No matter where we live we must as parents prepare our children for living in a diverse world. If you live in a diverse place conversations maybe easier to start but the majority of us live and move in circles where this is just not true.

We may argue that we see diversity in our media especially in children’s programming they see it and we don’t need to explicitly raise it. Vittrup did an interesting study on this that was reported in Nurtureshock and Newsweek. It cautions our use of “Everyone is equal” as a too general for children to understand about race. We do need to be more explicit about race; however charged the topic maybe.

We all want our children to be unintimidated by differences and have the social skills to integrate in a diverse world. The question is, do we make it worse or do we make it better, by calling attention to race?

Nurtureshock- Po Brosman and Ashley Merryman: Chapter 3

Vittup gives a really interesting interview that’s worth reading.

Young children (e.g., preschoolers) see skin color differences as well, but they do not yet attribute the meaning to race and skin color as adults do. To them it is simply a physical characteristic they are noticing. When they are young, children learn which differences are important in categorizing people and which aren’t…….

So around the ages of 3-5 children develop racial awareness where they are able to recognize racial differences, label the differences, and categorize themselves within a racial group……

After they develop awareness, they develop “racial orientation,” which is when the first positive and negative attitudes about racial groups show up. These are sometimes referred to as “embryonic racial attitudes” and they generally become present around the ages of 3-6. These two phases form the foundations of later racial attitude development……..

Many parents are under the assumption–naïve as it may be–that by not talking about race, children will grow up to be colorblind. Unfortunately, our society is not colorblind, so without parents mediating and explaining to children what they are seeing, hearing, and experiencing, children are pretty much left to their own devices to figure everything out……….

It is vitally important that parents have more explicit conversations with their children–focusing on diversity, equality, respect, and importance across all racial groups–as well as teach them media literacy skills. Teaching them to critically evaluate what they see on television (or video games, computers, etc.) and make them realize that the world of television is not necessarily representative of the real world.

Full interview: Interview with birgitte-vittrup on Racebending.com

Another problem is even if you live in a diverse neighbourhood often we believe the immersion will do the talking for us. Maybe for you it is a diverse school, church  or club. They will be exposed to racial conversations because of a cultural holiday like Martin Luther King day or month long celebration Asian heritage month. Not necessarily so.

Race is a complex issue with no one way forward. As a parent though I need to see how I am contributing to their racial knowledge. How am I  challenging and encouraging? When do I need to remain silent and speak up?

10 Things we can do

1.  Read NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children : Chapter 3
2.  Review the books in our children’s library do they reflect our society?
3. Investigate books which show a diversity of characters
4.  Watch: Kids speak their minds about race
5.  Watch : A Look at Race Relations through a Child’s Eyes
6.  Follow this board for ideas of books
7. Seek our different perspectives by following blogs where families have interracial children or have adopted children from a different race.
8. Create times and opportunities to talk about race on your terms
9. Make a craft.
10. Find suggestions from friends like crafty moms share  Mamasmiles and Adventures in Mommydom

I hope this post has done more than stir up negative emotions. I hope it encourages discussion and helps us all to look at ourselves. What can we do next?

What book have your read or seen that shares a diverse character or characters? Let’s share our favourite diversity books in the comments

Thanks for reading.

Image credit 

Avoiding generalisations and confronting misconceptions around race as parents is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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It’s been an up and down week. Behaviour and tiredness is not a lovely combination. Everyone’s just been very chatty at bedtime. Thank goodness for the weekend. The LO had a great time today at our local toy library. They had put out these glasses for the children to find and use. He much preferred using them as glasses.

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: I vote “YES” for Parenting Classes :: Typecast

Activities for the body: Painter’s Tape Jumping Course / Agility Ladder.:: Pinterest

Goodness for the eyes and ears:David Kelley: How to build your creative confidence :: TED talk

This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 98. Rewind play Playful Stories

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Children will ask questions at times that make you cringe because the comment is said in earshot and often worse we don’t know a good response right now to the question or statement.

It’s terrible. Terrible for us both.

Seeing a child or adult with a disability  is no different.

I wonder who has heard my child shout that comment. I try to convince myself that it can’t be too many?  Yet I feel I need to say something to cover over his missed statement or question but no good idea comes to mind.  Then there are other times and some questions I’m not ready to answer because I don’t have it all worked out yet.  We want to be open and discuss issues but we’d like to control when these topics come up or at least have an opportunity to do more than feel embarrassed, shush them, or pretend that we didn’t hear their comment. Since none of those offer a good solution the question is still there hanging like a ripe fruit ready to drop.

We’re being more prepared by establishing a time and place to start voicing these questions, a place we can discuss things further.

One way we’ve done this is to use TableTopics Family at dinner. The questions are purely random and often pretty deep. Deeper than if we were just sitting at the table and now had to produce a good open ended question that isn’t full of agenda. We have the Spanish/English edition and the questions help us as adults form better answers and give the opportunity to the kids to discuss their answers. It is interesting to see how they take the questions according to their age.  These types of questions have helped us ask our own questions and feed them into the dinner time discussions. We change the questions and sometimes skip questions.

Children and adults have disabilities yet most of the mainstream books we find in our library or bookshop don’t have a lot of children or adults shown with disabilities. Why? How can we teach about disabilities or share these difficult conversations?

It’s probably one of the number one things children do when they see difference- question it.

Books are such an easy way to introduce conversations about disability with our children.

Older kids confusion

As children get older I’ve also noticed how confused they get about things. It’s well worth going back to books to iron our misunderstandings that have cropped up.Younger children are influenced by older siblings, TV and what they hear. Driving the boys around it’s really interesting hearing them make sense of something they don’t fully understand together. Especially how easily they come to a consensus that is just not true. It is often around the tricky issues that no one really talks about like disability, race, puberty and any toilet references. When left to make up their minds an interesting conclusion they make.

If you’re looking for some books on disabilities try the selections below.

Special-Needs Children’s Books Getting Attention ::  Books on disabilities :: book and packs on disabilities

38 book recommendations on disabilities   ::  Children’s Books With Disabled Characters

6 ways to set up a routine around difficult conversations

1. When you are caught short unable to say the right response, acknowledge their response and let them know you’re not sure  and we’ll look into it later.
2. Look into it later. Don’t sweep it under the carpet.
3. Establish a time when you can share questions and offer a rerun of questions from the day. Dinnertime is great
4. Modify your reading books from the library or rotation to include books that feature questions or offer a chance for discussion.
5. Don’t over do it. Little and often works for most families and age appropriate. A topic focus works well for many families especially if it is curriculum based and the material is diverse. Avoiding boredom is the key. Interest and discussion
6. Make less assumptions that they know already. The preschool grapevine and the TV shouldn’t be the only places they receive information.

What ways to do you have to encourage those difficult conversations?

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Guess what?

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: Remembering the Things They Say  :: Picklesbums

Activities for the body: An Active Alphabet for Toddlers :: Having fun at home

Goodness for the eyes and ears: Family Time And Being Together :: Jendis Journal
This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 97. Baby Massage and play

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Have you made seeded paper with the kids?

This is one of our favourite projects. It takes a bit of time that we fill with endless questions and answers. We hit problems and discovered solutions together.  There’s something about tearing paper in a group that allows time for those type of conversations. It’s a time involved process that depending on your climate can take days so they get to value patience. I tell you there is something about working so hard and seeing what you’ve done that’s more than the smile on their face but a big memory too.

We had made seeded paper before without a screen. This time we would do the usual plus a home made screen and shaped seeded paper.

Homemade screen

We used craft sticks glued together with some netting we had lying around.

It was pretty tricky to do with little fingers but we got there with a double frame. The Quiche dish came in handy to help flatten the frame and allow the glue to really stick well. We were able to add books to the dish to weigh it down. Lastly, we added packing tape around the edges to keep it sturdy and protect the wooden sticks. This was really tricky for me. Next time I would trim this tape better.

Paper Preparation

We all watched a movie on family night and tore paper to add to the bucket. This probably accounts for the large pieces of paper in places Collecting all the paper during the week was easy as we swiped it from the recycling. We added a few shredded paper bits as well for colour. Don’t pack the blender too high with paper and add enough water to blend, mash and pulp. We added too much water but it all dries out in the end. It takes a little longer though. Pulse the blender to bring the paper and water to a mush. Being careful not to overwork your motor.

We worked on two different paper types with a different seeds and colours. Sprinkle seeds on top of pulpy paper. Ours was in a large 9x 12 dish. Dip in the mini screen and be sure to get some seeds. The boys looked like they were panning for gold. The screen wasn’t super strong so we devised a way of holding it supporting from underneath and transferring to the towel.

Flip the screen over so the wet paper is face down on the fluffy towel. Press the second or end of first towel, if it is big, on the top of the screen and press. Ease the fragile paper off the screen with a knife if necessary. We have our very own production line. We repeated this process altogether for most of the afternoon while listening to music.

The routine and system was great to see the boys all taking part. Encouraging each other and finding solutions to the problems.

We experimented with shaped paper with the coloured pulp. Push the pulp inside your cookie cutter. Press on the towel to remove as much water as you can. Ease the fragile thick paper out. We lost a few legs and a broken neck as it’s a tricky business but well worth it. With the small  mini frames we had small pieces of paper. Perfect to send in the mail to family. Great to plant in small places in a pot of our garden.

We’re thinking Mother’s day and Teacher gifts

Here’s what you will need

• Craft sticks, glue, netting, packing tape
• Torn paper we stuck to construction paper, old school letters and shredded paper. We added a few odd pieces of tissue paper bits. We didn’t use newspaper, glossy paper from magazines or card.
• Packets of seeds( 3) The larger the seeds the better to see. It was tricky dealing with tiny seeds.
• Water
• Blender
• Cookie cutters
• Patience and a long stretch of time

Another brilliant way to use seeded paper from Jen at PaintCutPaste :: Handmade Bloom Paper

This post is linked with the Come sow with me meme. Lending our voice to ONE  .Bring your seed posts

___

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We’ve been busy rotating books this week.It’s one of those activities that we all enjoy…..a little too much. It shouldn’t take so long but we all get stuck into the new books out after being away for sometime. You can’t really tell your children off for reading. I tried to do a bring 5 swap 5 but I didn’t anticipate they would bring 5 and take 10. We’re still trying to wade through books and find shelf space. Good problem to have.

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: 20 Ways to “Reset” When the Kids Are Having a Hard Day  :: the pennington point

Activities for the body: Montessori at Home: Movement :: carrots are orange

Goodness for the eyes and ears: Interactive opera for toddlers :: BBC News

This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 96. Experiencing play from a diverse perspective

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Friday Finds {04.05.2012} is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Being a new mum overseas lead me to learn very quickly.

By the time baby and I were ready to go out for the day it was nearly 10:30 and more often 11am. Depending on where we were there wasn’t usually a baby changing room or nursing area. We got used to changing in the car, having a bottle of sanitzer and finding a cute blanket to drape over us so he could nurse. No problem there. You looked around and saw what others were doing and just adapted.

This happened a lot.

On being a good wife and mother

Somehow I believed that to be a good mother and good wife the house needed to be neat, tidy and shipshape before we left. Where had that notion come from?

11 isn’t too bad you say. No it’s not in my foggy sleepy place but it was the extras we did because of where we lived. It never occurred to me to do different or be different, consistently. I had the idea but I would fit in and carry on. Tiredness was overwhelming. The problem was that everything closed at 12 for a three-hour lunch except for the restaurants. Everything.

This break in the day when everything stopped and the focus changed to food, community, fellowship and laughter. Right in the middle of your day.

I was just revving up and now we all stopped.  It took months to adapt and integrate.

When I did everything changed. It was less about getting the house ready but us ready instead to be out and about by 9 and back in time for 10:30 nap. Now I could clean or not while he napped. We had lunchtime with friends that lasted hours. Families were together in the middle of the day. This isn’t a fairy tale or a throwback to the good ole fictional days. This was our life a mere six years ago.  There was a calmness and routine to our day that made it easier to cope.

We left that place with two children and stepped into a large suburb that offered 24 hour everything. People grabbed food on the go. No time for stopping. When you’ve experienced different things you reflect more because you see the impacts on your family.

Experiencing difference

Since we had experienced such different patterns for the same period of day. It was easy to see what worked for us. We could see when we needed to ramp things up or when we just had to stop.

When was the last time you stopped and reflected on the pace of your family life? Looked at what clubs and activities your family take part in and wondered if this is working out well for them.

In our bid to raise playful tots this week we are adjusting our community time. For me that’s unlinking my email from my phone. It’s easy for habits to creep on you and become your norm. I heard two important conversations that encouraged that decision. Jon Acuff’s Keynote from Blissdom 12, via Blissdom at home and his spelling story over the breakfast table; listening to Michael Hyatt from This is your life about work life balance while I cleaned one room and dh cleaned another we happened to be listening at the same time. I’ve been wanting to get out of the habit of email checking in the morning. Now I could.

When I look back at our Italian experience and what we’ve become as a family I see traits that started there. There are some things we’ve lost that I want us to find again. It can’t be the same. We are a family of 5 now. We live and work in a totally different way. However we can plan to do better.

This week is screen free week. April 30 to 6th May. Don’t worry whether you’ve forgotten or you can’t do the week. It’s not about all or nothing. There’s a chance here to stop, reflect and make a change. Trains and trucks take a long time to stop let alone turn around. Families can too. But it starts with us.

Take the time to think about how you are using your screens in your home. What are we modeling? Decide what is acceptable in your family?

Don’t just adapt. Make a choice.

What first steps will you take?

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With all the rain this week we’ve been in and out like yo-yos. One hazard of being inside is that I decided to clear up the recycling area. There were partly broken down boxes sticking out everywhere.  After seeing this pin + time inside we came up with a fun play activity on the spot.

You can watch our journey below in these two short videos

Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.

With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.

Enjoy your weekend!

Goodness for the mind: New report shows illiteracy costing the world $1.19 trillion :: National Literacy Trust

Activities for the body: Nursery Rhyme activity :: Totally Tots

Goodness for the ears: Reasons to do Homeschool :: The Simple Mom Podcast

This week on Raising Playful Tots podcast:: 95. Mark Making changing the way we think about writing

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Friday Finds {27.04.2012} is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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