Promoting Understanding & Acceptance

At a time when we've seen great polarization in our country, I wanted to share some thoughts about humanity and benevolence. Now is a time for unity.

We as parents have the amazing and powerful opportunity to shape the next generation. We can raise children who are caring, compassionate, kind, accepting, and respectful. We can show our children how to creatively and collaboratively come together to solve problems. Start now! Show your children through your own interactions with others that no matter our differences, we all deserve the mutual respect of one another. If you’re watching a television show with your child and an unkind or disrespectful interaction occurs, process this with them. Model empathy. Teach your children that those with different color skins, who pray to different Gods, or whose families have different makeups than our own all share in our humanness and are not to be feared. Look around you. Does everyone in your circle look, think, and act like you? Embrace and celebrate otherness. Take your child to a festival in your community representing another culture or religion. Visit the Center for Civil and Human Rights. Volunteer as a family. Talk with your children about current events (in an age-appropriate way). Ask your children their thoughts about the world around them? Children have a natural curiosity and resilience that we must nurture so that we support their development into open-minded adults.

"...respect is an attitude that we instill in our children as they become school-agers, and responsibility is an act that we inspire in our children as they grow through the middle years and become adolescents.” ― Zoe Weil, Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times

Check out Harvard’s Making Caring Common Project for more ideas and information.