Friday, July 10, 2015

Teaching Tolerance and Respect for Diversity

How silence can breed prejudice: A child development professor explains how and why to talk to kids about race by Brigitte Vittrup

Talking to our children about topics such as race, disability, and other differences can be uncomfortable.  It is, however, extremely important if we want to build a positive community and gift them with positive life skills.  This article by Brigitte Vittrup shares a few good ideas including sample script for responding to different situations such as a child's observation regarding the patrons at a restaurant and meeting an inter-racial couple for the first time.

“Actually, this is a Thai restaurant, so maybe some of them are from Thailand. It’s a different country than China, and they even speak a different language.”

“When you love someone, it doesn’t matter what color they are” or “Friends come in all colors. As long as they’re nice, they can be your friend.”

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