Racism can be a challenging topic to tackle as a family and then couple it with all of the recent events. It is important to not only talk about what is going on in the world with your family in age-appropriate ways, but also highlight people of color that created a legacy through their actions. We share some of our favorite resources and practical ideas for parents to talk about Black Lives Matter with their children including books, activities and discussion guides.
CREATE SPACE TO TALK ABOUT RACE
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to talking about race and racism is that it has been taboo for so long to talk about. So to set a foundation for talking about race you need to create a space that allows everyone in your family or circle of friends to ask questions, make statements and not feel like they will be criticized, make suggestions and share experiences. One way that you can start is having a designated time to do this. It could be weekly or monthly. Initially, it helps to be proactive about it and have that designated time and then once everyone feels comfortable and safe, the conversations can come up more naturally. Each time you talk about race share with the group the discussion guidelines you have set up for the family so everyone is reminded. It is also important to remember to keep your discussions age-appropriate.
I (Mei Ling) had the opportunity to prepare a group of 100 middle school students for their meeting with Nobel Peace Prize Winner Bishop Desmond Tutu. The students came from various schools and backgrounds. They were different ethnicities and religions. Throughout our time at the workshop, we would remind the students of the guidelines for our time together. Initially, they were nervous to talk because they didn’t want to say the wrong thing and offend someone. But as we gave them the freedom to express their experiences and ask questions, it fostered an environment where they felt safe and were able to connect with one another.
A great resource to help build the framework for your discussions is This Book is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons to Wake Up, Take Action and Do the Work.Each chapter highlights an activity that you can do as a family or a group of friends. We like it because it is created with young readers in mind. The activities range from studying anti-racist heroes to creating a comic as a family on how to stand up to oppression and racism. There are discussion questions to guide your time. We like it because it is very practical and gives tangible things to do. There is also a teacher’sand family discussion guidethat is free and you can use alongside the book.
FILM CAN BE A POWERFUL CATALYST TO SHARE EXPERIENCES
So much of my (Kelli) life has been spent consuming film. I love watching movies and my favorite films are always those based on true events or inspired by real people. It’s so powerful to see the world through the eyes of others and as we talk about race and diversity there are few that standout.
I remember having a conversation with Tyler James Williams for the fact-based drama DETROIT (2017) about the 1967 riots and the misconduct of police officers. In real-life Williams’ father served as a New York City Police officer for more than twenty years so how did that shape the way he viewed actions. You can read our full conversation here.
More recently, just in March I flew to Memphis, Tennessee for THE BANKER (2020) starring Samuel L Jackson and Michael B Jordan about two African-American entrepreneurs that hire a white man to pretend to be the head of their company as they purchase real estate in the 1960s. The premiere was held at the National Civil Rights Museum with the iconic Lorraine Motel which is of course where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. One cannot help but reflect on where we are as a country, especially when you see the wreath hung on Room 306.
And, speaking of Martin Luther King Jr., actor David Oyelewo gives a powerful performance as the minister and activist on-screen in SELMA (2014), if you haven’t seen this film, it’s a must see about the campaign to secure equal voting rights and the iconic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Oyelowo also stars in A UNITED KINGDOM (2016) with a storyline very personal to him. It’s the story of the King of Botswana and how his controversial marriage to a British white woman put his kingdom into political and diplomatic turmoil. Not only is Oyelowo’s wife in real life, Jessica, white (she also appears in the film) so there is the interracial marriage parallel but he is actually royalty too. His dad is from a royal family.
All this to say that whether it’s conversations within your family, extended family, with friends or even a country… film allows for a dialogue to begin around a shared experience and then get more personal as individual themes are explored and how they relate to ones’ life.
SHAPING OUR HISTORY BY LEAVING A LEGACY
As you create that environment in your family or group of friends, be proactive about learning about the people that have shaped our history and their legacy. It can start with why we celebrate holidays or inspirational leaders. Another thing that we like to do is take what the kids are passionate about and look deeper at the people are associated with that subject. Growing up, we had to reports for our senior project. I loved baseball and so my friend and I did our project on the Negro Baseball League. We had the opportunity to interview Wilmer Fields. He shared with us that he hadn’t done interviews for quite some time, but he was open to talking with us because we were doing it for a school project. I didn’t fully understand the opportunity we had at the time, but now looking back I am forever grateful and it only deepened my appreciation for the players and what they did.
Create curiosity and then help them explore finding the answers. It could be watching a movie, reading a book or visiting a museum. Some of our favorite resources are The Extraordinary Lives series by Kane Miller. They look at the lives of people like Malala Yousafzai, Rosa Parks, and Katherine Johnson. They are great for young readers and contain illustrations throughout. Another favorite is Amazing Women. It is a collection of 100 lives of women from all walks of life from all over the world. We love how they have it grouped by Trailblazers, Inspiration, Activator, Young Motivator, Creator, and Leader. It enables your child to be able to pick a subject that motivates them and read about several people at one time.
CELEBRATE COLOR AND DIFFERENCES
Art is a family favorite and we color almost every day. When we were kids crayons and markers were not quite as extensive as they are today and accuracy is important. Especially when drawing people and trying to capture the right culture on the page. Faber-Castell has a great line of World Colors and How to Draw Faces set where they are celebrating cultural diversity with their colored pencil sets. The six colors were developed with makeup artists and can be blended to allow any child to draw their likeness. With diversity on the rise, there is an overwhelming need for proper representation in the art world and in the classroom. And since the classroom may be your living room with home schooling this fall, your kids can now draw themselves with confidence and accuracy. Plus Faber-Castell has free lesson plans and activity sheets online too.
Another form of art is the spoken word and your kids might enjoy hearing author Amyra Leon read her poem Freedom, We Sing: https://flyingeyebooks.com/freedom-we-sing/
Our family has this beautiful lyrical picture book from Flying Eye that follows a mother and her child as they dance through questions about life, love and family in the book. It’s also endorsed by Amnesty International for reminding us that we’re all born free and equal.
Another way to celebrate color and differences is by incorporating more books with diverse characters into your home library. We love when books feature characters of all different ethnicities and backgrounds. A great option for older readers that like chapter books is the Game Day series with Australian Olympian and NBA Superstar Patty Mills. Patty and his teammates learn important lessons on and off the court. Another great series is the Lightning Girl series written by singer, dancer and TV personality Alesha Dixon. The series tells the story of Aurora Beam, who’s mom is a secret superhero and now Aurora’s own superhero powers are beginning to emerge. For younger readers, we love the Luna series including Luna Loves Library Day and Luna Loves Art. In Luna Loves Library Day, Luna goes to the art museum with her class and along the way we learn that not all art has to be the same and not all families have to be the same. Our kids adore The Biggest Story, where Errol starts to tell a story and all the creatures in the garden overhear and want to be a part of it!
WE’RE MORE SIMILAR THAN DIFFERENT
In our culture, it can be so easy to point out all of the differences that we have. What we don’t realize is that often creates a gap between people. Instead, be proactive about identifying the similarities or common ground that you have with another person. Start by asking questions to get to know the person and chances are you have more in common than you realize. It can be hard to know where to start, but we find common interests like sports teams or hobbies can be a great place to start.
One of our favorite resources is the Little People, Big Dreams series. From Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Owens to Rosa Parks and Ella Fitzgerald helps young readers discover the lives of those that have shaped history. The premise behind the series is that all of these outstanding people have one thing in common, their life began as a child with a dream. There is even a series of board books for the little readers. Many of the titles have discussion guides for parents and educators to use to ask questions, which we love as it helps us process the story together as a family. Some of our favorites include: Bruce Lee, Frida Kahlo, and Harriet Tubman.
HAVE EMPATHY & TEACH KIDS TO EXPRESS FEELINGS
Do your kids know what empathy is? It’ important to talk with them, and demonstrate, what it means to have the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference. We need to teach our kids how to put themselves in the shoes of another.
Depending on the age of your kids, this can be a tough concept to grasp. It can be as simple as getting your kids to express their own feelings. How do they feel when they are angry? What makes them feel sad? What brings joy? Sometimes you need to start by defining those feelings and a book we’ve loved from Abrams Kids is In My Heart: A Book of Feelings. It explores a full range of emotions, describing how they feel physically, inside. With language that is lyrical but also direct, toddlers will be empowered by this new vocabulary and able to practice articulating and identifying their own emotions.
Once key feelings are identified, a broader conversation can be had about hurt ranging from racism to bullying to gender to disabilities. This became even more tangible once our kids starting playing with Emotiblocks from Miniland where feelings and emotions turn into a game. There are interchangeable “people” pieces (with more than 100 possible combinations) so our kids can create characters. They look at a double-sided activity card showing real children expressing an emotion and then they create it with the faces, pants and hair pieces.
BROADEN YOUR FRIEND CIRCLE
A simple thing that you can do in your family is model for your children is befriending people of different ethnicities and backgrounds. We try to make it a point in our family to teach the children to look someone in the eye, say hi and if the situation allows to introduce themselves. This can be the delivery person, the barista at the coffee shop or a neighbor walking by. I will never forget a friend telling me, “Mei Ling you say hi to everyone and make it a point to be friendly with everyone, the landscapers, the nannies at the park, many of which are from another country.” I never really thought of it as a big deal. She said, “Mei Ling, many of these people are looked down upon or thought of as ‘less than.’” I responded, “I guess part of the reason that I do it is because I ask myself, ‘How am I different than them?’ Yes, I may live in a different zip code or drive a different car, but if I go back to finding similarities or common ground. I can recognize that I am a daughter of an immigrant and very hard-working parents. I used to nanny for different families. A great resource to talk about inclusion and exclusion is Room on our Rock. It is such a unique book in that when you read it forward to back it tells the story of a group of seals that won’t let another seal on their rock. But when you read it back to front, it shows how a group of seals help an outsider.
We have had the opportunity to take our families along with us to media events and press junkets. The boys love everything LEGO and so they were beyond excited to get to go to the LEGO Ninjago press junket. Not only did they get the see the movie, they got to meet many of the voices behind their favorite characters including Michael Pena. So it was a great opportunity for them to broaden their friend circle.
INSPIRE KIDS TO SHOWCASE THEIR SKILLS THROUGH STYLE
Style has a lot to say about how you feel and while we love a full-tulle tutu dress, princess themes, unicorns and ballet, stereotypes are embedded in nearly all kids’ clothing and products perpetuating the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions, particularly in fields relating to science, technology, engineering and finance. Being female entrepreneurs, we absolutely loved it when we found the brand Piccolina.
Everything they make lets young girls know from the time they are toddlers that there is no limit on what is interesting, aspirational or achievable in life! They are dedicated to empowering today’s young girls to become tomorrow’s trailblazers and problem solvers while still being stylish. Whether it’s aviation, chemistry, geometry, or space exploration we love the summer collection with the cutest applique detail to flutter sleeves and ruffled skirts.
Plus their Piccolina Trailblazer Tee series features female visionaries, leaders and pioneers in their fields ranging from Harriet Tubman to Amelia Earheart, Maya Angelou to Rosa Parks, Marie Curie to Katherine Johnson and a portion of the proceeds from the short sales goes back to support non-profit organizations. Did we mention they have matching for mom too?!
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We were given items for review by Abrams, Faber Castell, Flying Eye, Kane Miller, Miniland, Piccolina and Quarto Knows. All of our thoughts and ideas are our own.
