George Floyd’s death was a tragedy and a wake up call — expanding a global conversation about race and racism. And young children have been watching it all. So how do we help them make sense of this? Early Risers is podcast from Little Moments Count and MPR with frank facts, engaging stories and real how-tos for anyone who cares about raising children with a clear-eyed understanding of cultural differences, race and implicit bias. Hosted by Dianne Haulcy of Think Small.
Teaching Anti-Racism: Making Sense of Race and Racism for Young Children
In this panel discussion moderated by MPR President Duchesne Drew, early childhood experts shared their insights and answered your questions about how to begin and sustain age-appropriate conversations with young children about this complex and important topic.
Known for her leadership and vast experience in the field of early childhood development and education, Dianne Haulcy serves as Senior Vice President of Family Engagement at Think Small, an organization which provides services, resources, and advocacy for early childhood education in Minnesota. Dianne is actively involved in Little Moments Count, a statewide collaborative of organizations working to help increase parent and community interaction with babies and children.
Following the killing of George Floyd, Dianne wrote a blogpost in which she called on colleagues in the early childhood field to wake up to the reality of racism and implicit bias in how we’re raising and teaching our children. The seed for Early Risers was planted – a podcast about racial equity in early childhood, and hope that we can raise a generation who will bring a new dawn of racial equity for the future.
This special episode sounds a little different than our normal one-on-one conversations. This is an edited recording of the Early Risers event we hosted on June 17th called Teaching Anti-Racism. There is an incredible panel of experts on early childhood, racial identity and racism including Dr. Rose Marie Allen, Dianne Haulcy and Dr. Brigitte Vittrup. It’s a riveting conversation about common barriers to talking about race and racism with young children and what to say to get these conversations going.
In schools and old children’s books, Native people are often talked about in terms of history. But Brook Lafloe has been creating toys and teaching tools to connect all children to contemporary Native culture in an authentic and respectful way. In this conversation with podcast host Dianne Haulcy, Brook shares the traditional Anishinaabe teachings she learned about race and respect. And she shares how caregivers from all cultural backgrounds can adopt this approach to race and help their children connect with indigenous cultures.
This week we’re asking a pretty fundamental question that parents might get from their kids: where does racism come from? In this deep and lively conversation host Dianne Haulcy speaks with Resmaa Menakem - therapist, coach and best selling author of My Grandmother’s Hands. He breaks down how racism is connected to generational trauma and he describes practices that can heal the trauma and strengthen anti-racist thinking and action.
For years, many adults have believed young children are too young to understand race and racism. Some have felt we need to teach our children to be “colorblind” thinking if you don’t talk about race, kids won’t be racist. But thoughts on this topic are changing and people are talking about race and racism with very young children. In this episode, host Dianne Haulcy talks with Dr. Debra Sullivan about why we talk with very young children about race and racism and how. Dr. Sullivan also talks about her book “Cultivating the Genius of Black Children” and how all educational settings can better support and encourage young Black children to feel confident and successful.
It sometimes happens that our loving and joyful young children say something terrible. They can hurt other children’s feelings. And sometimes these hurtful comments are racist. It causes confusion and emotional pain and, long term, it can cause real trauma. How do we help young children work through these experiences? How do we help the child who has been hurt, the child who did the hurting and the bystanders who are impacted?
Early childhood education expert Louise Derman-Sparks shares her rationale and creative tools for teaching white children about race, racism and diversity.
We’re coming to you from Minneapolis, Minnesota where our communities are struggling to process yet another killing of an African American man at the hands of a white police officer. In this conversation, we are focused on our children. How do we prepare them for these events? How do we answer their questions? And how can we build up our BIPOC children so they are stronger than the racism they face? It’s a job for all of us.
This is a quick preview of our new podcast launching the week of April 19th: Early Risers, waking up to racial equity in early childhood hosted by Dianne Haulcy of Think Small.
