Isn’t it pretty?” Later, I told my husband I felt like I’d missed some parenting milestone. He said, “You handled it fine. You didn’t whisper or pull her away. That’s not nothing.”
He was right. The resource I needed wasn’t a script. It was permission to be ordinary about it.
I started paying attention to how I talk about skin color. I used to avoid naming it completely. I’d say “different” or “diverse” without saying what we were talking about. But that confused her. She wanted specifics. So now I say things like, “Her skin is brown” with the same voice I’d use for “Her shirt is blue.” I pair it with positive language. I don’t say “dark skin” like it’s a warning. I say “deep brown skin” or “light tan skin.” It feels awkward at first, but it gets easier. Kids don’t think it’s weird. They just want to understand.
Around the same time, I realized that anti-racism wasn’t just about having the right book or the right answer. It was also about what my daughter sees every day. I looked around our house and noticed that almost every book and toy character looked like her. Her dolls were white. Her princesses were white. Her neighbors were mostly white, too. I’m not saying a five-year-old needs a curriculum. But she does need to see that people who look like her and people who don’t all belong in her world. So I added a few more books with Black, Brown, and Asian main characters—not as special “diversity books,” just as regular stories. She now has a favorite book called Jabari Jumps, about a Black boy learning to dive, and she doesn’t comment on his skin at all. She just thinks he’s brave.
I also started paying attention to the shows she watches. Some of the older cartoons we own have, honestly, a lot of stereotypes. I didn’t throw everything out, but I did move some things to the back of the shelf and added shows like Arthur and Molly of Denali. They aren’t lessons. They’re just normal stories with characters from different backgrounds. At five, that matters more than any lecture.
The trickiest part was figuring out how to explain racism without scaring her. I didn’t want her to think the world is terrible. But I also didn’t want her to be completely blind to the fact that some people are treated badly because of their skin. I found a middle ground. We talk about it in terms of fairness, which is a concept she already understands deeply. If someone is not letting someone else play because of their skin color, that’s unfair. If a store treats someone differently, that’s unfair. She knows what “no fair” feels like. I just extend that feeling to bigger situations.
There’s an article I read from an organization called Embracerace. It said something that stuck with me: “Racism is a system, not a feeling.” That helped me because it reminded me that I don’t need to explain the entire history of slavery and Jim Crow to a kindergartener. I need to explain that there are unfair rules and unfair actions, and that we can learn to notice them and do better. That’s it. The big history comes later, in pieces, as her brain grows.
I also had to accept that my daughter might say something embarrassing or uncomfortable. One afternoon, she announced at a playdate, “Olivia has lighter skin than me.” The other mom froze. My daughter wasn’t being mean. She was just observing. I said, “Yes, people have different skin colors, and both are nice.” Then I turned to the other mom and said, “She’s been noticing that a lot lately.” The moment passed. It wasn’t a crisis. It was just a fact.
If you’re looking for resources for your own five-year-old, I’d say this: start with books, but don’t stop there. Read them yourself before reading to them. Let them ask questions, and if you don’t know the answer, say that. At five, they don’t need you to be an expert. They need you to be willing to sit on the floor, turn the page, and not change the subject.
A few practical things that helped me:
– Look for books that show skin color as a normal part of a person, not the main point of the story.
– Use specific color words like “brown skin” or “tan skin.” It feels awkward at first, but it sounds more natural than “different” after about a week.
– Mix books and toys with diverse characters into the everyday rotation, not just on special days.
– If your kid asks something in public, don’t shush them. Answer simply and move on. They’re learning from your comfort level.
– Watch shows together sometimes so you can talk about what you see. “She looks like her grandma” or “He speaks Spanish like our neighbor” opens doors.
I don’t have it all figured out. Some days I worry I’m saying too little, and other days I worry I’m saying too much. My daughter now knows that people can have different skin colors and different hair textures. She knows that some people are treated unfairly because of those things. She doesn’t know why, exactly, and to be honest, I still don’t either. But she knows it’s wrong, and she knows we can talk about it.
That’s probably enough for now. There will be more questions as she gets older, harder ones, ones I can’t answer with a board book. When they come, I’ll have to find the next resources, and the ones after that. For now, I’m learning alongside her. She asks, I answer, we turn the page. That’s the work—not a one-time conversation, but a hundred small ones, scattered through ordinary days.
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