Using proven strategies for guiding kids’ understanding of race gives them the knowledge, empathy, experiences and skills they need to navigate our diverse world and help build a more fair and inclusive society.
Talking to kids about race is good for ALL kids!
Using proven strategies for guiding kids’ understanding of race gives them the knowledge, empathy, experiences and skills they need to navigate our diverse world and help build a more fair and inclusive society.
Kids learn about race early and everyday from many sources. Ignoring what they’re learning about race is harmful - especially for kids of color but also for White kids. When kids are left on their own to make sense of race they are much more likely to internalize biases and have their mental health and emotional wellbeing negatively impacted.
Research on kids racial learning has shown over and over that there are strategies for raising kids with healthy racial attitudes and behaviors and that doing so - including talking about race, racism and racial justice - protects kids and helps them thrive.
And what does it look like to raise a brave generation? What would the world look like if a critical mass of kids of all racial identities grew up with the racial sensibilities, tools and analyses to remake education in this country, remake politics, rethink our health systems, reconsider who we care about and why?
Imagine not having to think about race as a factor in our children’s outcomes? Not being a factor when deciding on schools, neighborhoods, accessing healthcare and good jobs. If we can do that, that’s amazing. That’s profound. That’s transformative.
Start where you are
Raising children who are thoughtful, informed and brave about race takes intention, practice and, at times, courage. You might feel uncertain about when and how to start or how to handle challenging moments. Maybe you’re looking to deepen your skills or find other caregivers who share your values. Wherever you are, this is a place where your journey matters.
Every caregiver’s experience is different. You may be new to thinking about how to support healthy racial learning for the kids in your life. Or you may be already having regular conversations about race with kids and adults alike. Or you may be ready to explore the implications of race and racial justice more deeply. Your approach to race and racism shapes how the children in your life grow into thoughtful, empathetic, and resilient people. By reflecting on your own experiences and needs, you can better support their healthy understanding of race.
Decide where you’d like to start based on your goals and comfort level:
Easy-to-use guides, scripts, stories, and conversations to help you handle tough questions and everyday situations with more confidence. Practical tools help you feel ready for conversations about race whenever they happen.
Explore practical resources
Deepen your understanding of how race works and learn caregiver practices that foster resilience, joy, empathy, and justice-oriented thinking in children. Increase your capacity to navigate complex conversations and situations, and enable kids to do the same.
Discover deeper caregiver practices
You don’t need to navigate this alone. Connect with other caregivers in order to learn with and from each other and to broaden your collective impact.
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Children start noticing racial differences early. They begin to distinguish faces by race at three months old and have often formed racial biases by preschool and kindergarten. They absorb messages about racial identity, fairness, and difference from family, friends, media, and their communities - and they do this with or without our help. Read more.
It’s never too late to talk about race with kids but the earlier the better. Check out our ages and stages page for more on how to communicate about race with kids at different ages. Read more.
Consider moving! Racial segregation is a problem for many reasons, including for raising color-brave kids. We understand moving is often not possible. You can counter the negative effects of segregation on racial learning by seeking out diverse neighborhoods, events and activities with your family. Books, movies and pen pals that expose kids to racial and ethnic differences can also help. The one qualification is you have to be engaged in the conversation about race with kids, too. Exposure is helpful but if you don’t understand how kids are making sense of race, you can’t steer them in healthy directions. Learn more.
Glad you asked! Besides having a diverse library of books, it’s important to take your time and not just read the words - invite kids to read the pictures, too! Books are only tools for conversations if we stop to have them and ask kids to share what they’re seeing and experiencing in the story. Learn more.
Respectfully find the words to tell your relative, in front of your child, that you don’t agree with their comments and that they make you uncomfortable. What you do after that is very context dependent. Have you and this relative disagreed like this before? Are they open to learning? What is their relationship with you and the children in the room? Have you previously had conversations with this relative about not making such comments especially in front of your child? Also, make time when you are alone with your child to explain why you disagreed and how the comment didn’t align with your values. Learn more.
There are always age-appropriate ways to explain injustice - historic or present day - and to do so with care is actually best for their emotional and social well-being. Kids learn about race and racial injustice with or without us. And when they experience, witness or learn about racial injustices without care and when they have not been prepared, the hit to their mental health will be more pronounced. How do we talk about racial injustice with care? Critically, we must have ongoing conversations that engage race and difference with kids, throughout their lives, and those conversations should NOT be mostly about oppression; we must expose our kids to people of color living our lives and making cultural contributions we can learn from that are not directly about oppression. How are we the same? How are we different? And when we tell stories about racial injustice in age appropriate ways, we must also talk about how people resist racial oppression, how they are resilient and how we can all take steps to counter racial and other injustices today. Learn more.
