Children and Prejudice - Teach your Child the Natural Way August 24
Have you ever been in the awkward position of having your child make a prejudiced statement in front of other parents? This is mortifying for most adults because they want others to believe that they are teaching their children right from wrong when it comes to the important issue of prejudice in our society. But when you step away from the situation and get your ego out of the picture, you’ll usually find that your child had no bad intentions and that the statement doesn’t actually reflect poorly on your social teaching skills. Instead, it reflects on the fact that your young child is noticing differences in the people around her and she wants to know what that’s all about. Each opportunity that comes up – whether awkward or simply mundane – should be thought of as an opportunity to teach your children about prejudice.
| Children who start learning about prejudice in a natural way when they are young are less likely to exhibit prejudice in their own behavior. This is because it is just common sense to them that all people are to be treated equally. But this can’t be achieved by pretending that all people are the same. While we may all be equal, there are obvious differences that your kids are going to notice. The color of skin, gender of bodies and texture of hair vary from person to person and it makes sense to acknowledge that difference. If you don’t, then your kids aren’t going to take much that you say seriously because it’s going to appear that you’re blind to the world around you. So, instead of teaching your children that we’re all the same, you should be teaching them that our differences don’t matter. |
This sounds like a big task that involves a lot of moral conversations with your kids. While those will eventually come up, the task of teaching children about prejudice is really an ongoing thing that you don’t need to stress out about. It happens every time that you teach your children about differences (“daddy’s a boy and mommy’s a girl”) and every time you encourage fairness amongst people in a group (including your own kids). These basic lessons that you’re already teaching your kids are going to be the foundation for helping them to avoid prejudice later on.
While parents may find it awkward when their kids make seemingly prejudice statements, they find it outright horrifying when their own children are the victims of prejudice. This happens especially as your kids get older and start going to school with a divers group of people. When it does, you have to be sure to work first on restoring your child’s self esteem. Prejudice is confusing for children and it’s your job to explain that it happens and that it is about the person who is being prejudiced, not about your child. At the same time, you need to encourage acceptance of all people, even the prejudiced person, while not condoning the behavior. Every time that you teach your child to stand up for herself as well as to stand up for others who are being victimized, you teach your child how to cope with prejudice in a mature manner.
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