Resources for Talking about Race
I am grateful for colleagues who have put together resources for talking about race with kids and mindfulness exercises for healing. I have not yet had time to go through all of these wonderful resources, but I look forward to digesting them.
Black Lives Matter Meditations by Dr. Candice Nicole to help reduce stress and heal racial trauma.
Mindfulness of Injustice by Argos Gonzales (Mindful Schools).
Using Mindfulness for Racial Healing - confronting the rage, soothing the exhaustion, healing the grief
Self-Care in the Face of Racial Injustice by Dr. Joy Harden Bradford (podcast host of Therapy for Black Girls)
Radical Self-Care in the Face of Mounting Racial Stress: Cultivating hope through acts of affirmation
Supporting Kids of Color in The Wake of Racialized Violence Part 1 and Part 2 (by Embracerace)
Racial Stress and Self-care: Parent Tip Tool (from APA's RESilience). This describes caregivers' potential reactions to racial stress or trauma; the impact of racial stress on parenting; and strategies to deal with racial stress and practice self-care.
Engaging My Child: Parent Tip Tool (from APA's RESilience). Includes psychoeducation for caregivers on why they shouldn't avoid these conversations and developmentally responsive strategies on how to engage in Racial Ethnic Socialization (RES) .
Talking With Children About Racism, Police Brutality and Protests (from Aha! Parenting.com). This includes developmentally appropriate guidelines on how to facilitate these conversations with toddlers, preschoolers, school-age kids, tweens, and teens. Referenced here is the infographic on They're Not too Young to Talk about Race.
George Floyd. Ahmaud Arbery. Breonna Taylor. What do we tell our children? This article addressed the questions above, and many more, through the expertise of Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race" and Erlanger Turner.
8 Tips for Talking to Your Child About Racial Injustice (by Embracerace).
10 tips for teaching and talking to kids about race (by Embracerace).
'Raising White Kids' Author On How White Parents Can Talk About Race. In this NPR podcast, Michel Martin talks to Jennifer Harvey, author of Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America, about how to talk with white kids about racially charged events. Related to this is a webinar tonight on "How do I make sure I'm not raising the next Amy Cooper?" with Jennifer Harvey and Embracerace. You can register here.
Utilizing Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as a Framework for Addressing Cultural Trauma in African American Children and Adolescents (Phipps & Thorne, 2019)
EMBRace: Developing a Racial Socialization Intervention to Reduce Racial Stress and Enhance Racial Coping among Black Parents and Adolescents (Anderson et al., 2019)
Bibliotherapy is a powerful medium on how to model and starting these conversations. You can refer to guidelines and books by APA's RESilience; Embracerace; Social Justice Books; Charis Books and More. A personal favorite is Something Happened in Our Town: A Child's Story About Racial Injustice. The story is about two families — one White, one Black — as they discuss a police shooting of a Black man in their community. The story aims to answer children's questions about such traumatic events and to help children identify and counter racial injustice in their own lives.
Talking about Race (launched by the National Museum of African American History and Culture on May 31)
RESilience: Uplifting Youth Through Healthy Communication About Race. (APA). Racial and Ethnic Socialization (RES)
Credit: Ritchie J Rubio, Ph.D., San Francisco Department of Public Health; Updated Resource List here