The Covid-19 pandemic unleashed a global health crisis and exposed racial disparities, which, in many ways, heightened ongoing conversations about the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Now — after an unprecedented year marked by physical distancing and social unrest — parents are wondering how to effectively help their children return to a sense of “normalcy” and reconnect with others. As parents work to support this return, what’s “normal” has shifted: the national discussion of what matters is significantly different from pre-pandemic.

According to a recent social discourse analysis that my team and I conducted at Nickelodeon, concerns about children’s social and emotional health during Covid-19 is the second leading topic of conversation among parents of 2- to 5-year-old children (more than 130% higher than last year). This topic is only eclipsed by diversity (which grew by 2022% year over year), with an emphasis from parents on what they can do to raise awareness. That is not a typo — parents’ conversation about diversity has grown by more than two thousand percent.

Helping Children Leave the Family Bubble and Build Diverse Relationships

With the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement and a growing national focus on bias against the Asian American and Pacific Islander and Jewish communities, parents flocked online in the past year to learn more about how to raise their children to be more racially sensitive and accepting. Our research showed that white parents, in particular, are invested in ways to teach their children about racial diversity. Parents of color, meanwhile, are invested in looking for resources that showcase empowering portrayals of people who look like them.

Overall, parents across racial and ethnic groups are expressing a general interest in helping their kids develop healthy relationships with diverse individuals. As families physically isolated during the pandemic, kids spent more time with people of shared backgrounds and perspectives. As social restrictions now begin to lift around the country (albeit at different rates), parents say they are looking for rich opportunities to foster inclusivity and celebrate similarities and differences.  

Help Your Kids Get Ready to Rejoin Our Diverse World

Based on my experience as a researcher and a mom, here are five ways to support children’s social and emotional development and help to reintegrate them into the diverse world in which we live:

1. Try meals from different cultures

Visit ethnically diverse restaurants, or search for recipes of meals typically served in different countries to try authentic cuisine inspired by culinary traditions from around the world.

2. Visit cultural museums

Take trips to local and national museums that introduce children to cultural icons and influences. For example, consider visiting the National Museum of African-American Music in Nashville, TN, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Washington, D.C. or the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, CA. (If you’re still visiting museums virtually, there are many ways to explore art and culture online. Google Arts & Culture is a great place to start.)

3. Read diverse books

Visit the library and select a variety of material (e.g., graphic novels, comic books, fiction, and nonfiction) about people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives to give children a well-rounded view of the many people and places that make up our world. First Book is sharing tips with Big Heart World on how to build a more diverse and inclusive home or classroom library and is sharing some titles that you might consider! 

4. Attend art festivals

Spend time at outdoor festivals to experience paintings, sculptures, music, and dances that celebrate different cultural events and traditions.

5. Support international kids’ film festivals

Attend kids’ film festivals that feature uplifting storylines and empowering portrayals of diverse characters, including BIPOC leads, in short and long-form films. If there aren’t any kids’ film festivals near you, curate your own at home using titles from other recent kids’ film festivals like this.

The end of the school year and the start of summer is a great time to spruce up your bookshelf and evaluate if your home or classroom library celebrates and explores different identities and lived experiences. 

Sprucing up the books on your shelves can create welcoming environments for learning. If you’re in a classroom, that means you’re welcoming ALL students to develop self-awareness, confidence, and pride. If you’re at home, you’ll help your child learn about the similarities, differences, and expand his or her appreciation of others. 

Britt Hawthorne, an anti-bias, anti-racist educator, writes that these questions can help to evaluate a library: “Who is being recognized, represented, and affirmed? Who is being ignored, silenced, and pushed out?” She says “library evaluation” is an important annual activity  that ensures titles are inclusive and represent ideas that help teachers, parents, and caregivers facilitate important conversations about similarities, differences, friendship, race, upstanding, and more. 

Evaluating Your Bookshelf

Many educators in First Book’s Network have shared how they turn bookshelf evaluation into a full classroom activity, allowing students to choose books that appeal to them. Parents can conduct the same activity and ask their children to find books that highlight similarities and differences between people.

When we listen to children, we can more easily spot gaps in the stories on our bookshelves and adjust to fill those gaps. 

For educators who are still in a primarily virtual classroom, you can evaluate your bookshelf independently using tips from FirstBook’s Empowering Educators: Guidebook on Race & Racism. On pages 29-31, you’ll find recommendations for using an anti-bias and antiracist approach to selecting books.

Explore the Storyline

Sprucing up your bookshelf is not a pass or fail test for a book collection. Of course, you should strongly consider removing books that perpetuate harmful stereotypes or invisibility. But there are many fine books that you might consider removing if they don’t contribute to the right overall mix of stories. 

1. Here are some questions you might consider asking as you evaluate the books in your home or classroom library:Does a single story or narrative about a group dominate? For example, books that feature Indigenous or Native American people should include more than folktales from the past, and books that feature African Americans should include more than stories about overcoming oppression.
2. Do we have stories that take place in different geographical settings?
3. Do I have books that celebrate different religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, nonreligious traditions, etc.)?
4. Do we have books with main characters from different countries?
5. Do we have books about Black, Indigenous, or people of color that promote self-love and joy?
6. Do we have books that include a variety of family structures, e.g., nuclear families, blended families, multigenerational families, single-parent families, same-sex-parent families, and childless families, etc.

Please note: If you’re at HOME and not at a school, it’s good to know your gaps so you can think about books to consider buying or checking out of the library in the future. 

Start Cleaning and Restocking Your Bookshelf

As with any sort of clean-up process, getting started is the hardest part. You can do it!

Once you’ve cleared your bookshelf and you’re ready to shop for new, more inclusive, anti-racist titles, eligible educators can visit the Marketplace to discover diversity and inclusion titles as part of FirstBook’s Stories for All Project™. To help you get started, we’ve identified five special edition books educators teaching in Title I schools and programs can add at a reduced cost. (Learn more about these on our list of book recommendations.) 

1. Bilal Cooks Daal, written by Aisha Saeed and illustrated by Anoosha Syed
2. Mommy’s Khimar, written by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and illustrated by Ebony Glenn
3. Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story, written by Kevin Noble Maillard and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal
4. Drawn Together, written by Minh Lê and illustrated by Dan Santat
5. Alma and How She Got Her Name, written by Juana Martinez-Neal (also available in Spanish)

You can also shop by culture, religion, special needs, language, and more. FirstBook’s collection is designed to help educators engage students in effective, courageous conversations about race and social justice. 

If you aren’t an eligible educator teaching in a Title I school or program, you can still purchase these titles while supporting First Book through our Bookshop store, with 10% of your order donated directly to First Book. You can also explore more featured titles and collections via our other Bookshop collections.

Founded in Washington, D.C., in 1992 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit social enterprise, First Book is a leader in the educational equity field. Over its 29-year history, First Book has distributed more than 200 million books and educational resources, with a retail value of more than $2 billion. First Book believes education offers children in need the best path out of poverty. First Book breaks down barriers to quality education by providing its Network of more than 500,000 registered teachers, librarians, after school program leaders, and others serving children in need with millions of free and affordable new, high-quality books, educational resources, and basic needs items through the award-winning First Book Marketplace nonprofit eCommerce site. The First Book Network comprises the largest and fastest-growing community of formal and informal educators serving children in need.

For more information, visit firstbook.org or follow the latest news on Facebook and Twitter.

Even before babies are born, they are listening to the sounds that surround them and learning music, and by the time they are three years old, their brains have made a thousand, trillion connections, says Dr. Eric Rasmussen, the chairman of the Peabody Preparatory’s Early Childhood Music department at Johns Hopkins University. 

“Music does, almost without a doubt, improve cognitive functions — it makes you smarter,” Eric said. “But the bottom line for me is that music just makes us human, makes us the artful, beautiful people we are.”  

Eric said being exposed to music and music education in the early years is a powerful tool that can build multiple parts of the brain, all at once. It can help children to develop fine motor skills; memory; problem solving skills; math and literacy skills. It can also boost social and emotional skills, including perseverance, self-esteem, and relationships with other people. 

“But the bottom line for me is that music just makes us human, makes us the artful, beautiful people we are.”
Eric Rasmussen

For parents, caregivers, and early childhood educators, the good news is that “learning music” doesn’t mean teaching children to count and name the musical notes. Formal instruction like that, Eric said, “gives the brain information and completely bypasses the ear.” Instead, parents, caregivers, and educators should foster “musical interactions” with children that use the ear (and the whole body) to promote meaningful learning. 

5 Ways Parents and Caregivers Can Encourage Brain-Boosting Musical Interactions:

Eric shared five ways parents and caregivers can create brain-boosting “musical interactions” with their children:

1. Sing to your baby without words. “Turn diapering into a song: ‘Doop-a-doop-a-doop-ba-doopity-doop,’” Eric advised. He said he encourages parents to talk in “Motherese,” a sing-song voice that is naturally musical, and to take away the words to create “songs” to share with babies throughout the day. 
2. Sing to your toddler without words. “The brain can’t do music and words at the same time,” Eric explained. “You have two competing things going on.” He said most children are better able to focus on the musical elements of songs without the words. So pick your favorite song and sing it without the lyrics to your child. 
3. Turn conversations into musical interactions. Turn your regular conversations with your child into musical interactions by focusing on patterns. When you point at a bird flying in the sky and say, “bird, bird, bird,” it’s almost like a song, Eric said: “It’s like feeding your child a little, tiny snippet of a melody.”
4. Play music and sing to your child. Depending on the type of learner you have, listening to instrumental music or music with words might help them focus and learn more! So, turn on the music and play together to learn about music itself, and, later, the meaning of the lyrics.
5. Get out your scarves and shakers to encourage your child to move to the music. “Movement may be more fundamental to music education than everything else put together,” Eric said. “Music gives rise to the understanding of rhythm, and rhythm is more fundamental to music than melody. Every melody has rhythm but not all songs have melody. What gives rise to understanding of rhythm is movement.” 

As a third grade teacher at an independent school in Boston, I knew that my school was doing all it could to prepare teachers for the 2020-21 school year. But in the summer of 2020, I was constantly feeling stress, anxiety, and frustration. After being remote for several months, I wondered: Will I feel safe going back into our school building? Is it possible to build a community over Zoom? How will we make sure everyone will follow the health and safety guidelines? What about all the kids in schools that won’t be able to reopen? 

The beginning of the school year always marks an exciting new journey for students, and I wanted to create the same enthusiasm for the new school year that I always had. I didn’t want to bring my negative emotions into my time with the children. I needed to be there for them so that they could feel a sense of normalcy. Now, I laugh that I thought hiding my emotions would help create normalcy.

There was nothing normal about this year.

In the same way that vulnerability in a time of unpredictability is scary and uncomfortable for adults, I quickly learned that the children in my classroom were experiencing those same feelings of worry, fear, and concern. 

What makes children and adults different is that children don’t have the same tools as adults do to process emotions. 

The physical distance we had to keep, not being able to see each other’s faces through masks, and the rigidity and time-consuming nature of the health and safety rules while instituting an important level of safety were obstacles for community building.

Journaling together was one way that my students and I combatted the stress of the year and built community in our third grade classroom, against the odds.

Every day, my co-teacher and I set aside 15-20 minutes to play calming music, sit with our journals, and write with the kids. 

The purpose of this time was empowering students with strategies for calming their bodies and minds, and showing them how a journal can be used as a mode for expression and reflection. As I wrote, I used a document camera to project my own journal.  One day I created a comic strip about what I did over the weekend and the next I wrote a poem about how I miss seeing my grandparents. There were no rules. Want to write a poem? Awesome. Want to draw a picture? Amazing. Need to take the day to just think? Great choice. 

How we set up this space for children has been an important element of its success. The factors that have made this time engaging and meaningful are that the children are encouraged to use real life and prompts to inspire their authoring; they are free to create with or without a set structure; the time is passion-oriented and student-directed with teacher support (Bruyère & Pendergrass, 2020). 

We closed out our journaling time with a share-circle. Sharing was always optional. Some kids chose to share every day. It took other kids time, watching their peers share for weeks before wanting to share. Share-circles offer children an opportunity to build confidence in their writing, reading and even speaking abilities when sharing orally. They help to establish a sense of community and offer the chance to share important home-school connections as well as learn new things about their peers, developing deeper, more authentic relationships with classmates (Routman 2004; Hall 2014).

This year, the transformation and healing that journaling and share-circles brought to each of us as individuals and to all of us as a community, was empowering. In a time and space that can feel so isolating and uncertain, this became a daily moment of community and unity.

Here are a few steps that you can try to encourage journaling in your classroom or home:

1. Find two journals or make your own (fold and staple several pieces of paper together). If you’d like, spend a day decorating and designing your journal with your child(ren) with whatever materials you have available.
2. Find a calm space you can write (or draw) together with your child(ren). 
3. Consistency is important. Set up a consistent time to sit down for 15 minutes and write together. It can be daily, weekly, before bed, at breakfast — whatever works for you. 
4. Offer a few minutes at the end to share with each other. Keep it optional and communicate expectations for feedback. It can be helpful at the beginning to model what it looks and sounds like to share something personal. 
5. Keep it open and have fun!

This week, my four-year-old daughter, Abigail Rose, told me that her best friend had punched her at school. I asked if she had told her teacher what happened and she said yes, and that he had gotten in “big trouble” for what he did.  Rather than being pleased her friend had been disciplined, my daughter was sad about it.   “Mom, I asked Ms. Valerie if his time out could be over because he already said he was sorry, and I already forgave him and he’s my friend,” she told me.  My big-hearted baby girl is growing up so quickly and I am so proud of so many of the choices she makes every day: choices to be kind, gracious, loving, and compassionate. No one is even allowed to kill a bug in her presence because she says that God put her in this world to help care for all creatures, big and small.  So, how did I ever get so lucky? Truly, I don’t think luck has anything to do with it. Children, from the earliest age, begin to absorb everything around them. The things they see, feel, hear, and experience in their earliest years of life become a part of who they are and who they will one day become. Our children may not remember every moment of their early childhood, but what they will always remember is how we made them feel. How I treat them now is how they will grow up to treat others. My Abby is incredibly sweet and a wonderful little human, but she is also sassy and spicy and she gives me a run for my money!  I see so much of myself in her and whenever she is giving me a hard time, I try my best to react in love because I know that on my hardest days, I need a little extra love, too. When she cries because it’s clean up time and the floor is literally covered in toys to the point where you can no longer see the carpet underneath, I validate her feelings and we clean up together because I know how it feels to be overwhelmed. When she is on edge right before her dance recital, I try to remember that she has a tummy full of butterflies and I let her know that it is okay to be nervous and that I’ll be there to support her, no matter what. I live by the golden rule with my children, always keeping in mind how I might feel in their shoes.  My second child, August Rain, was born with a neural tube defect that completely turned our world upside-down. He had a major spinal surgery at four months old, multiple hospitalizations, and a variety of challenges that we faced together as a family in his first two years of life.  There were times I held my daughter as I cried over her baby brother and I would explain that Mommy was feeling sad and scared and that everyone feels those things sometimes but what’s important is that we talk to someone that can help us to feel better, that we cry when we need to and that we don’t try to hide how we feel. I do not hide my heart from my children, I share it with them.  I see now how those experiences have left life-long impressions on my daughter’s heart. Last week, I had a mini meltdown at my computer when August interrupted me for the 500^th time while I was busy working and I just couldn’t hold back my tears any longer.  Abby came up and said, “It’s okay, Mommy, I’m here to help you feel better.” Oh, my heart.  Becoming a special needs mom has made me even more passionate about my mission to spread kindness by raising kind kids.  I believe that the best way to raise kids with big hearts is to parent with a big heart. We lead by example and it can be incredibly challenging to be that role model of grace and kindness all the time but when we see our babies growing into these amazing, compassionate little people, it is absolutely worth it.

Tantrums and meltdowns are high-stress moments for children and caregivers alike. As grown-ups, we want to help children process and control their strong emotions so moments like these occur less frequently. 

But before we can start teaching self regulation — helping children manage their emotions and behaviors — we need to lay the groundwork. Remember: Young children just recently learned to walk, talk, and control their bladders. Jumping right to managing emotions can be a heavy lift! 

Here are three important prerequisites that we should work on before helping children learn to control their emotions: 

1. Put Safety First

Before children are able to self-regulate, they need to feel safe both physically and emotionally. They need to know that their grown-ups support them and are going to listen to them and protect them. You help your child feel emotional security by sticking to a daily routine and by building time into your routine to listen and talk. Knowing that they have your attention gives children a sense of security. It also helps them feel safe to talk about feelings and gives you an opportunity to validate their thoughts and feelings. When you intentionally give affection and praise and even say the words “you are safe,” it helps children feel secure. It seems simple, but it’s powerful, especially after big emotions or moments of uncertainty. 

2. Build Connections

It’s important to build a positive relationship, rooted in trust, before attempting to teach children more advanced skills. You do this by being present and making eye contact; giving a high five or a hug; and playing! When you play together, let your child take the lead. Even 10 minutes a day can make a big difference. This Connected Families video: Spending Special Time With Your Child has more tips on building connections. 

3. Lead the Way

You’re a role model to the children in your life; they will mirror what they see YOU do. When they see you face frustrations and work through them in a positive way, they learn how to do it themselves. You don’t have to give a child a play-by-play of a frustrating work call, but you can talk to them, in age-appropriate ways, about how you feel and what you do about it. Having a meltdown from feeling strong emotions is expected from young children, and we can help them process their feelings by modeling self-awareness and showing them how to express feelings in healthy ways.

4. Introduce the Feelings

Before a child can regulate emotions, they have to know how to identify those feelings with words — from happy to sad to angry. Talk about what our faces look like when we’re sad or what our bodies feel like when we’re mad. (This Connected Families video, Labeling and Acknowledging Emotions, will help learn more about the feelings.) 

After you build trust, help your child feel safe, and guide them in understanding emotions, then you get to work with him or her learning to manage emotions — especially the BIG feelings that can lead to tantrums, meltdowns, and stress. 

All parents and educators want children to feel good about themselves, but what if they don’t?

Don’t worry — not feeling confident at times is normal for many children. There are many strategies that parents and educators can use to help children understand themselves and build confidence.

As a teacher and a mom, this question about confidence reminds me of the story of a student in my 2s classroom years ago. He was really sad at drop-off most mornings and quiet and withdrawn throughout the day. His mother had explained to me that, while her older son had been totally ready for school at 2 years old, she wasn’t sure that her “baby” could manage it. She had resorted to bribing him each morning with a mini marshmallow so she could leave the classroom without a major meltdown, which left him immobile, on the rug, working hard at containing his two-year-old sadness. I guessed that her uncertainty had affected his confidence in the classroom.

Through trial and error, I discovered that I could coax him out of his shell with puzzles. Every day, I greeted him with a new “tricky” puzzle that he would quickly solve. As his confidence in the classroom grew, so did his ability to say goodbye to Mom with confidence and enjoy his day at school. As it turned out, the key to cheerful mornings for this little guy was linked with self-confidence.

For young children, a strong sense of self contributes to self-esteem and confidence. Children who feel worthy and capable perform better in school, and are more accepting of people who are different from themselves.

Here are three ways you can help to boost a child’s self-confidence.

1. Your love and attention builds identity and confidence. YOU are your child’s first and best “identity teacher.” From their earliest moments of life, babies are learning about who they are through their interactions with you and  the other grown-ups in their lives. Waves, big smiles, and loving cuddles teach babies that they are valuable, important, and worthy of love. This works for big kids (and grown-ups!) too. Find time to make them feel like they’re the most important person — give them your undivided attention, listen respectfully to their ideas, and sprinkle compliments liberally.
2. Let them be great. People develop confidence in their abilities through experience. Help your child find something that they’re great at, and give them many opportunities to succeed. Like my little friend from class years ago, that feeling of, “I can do it!” will ripple into other areas of life.
3. Help them feel safe and welcome. Help your child find spaces where he or she can feel a sense of belonging. It may be with your extended family, at a religious or cultural organization, on a sports team or after school club, or simply with other kids on your block. Being with a group who is “just like me” (in  some ways, not necessarily in every way) will help validate that part of your child’s identity.

Sources:

Sixty-one percent of American parents are concerned about their children’s social development during Covid-19. This is approximately the same as the percentage of parents who are worried that their children’s education will be negatively affected (62%). (Source: National Parents Union and American Enterprise Institute, June 2020)

“We are facing a national mental health crisis that could yield serious health and social consequences for years to come.” (Source: American Psychological Association, Oct. 2020)

Nearly 93% of Households With School-Age Children Report Some Form of Distance Learning During COVID-19 (Source: Census)

61% of U.S. households with children report facing serious financial problems during COVID-19. (Source: NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll, September 2020)

Nearly half of parents (48%) said the level of stress in their life has increased compared with before the pandemic. More than 3 in 5 parents with children who are still home for remote learning (62%) said the same. (Source: American Psychological Association: Stress in America: One Year Later, a New Wave of Pandemic Health Concerns, March 2021)

The Economic Impacts of Learning Losses by Eric A Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann (Source: Economic Impacts of Covid-19, OECD, November 2020)

“Children and adolescents are more likely to experience high rates of depression and most likely anxiety during and after enforced isolation ends.” (Source: The Impact of Social Isolation and Loneliness on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in the Context of COVID-19, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, November 2020)