Anti-Racism Resources for 5 Year Olds: What Actually Works For Everyday Parenting
Last month, I stood at the neighborhood playground holding a lukewarm oat milk latte, watching my 5-year-old daughter Lila climb the twisty slide, when she froze halfway up, pointed straight at a Black woman pushing a stroller a few feet away, and yelled, “Mom! Why is her skin brown like my chocolate pudding?”
The woman glanced over, smiled politely, and moved to the other side of the playground. I wanted to sink into the wood chips under my feet. I’d been meaning to start talking about race with Lila, but every time I looked up resources, I either got dense articles about systemic racism meant for college students, or vague thinkpieces that just said “start early!” without telling me what that actually looks like for a kid who still can’t remember to put her socks in the hamper. That night, I sat on the couch after bedtime and went down a rabbit hole of Google searches, testing every resource I could find over the next month to see what actually fit a 5-year-old’s brain.
The first thing I learned is that most resources out there are either too much or not enough. I checked out a picture book about the civil rights movement from the library first, because it was on every “best anti-racism books” list I found. By page three, Lila was frowning and asking why the grown-ups wouldn’t let the little girl drink from the water fountain. I tried to explain, but she couldn’t wrap her head around why someone would be mean to another kid just for how they looked. By the end, she was asking if that was going to happen to her friend Mia, who’s Black, and I had to spend an hour reassuring her everything was okay. That’s not a bad book, it just wasn’t for 5.
On the other end of the spectrum were all the books that said “we’re all the same on the inside!” Lila looked at me after reading one and said, “No we’re not. Mrs. Lee has brown skin and you have white skin. That’s different.” She’s right. 5-year-olds are concrete observers. They notice differences, and pretending we don’t see them just makes them think asking about differences is wrong. That’s the opposite of what we want, right?
What ended up working were small, simple resources that meet 5-year-olds where they are. The first book that clicked was The Skin You Live In, by Michael Tyler. It rhymes, the pictures are bright, and it just talks about how all skin colors are different, and that’s okay. It doesn’t get into history or injustice—just says skin is the thing that holds you, and all colors are good. Lila spent 10 minutes after we read it matching each character’s skin tone to her crayons, and announced that Mia’s skin is the color of her honey graham crackers. That’s her language, and that’s fine. The other book that’s a hit is Anti-Racist Baby, by Ibram X. Kendi. I thought it would be too babyish at first, but the bold pictures and short lines stick. Lila’s favorite page says “See color. Don’t look away.” She thinks it’s a game to point out all the different skin colors when we go to the park, and that’s exactly the point.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money on fancy resources, either. My sister, who’s a preschool teacher, told me the best anti-racism “resource” for little kids is just normalizing differences in their everyday life. I already had a pack of multi-cultural crayons in the craft bin, but I added a set of multi-cultural face paints to our rotation. Last Saturday, we painted each other’s arms different shades, and Lila painted a little portrait of our whole family that got all our skin tones right. It’s messy, it’s fun, and it’s way more memorable than any book. I also swapped out one of Lila’s old baby dolls for a dark-skinned doll a friend was giving away. Now Lila dresses her up in the same tutus as her other dolls, and it doesn’t even feel like a “lesson.” It’s just part of the toy box.
I also learned that the most practical resource isn’t a thing you buy—it’s having a pre-planned simple answer for when your kid asks an awkward question in public. I used to shush Lila when she pointed out someone’s difference, because I was embarrassed. But that just teaches her that asking about race is bad, which makes her curious in all the wrong ways. Now, my go-to answer is short and simple: “People have different amounts of something called melanin in their skin that makes it darker or lighter, just like some people have curly hair and some have straight. It’s just how we’re made.” That’s it. I don’t add anything else. Last week at the grocery store, Lila asked why a Sikh man was wearing a cloth on his head, and I said “That’s a special cloth called a turban that some people wear because of their family’s traditions. It looks really nice, doesn’t it?” She nodded, said “Yeah, blue is my favorite color,” and went back to begging for goldfish crackers. Done, no awkwardness, no over-explaining.
When Lila came home a couple weeks ago saying a little boy on the playground wouldn’t play with Mia because “her skin is too dark,” I didn’t give her a big speech about systemic injustice. I just sat down with her, asked how that made her feel, and said “That was very unkind, wasn’t it? In our family, we play with everyone, no matter what they look like. That’s our rule.” That’s enough for a 5-year-old to understand. They don’t need big abstract terms right now. They just need clear, simple rules about kindness that they can actually follow.
I still mess up. Last week I caught myself shushing her when she asked about a woman’s prosthetic leg at the coffee shop, out of old habit. And I know we’ll have to move on to bigger, harder conversations as she gets older, and I’ll be back searching for new resources then. Right now, though, this is what works. We don’t need a fancy curriculum or a $50 activity kit. We just need simple, age-appropriate stuff that lets 5-year-olds be 5-year-olds, and teaches them that being different isn’t something to be scared of, and everyone deserves to be treated with kindness. That’s enough for now.
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