Age-Appropriate Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What I’ve Tried That Actually Works
The self-checkout beeped twice as I fumbled to bag our cereal and bananas, when my 5-year-old Lila leaned around my hip, pointed straight at the full-time cashier standing by the bagging station, and said, way too loud: “Why is her skin chocolate?”
I froze. My face got hot. The cashier, a woman named Maria who’s rung us up a dozen times, smiled and said “No worries, kiddo, I get that all the time” but I left the store feeling shaky. I knew this moment would come eventually, but I had no idea how to talk about it with a kid who still thinks the tooth fairy leaves different coins for different teeth, and can’t remember to put her socks in the hamper. When I got home, I immediately opened Google and typed “anti-racism resources for 5 year olds” and that’s when the overwhelm started.
Most of the lists I found were full of books about civil rights marches, articles explaining unfair systems to kids, and recommendations for documentaries about segregated neighborhoods. I tried flipping through one of the recommended books at the library the next day, and half the pages had photos of protestors being attacked by police. I closed it fast and put it back on the shelf. Lila still cries if the dragon is mean in a cartoon, that’s not something she can process. I started to think I was doing something wrong—why was all this stuff so far out of reach for my kid?
A few days later, I brought it up to Lila’s preschool teacher, Ms. Mabel, while we waited for Lila to finish digging for pinecones in the playground gravel after school. I told her I couldn’t find anything that made sense, and she leaned against the fence and told me something that stuck. She said 5 year olds don’t think in big ideas or history. They think about snack time, who gets to play on the slide, what color their crayon is. Any resource for them has to meet them where they are, not where we think they should be.
That made sense. I started testing small, simple resources instead of going for the big, impressive lists people post on Instagram. First, I found two picture books that actually work. The first is The Skin You Live In, it’s short, has silly rhymes, and just talks about all different colors of skin, how we all run and play and hug and laugh no matter what we look like. Lila asks to read it before bed at least once a week, and she points to the page with all the kids holding hands and names all her friends that match each skin color. The second is Last Stop on Market Street, which is just a story about a kid riding the bus with his grandma, noticing all the different people in their neighborhood, and how everyone has something beautiful to bring. It doesn’t yell about racism, it just shows a diverse community being a normal part of life. I tried a few other popular books that felt too vague, like one that just repeated “you are enough” over and over, but these two stick because they’re specific and fun.
Then I found that you don’t need a big fancy curriculum to do this. Sesame Street has a bunch of 2 to 3 minute clips on YouTube that talk about different hair textures, different skin colors, and different families. I’ll pull one up while I’m stirring pasta for dinner, and Lila will watch it while she’s waiting to eat. Last week we watched one where a group of little girls braid each other’s hair, and Lila asked why one girl’s hair curls up when she takes the braids out, and we got to talk about how everyone’s hair is different, that’s just how it is. No big lesson, just a casual conversation.
The activity that’s worked best for me is actually super low effort: I got a pack of plain white drawing paper, and we got out red, yellow, brown, and white tempera paint, and mixed our own skin tone paint. I painted mine, Lila painted hers, and when our neighbor’s 5 year old Javi, who’s Black, came over for a playdate, he painted his too. They taped all three up on the fridge, and they keep pointing out that everyone’s paint is a little different, and all of them are good. It’s just play, but it lets them talk about difference in a hands-on way that’s not scary or awkward. Before this, Lila thought she wasn’t supposed to talk about how people look different, which made her more curious and more likely to blurt it out in public. This activity gave her permission to notice and talk about it like any other ordinary thing.
I’ve learned that for 5 year olds, anti-racism work doesn’t need to be about teaching all the hard parts of history yet. That can wait until they’re older, when they can wrap their heads around unfairness that doesn’t happen right in front of them. Right now, it’s about teaching them that it’s okay to notice difference, that difference isn’t a bad thing to ignore, and that it’s not okay to leave someone out because they look different. Last month, at a playdate, a little boy told Mia, Lila’s Korean American classmate, that she couldn’t play princess because her eyes were “weird.” Before I could even stand up from the bench, Lila said “No, they’re not weird, they’re just different. My eyes are blue, her eyes are brown, that’s okay, you have to let her play.” That’s the whole point, right there.
I still check every few months for new things, and I still worry sometimes that I’m not doing enough. There’s no perfect checklist for this. Right now, the simple picture books, the 2 minute YouTube clips, and mixing paint on the kitchen table is working for us. Next year, when she starts kindergarten and asks harder questions, I’ll look for different stuff. For now, meeting her where she is is enough.
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