Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What I Learned As A Mom
Last month, I was wiping playground sand off my 5-year-old Lila’s shorts after she finished a climb when she pointed to a little Black girl playing on the adjacent slide and asked, quiet and curious, “Why is her skin darker than mine?” I froze mid-wipe. I knew I didn’t want to brush the question off, but I also had no idea how to answer it in a way that fit right where she is developmentally. That night, I sat down to search for age-appropriate anti-racism resources for 5 year olds, and quickly realized most of what’s out there misses the mark.
I found dense lists of books for older elementary students that lead with heavy historical trauma 5 year olds can’t process, and thinkpieces that tell me I “need to start early” but don’t tell me what that actually looks like for a kid who still thinks broccoli is a personal attack. I vented to a friend who teaches pre-K, and she texted back that the biggest mistake new caregivers make is trying to teach anti-racism to 5 year olds the same way we’d teach it to a teen. That stuck with me immediately.
I’d gotten a free anti-racism workbook for young kids from a parenting group a few months before, so I pulled it out that first night. Half a page in, it was talking about how people were hurt because of their skin color hundreds of years ago, and Lila leaned in and asked, “Do people hurt kids now because of their skin?” I could see her shoulders tensing up, so I closed the book and said we’d read it another time. Later that night, I realized that’s not what 5 year olds need. Their brains are wired to understand concrete, immediate things: fairness, being kind to friends, what makes people different and special. Big, abstract, violent history is too much for them to hold right now. That’s a conversation for when they’re older, not now.
I started small, checking out books from the library that my friend recommended, and almost everything I tried worked way better than that workbook. The best resources aren’t “lessons” at all—they’re just normal stories with diverse characters that feel natural to a 5 year old. The two that became instant favorites in our house are Hair Love by Matthew A. Cherry and The Skin You Live In by Michael Tyler. Hair Love is just a sweet story about a dad learning to do his daughter’s curly hair for the first time. There’s no big speech about racism, just a normal Black family having a normal, messy, loving moment. Lila wanted me to read it three times in a row, and kept pointing out how the little girl’s braids looked just like the girl’s she’d seen at the park. The Skin You Live In uses simple rhymes and compares skin tones to things 5 year olds actually know: cookies and cream, peaches, coffee with milk. No jargon, no scary stuff, just “all shades are good.” That’s exactly what we needed.
My preschool friend also told me about a tiny, low-prep activity that ended up being way more impactful than any book I’ve read. I grabbed a handful of different neutral paint chips from the hardware store on my way home from the library one day, and we sat on the kitchen floor after snack time matching the swatches to each other’s skin, my husband’s arm, Lila’s stuffed rabbit, even the freckles on her cheek. She spent 20 minutes sorting them into “my color” and “your color” and “our neighbor Mia’s color.” It was just a game, but by the end she was saying how cool it is that everyone has their own special shade. That activity cost me nothing, took 20 minutes, and taught her more than any fancy workbook ever could.
I’ve also started leaning into everyday resources that don’t feel like “anti-racism work” at all. I noticed a while back that almost all the books we owned had only white main characters, so I started swapping just one or two books a month for stories with diverse leads that aren’t “about” racism. We added Juna’s Jar, about a Korean-American girl who explores with her jar, and Last Stop on Market Street, about a Black boy riding the bus with his grandma. Lila just thinks they’re fun stories. She doesn’t know she’s learning that people from all different backgrounds have normal, happy lives just like hers. That’s the foundation we need right now. For screen time, Sesame Street’s Coming Together series has 2-minute clips that talk about skin color and kindness that fit perfectly into a 5 year old’s attention span. Lila watched one while I made pasta last week, and walked around singing the “we all have different skin” song for three days.
Last week, we were at the library, and Lila saw a woman wearing a hijab checking out books. She leaned over to me and asked, “Why does she wear that cloth on her head?” I didn’t panic or over-explain. I just said, “It’s part of her religion, something that’s important and special to her, kind of like how you wear your unicorn tiara everywhere because it makes you happy.” Lila nodded, said “that’s cool,” and went back to looking for picture books about unicorns. That’s way better than the fumble I had at the park a month ago.
I still don’t have it all figured out. I don’t have a fancy curated list that works for every kid, and I know in a couple years we’ll need to move on to harder conversations and bigger resources. But right now, for 5, I’ve learned that good anti-racism resources don’t need to be heavy or expensive or complicated. They just need to meet your kid where they are. It’s enough to answer their questions honestly, give them books that show all kinds of people, and play a silly paint swatch game on the kitchen floor. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start, and that’s all we need right now.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What I Learned As A Mom