My Child Just Said Something Racist. What Do I Do?

What should you say and do if your child says something racist? Moments when that happens can be stressful, emotional and hard to hear, but I have some suggestions to help guide your reaction that I call the 5 B’s: be proactive, be calm, be curious, be clear and be reflective.

Let’s take a closer look at each.

Be proactive

• Teach children that EVERYONE is important and has value.

• Don’t wait until something racist happens to talk about race.

• Help your children gain a sense of identity by teaching them who they are and where they come from.

• Teach your kiddos that differences are a normal and exciting part of life.

Be calm

• Your child is looking to you to know how to react.

• Don’t overreact or underreact. Overreacting would be shaming your child, and underreacting would be ignoring the situation or sweeping it under the rug.

• Choose to see the situation as an opportunity to teach your family values.

Be curious

• Before you go into teaching mode, ask questions to understand what your child is thinking.

• Ask, “Can you tell me what’s going on?” or “Can you explain what happened to me?”

• Seek to understand the underlying belief your child is holding by calmly asking, “Why did you say that?”

Be clear

• Help your kiddo understand the impact of their statement, even if they didn’t intend cause harm.

• Explain the harm. This can include explaining melanin and making it clear that racism, not skin color, is the reason why BIPOC have been treated poorly in the past.

• Ask your child what they can do to fix the harm.

Be reflective

• Talk about what happened with another adult you trust and share how you think it went. 

• Ask for advice. 

• Ask yourself, “Is there something in my environment that might be contributing to this prejudice or bias?”

• Follow up with your kiddo. Keep the conversation going.