By Understood
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Have you noticed that your child is paying attention to current events?
Talking about racial injustice with your child can be challenging. In this episode of From Our Family to Yours, we hear from community member Sari, in Minneapolis, MN.
Sari used the protests in her city to teach her daughters about systemic racial injustice. Our expert, Kristin Carothers, discusses how openness and voluntary community service can create radical empathy and responsibility within communities.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:01
Have you noticed your child
00:02
getting worried about current events?
00:04
Are you noticing differences in your child’s mood
00:06
after they’ve seen the news?
00:08
Hi, I’m Kristin from the Understood team.
00:11
Welcome to “From our family to yours,”
00:14
where we share relatable stories and helpful advice
00:17
from community members like you.
00:19
This week’s story revolves around current events
00:23
and how it impacts a child’s mood.
00:25
It comes from community member Sari
00:28
in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
00:30
She writes, “Jocelyn has ADHD, so she never stops thinking
00:35
about the things that are important to her,
00:38
and she worries about things more than the average kid.
00:41
She asks a lot of questions
00:43
about things she wants to understand.
00:45
She’s bright and aware of not just the pandemic,
00:48
but all the racial injustices going on.
00:51
The riots in Minneapolis over George Floyd
00:54
were just five minutes from our house.
00:56
We could hear everything.
00:58
My daughter’s mood has been affected.
01:00
At times, she appears very sad, scared,
01:04
concerned for the future of our country,
01:06
and as minorities,
01:08
for the safety of herself and her friends.
01:11
Every time there’s a new killing,
01:13
she asks me why can’t everyone be treated the same
01:16
when we are all equal?
01:18
It makes her angry, it disrupts her sleep,
01:21
and sometimes she stays up all night worrying.”
01:25
Thank you for sharing, Sari.
01:27
It can be really difficult for parents to understand
01:31
or to realize that their children are impacted
01:35
by what’s going on around them
01:37
and what they see and hear on the news
01:40
or in adults’ conversations.
01:42
When kids have learning differences, in particular,
01:45
they may have difficulty processing the information
01:48
that they are receiving from the environment,
01:50
and they may become even more upset or agitated
01:54
than you would typically expect.
01:56
As the parent of a four-year-old,
01:58
I know that I have also witnessed my child experiencing
02:02
some symptoms of dysregulation or feelings of negative mood
02:07
based on information that he’s seen on the news,
02:10
when I didn’t even know
02:11
that he was aware of what’s going on.
02:13
So I think it’s really important that, as parents,
02:16
we make sure that we are aware that our kids are watching,
02:20
and that we try to give them
02:22
developmentally-appropriate explanations
02:25
about the things that are going on,
02:27
and that we let the kids know that these things
02:30
are also things that are difficult for us,
02:32
and we’re trying our best to manage them.
02:35
Let’s see what else she has to say.
02:37
“Jocelyn helped explain things to her sisters
02:40
and tried to make sure they understood.
02:42
With George Floyd,
02:43
the fact that it was because he was Black,
02:46
and that even though
02:47
we don’t feel negatively towards Black people,
02:49
a lot of people treat them differently.
02:52
We’ve offered an open dialogue
02:54
for whenever our daughters have questions
02:56
or just want to vent their frustrations
02:58
with the news they see.
02:59
We also support any action they want to take
03:02
to express their feelings,
03:03
whether it’s posting a TikTok or visiting a memorial site
03:07
and walking up and down Lake Street after the fires
03:10
to see all the destruction.
03:12
We even volunteered for Jocelyn’s birthday
03:14
to go help paint murals for a business
03:16
that was burned down and had to rebuild.
03:18
They felt so good being involved in something positive.”
03:22
Sari, I love how both you and Jocelyn
03:24
took these challenging times
03:26
and really processed what was going on
03:29
and tried to find ways to move forward.
03:32
It’s nice for older children
03:34
to be able to give their younger siblings or siblings
03:38
developmentally-appropriate information
03:40
about what’s been going on,
03:42
especially when it comes to racial injustice.
03:45
The fact that Jocelyn was able to acknowledge
03:48
that George Floyd was killed because he was Black
03:51
was a major step and was very important information
03:54
for her sisters to know.
03:56
One of the things that you all did which was really nice
03:58
was that you moved things forward.
04:01
You didn’t have control
04:02
over the devastation that occurred in Minneapolis,
04:05
or you didn’t have control over George Floyd’s death,
04:08
but what you did have control over
04:10
was trying to help someone else,
04:12
trying to spread a message of positivity.
04:15
Going and spending Jocelyn’s birthday
04:17
painting murals at a business
04:19
that had been exposed to destruction
04:21
was a positive way to rebuild the community.
04:25
Continuing to acknowledge that specific communities
04:30
are treated unfairly
04:32
was another way to move things forward,
04:35
and to try to make something positive
04:39
from a time that has been really difficult for us all.
04:43
As parents of Black, Brown, and underrepresented children,
04:49
it’s really important
04:50
that we send our kids positive messages
04:52
on racial socialization
04:54
or positive messages about their cultures of origin
04:57
and the ethnic groups that they are members of.
05:00
Kids right now are being exposed
05:02
to a lot of negative content,
05:03
and they may internalize that information
05:05
and then feel badly about themselves.
05:08
We want to uplift our children
05:09
and provide them with positive messages
05:12
and let them know that they have our support,
05:14
and point out to them as many of the wonderful things
05:19
about your cultural group membership as possible,
05:23
so that they know that what they see on the news
05:26
is not reflective of who they are.
05:29
For white parents,
05:30
it’s really important that you teach your children
05:32
to have radical empathy.
05:34
So we may not necessarily understand everything
05:37
about other people
05:38
and it might be difficult
05:40
to see other people’s perspectives,
05:41
but it’s extremely important that we try.
05:44
One of the ways that we try
05:46
is that we acknowledge that the systems
05:48
that those people have lived in or been impacted by
05:51
have been unjust or have not been fair.
05:54
And for that reason,
05:55
their experience of the world may very different
05:57
than our experience,
05:59
and once we’re able to acknowledge that,
06:01
then we do something to help others.
06:03
And we’re not doing this from a place of sympathy,
06:06
we’re doing this from a place of empathy.
06:08
We are all human beings and we all have shared experiences,
06:12
and it’s important that when we see one group suffering,
06:15
that we try to do something to help out.
06:18
If you’ve noticed your child
06:20
being affected by current events,
06:22
let us know in the comments below,
06:24
and check out the rest of the videos in this series
06:26
for more helpful advice and stories
06:28
from the Understood community.
06:30
Until next time, this has been “From our family to yours.”
06:34
Thanks for watching.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video
