Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Actually Works
I was mid-load of the dishwasher, wiping goldfish crumbs off the kitchen floor, when my 5-year-old daughter Mae dragged her sparkly unicorn backpack over and plopped down next to me, holding a crumpled drawing of two girls holding hands. “Mom,” she said, pointing to the two stick figures colored with different crayons, “why is mine peach and Zoe’s is brown? Jace said Zoe’s skin looked like dirty mud at snack time today.”
I froze. I’ve always known I wanted to talk about race with my kids early, but when the moment actually hit, my mind went blank. All the articles I’d saved about anti-racism were for middle schoolers or teens, talking about things I knew Mae couldn’t wrap her head around yet. That night, after I got her to bed, I typed the exact question into Google that I’d seen other frazzled parents asking: where do you find anti-racism resources appropriate for a 5 year old?
I spent the next two weeks testing every resource I could find, from picture books to free printables to kids’ episodes, and I figured I’d share what worked, what didn’t, for other parents stuck in the same spot.
First, I ordered three of the most popular picture books everyone recommends. The first one kept repeating “we’re all the same on the inside,” and when I finished reading, Mae looked at me and said “But we’re not the same. Zoe’s hair is curly and mine is straight. Her skin is brown. Why does the book say we’re the same?” She was right. That resource erased the difference she was already noticing, instead of answering her question. It left her more confused than when we started. The second book I tried jumped straight into talking about unfair treatment from hundreds of years ago, and Mae got upset. She kept asking if Zoe was going to get hurt because her skin is brown, and I spent 45 minutes reassuring her that she was safe, that nothing bad was going to happen at preschool. That was way too heavy for a kid who just wanted an answer to why her friend’s skin looks different.
The third book I got was Hair Love, the picture book based on the short film. I’d seen it mentioned a few times but didn’t expect much, but Mae loved it immediately. It’s just a story about a Black dad learning to do his daughter’s curly hair for her first day of school. There’s no big lecture, no trauma, just a normal family doing normal things. After we finished the first read, Mae pointed to Zuri on the page and said “Her hair is just like Zoe’s! I want to show this to Zoe tomorrow.” That’s exactly the point, right? It normalizes difference instead of making it a big, scary thing. I ended up finding the 7 minute animated short on YouTube too, and we’ve watched it together on slow Sunday mornings a handful of times.
A mom in my preschool parent group shared a free printable activity pack from the early childhood education section of our state’s education website, specifically made for talking about skin tone with 3-6 year olds. The main activity is mixing tempera paint to match your own skin tone, then mix any other skin tones of people in your family or friends. I dug out our old paint set, spread a tattered garbage bag over the kitchen table, and we did it one rainy afternoon. Mae got paint all over her favorite shirt and the edge of the table, which I spent 20 minutes scrubbing after she went to play, but she was so focused the whole time. She mixed a tiny drop of brown into peach to get her color, then added more brown and a touch of yellow to get Zoe’s. We taped both swatches to the fridge, and she pointed them out to every person who came over the next week. The next day at preschool, she told Jace “See, my mom and I made colors of our skin. They’re both good, none are dirty.” It was simple, it was hands-on, and it stuck way better than any book I read her.
What I realized after testing all these is that 5 year olds think in concrete, not abstract, terms. They don’t need resources that teach systemic racism or complicated history. That’s for later, when their brains can process that kind of information. Right now, what they need is resources that help them name the differences they already see, normalize those differences, and teach them to speak up when someone says something mean. Any resource that tries to do more than that right now is just going to confuse or scare them.
Another resource that worked way better than I expected was just an affordable diverse doll from Target. Mae kept talking about Zoe after that first day, so I picked up a 12 inch doll with brown skin and curly hair for $15, nothing fancy. Mae named her Zoe, and she sleeps with her every night. It’s just play, but play is how 5 year olds learn. She doesn’t see it as a lesson, she just sees it as her doll that looks like her best friend.
I still don’t have it all figured out. Last week, Mae was coloring in an old coloring book I got at a garage sale, and she looked up and said “Mom, all the princesses here have yellow hair and light skin. Where are the princesses with brown skin?” I ordered a new diverse princess coloring book off Amazon, but it’s still in the mail. Some resources I thought would be amazing fell flat, and the simplest things ended up working the best. I don’t think you need to spend a bunch of money on fancy resources, either. The free printable activity worked just as well as the $20 picture book, and the $15 doll is the thing she uses every day. It’s not about checking a box or getting it perfect. It’s just about meeting your kid where they are, answering their questions, and giving them small, simple things that help them learn to see everyone as a person, right where they are right now.
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