Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What I Found That Actually Works
It was Taco Tuesday, I was standing over the stove draining grease from ground beef, my 5-year-old daughter Lila was swinging her legs on the counter stool picking at a cube of cheddar, when she blurted it out: “Mom, why is Jojo’s skin browner than mine?” Jojo started in her preschool class two weeks prior, she moved here from Atlanta with her mom, who’s a nurse at the hospital downtown. I wiped my hands on my jeans and froze. I’d been meaning to get better at talking about this, but I wasn’t ready for the question to pop up mid-taco prep.
I went online that night after Lila went to bed, typed in “anti-racism resources for 5 year old” and got hundreds of hits. Most of the lists were full of books about the civil rights movement, slavery, and modern protests. That felt way too heavy for a kid who still cries if her goldfish cracker crumbs get mixed with her cheese crackers. Five-year-olds think in concrete terms; they don’t understand systemic injustice, they just understand “that kid looks different, why, and is it okay to notice?” One list said I should be teaching her about white privilege already, and I just closed the tab. I can barely get her to put her shoes on on time, how am I supposed to explain that to a 5 year old?
I texted my friend Cara, who’s a preschool teacher with 12 years of experience, asked her what she uses in her classroom. She sent me a short list, said don’t overcomplicate it, five-year-olds don’t need big formal lessons, they need small, consistent stuff that meets them where they are. I went to the library the next day, checked out most of what she recommended, tested it out over the last month, and some of it worked, some of it didn’t.
The first thing that stuck was picture books that stick to what 5 year olds care about: play, family, snacks, having fun. The clear favorite here is The Skin You Live In, it rhymes, it’s full of bright pictures of kids of all different colors climbing trees, hugging their parents, eating ice cream. It leans into simple observations, no big heavy words. After the first time we read it, Lila looked up at me and said “So it’s not rude to say someone’s skin is different?” I told her no, it’s not rude. People notice differences all the time, just like you notice that my eyes are blue and your friend Mia’s eyes are brown. Differences are cool, we just never make people feel bad for being different. That’s the whole lesson for right now, I realized. I grew up with the old advice that we should “not see color,” that we’re all the same on the inside. But if you tell a 5 year old that, they get the idea it’s a secret, something bad you can’t talk about, which makes them more awkward around people who look different, not less.
Another book that worked perfectly for our house is Hair Love, the short story about a Black dad trying to do his daughter’s hair for the first time. It’s silly, it’s sweet, Lila laughs at the part where he gets all tangled up in the brush, and loves the part at the end when they get it right and it looks beautiful. It’s just a family story, no heavy forced messages, and it shows a family that looks different from ours, which is exactly what Lila needs right now.
What didn’t work? That popular skin color mixing paint activity everyone posts about on Instagram. I got out washable paint, we tried to mix shades to match our skin tones. Lila got frustrated because she couldn’t get hers to match exactly, threw her brush down, got paint all over the placemat, and then asked if we could do playdough instead. So that got retired. It works for some kids, just not mine. That’s okay, not every resource has to click.
Cara also told me anti-racism for little kids isn’t just one-and-done books or activities, it’s adding small bits of representation to everyday stuff, not just pulling it out for a lesson once a month. So when I ordered new stuffed animals for her bed last month, I got a brown bunny and a Black doll to add to the bin of mostly white teddy bears she already had. Last week she was playing family with them, and she said “This is the dad, this is the mom, they have different color skin and they all love the baby.” That was it, no big speech from me, just her playing and normalizing difference without even thinking about it. We also added some new kids’ music to our daily dance party rotation: Ella Jenkins, a Black kids’ musician who’s been around forever, does all these call and response songs that Lila goes crazy for. We don’t have to have a big talk about it, we just dance, and that’s enough.
The moment that told me this slow, small approach was working came last week at the neighborhood playground. That little boy from down the street said he wouldn’t play tag with Jojo because “her braids are weird.” Before I even could stand up from the bench, Lila marched right over, put her hands on her hips, and said “Her braids have sparkly beads, they’re super cool. If you’re going to be mean to her, you can’t play with us. Come on Jojo, let’s go swing.” I just sat there, my coffee half drunk, and thought that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Anti-racism for a 5 year old isn’t about understanding all the history, it’s about knowing that when someone is being left out for how they look, you stand with them.
I still don’t have all the answers. Last night Lila asked me why that little boy was mean to Jojo, and I told her that it’s a big question, that some people grow up thinking differences are bad, and that’s wrong, and we’ll keep talking about it more as you get bigger. I still check the library every few weeks for new books, and I’m still figuring this out as I go. Some days we forget to talk about it at all, and that’s okay. It’s not about being perfect, it’s about starting small, with the stuff that fits where your 5 year old is right now. The best resources aren’t the fancy expensive curriculum kits people sell online, they’re the library books your kid asks to read every night, the small changes to the toys you already have, and the simple answers to the questions they ask when you’re mid-Taco Tuesday.
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