The Time Is Now: Talking to Your Children About Racism

At Think Happy Live Healthy, our team is committed to providing culturally sensitive therapeutic services. We stand against racism and are committed to continuing to educate ourselves so that we can best serve our clients and families.

It is important to have conversations with your children about racism and we want to share three tips to help support you:

1. Creating Open Dialogue- Engage in honest and genuine conversations with your children about racism. Encourage them to ask questions about what they may be seeing or hearing from others or on the news. Help scaffold the conversation based on their age level. The first step is acknowledging that an issue exists and discussing the topic of privilege. By being an active listener, modeling vulnerability, and emphasizing that this is an issue that is important to your family, you will help set the stage for encouraging your children to be open to learning, being receptive to feedback, and working to promote positive change.

2. Using Resources to Support Conversations- While adults are educating themselves about race and anti-racism, there are also resources that parents can use to help support these conversations with their children. For younger children, reading a book can be a great way to introduce these topics. If families have older children or teenagers, parents may ask each family member to read the same book and then come together for discussion or watch a documentary together. For more information on anti-racism resources, please check out our resources tab on our website.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

3. Encouraging Ongoing Self-Reflection- From an early age, it is important to teach children about kindness, acceptance of differences, and inclusivity of others and continue to promote these values through family discussions. When having conversations with your children about race and anti-racism, it is necessary to emphasize that these family conversations are ongoing. Talk to your children about the importance of self-reflection for both adults and children and create an environment at home where family members can share and learn from each other.

The time is now. Start having these conversations with your children today! We are here to help support you. Please contact us at info@thinkhappylivehealthy.com or 703-942-9745.