How to Teach Your Children to Embrace Diversity

Growing up in a more rural, midwestern community, I wasn’t around many people of color and topics of race were rarely discussed. Racism wasn’t something I became keenly aware of until I went to college.  Throughout college, I heard from people of color sharing their stories and asking me to think more deeply about privilege and inherent racism. I learned, I listened, I developed friendships. I worked with people in poverty, saw the devastation of the inner city, studied urban sprawl and saw illiteracy in cities made up primarily of minorities. 

My worldview expanded and as I got married and had my own children, I vowed to help them love no matter the color of a person’s skin nor the way they dressed or looked. Some ways we helped shape and mold their young hearts was through books, beginning with the Rainbow Fish, I Am Special, and God’s word, which teaches us that God so loved the world, the whole world. Books as they got older included those about the Holocaust-Number the Stars and The Diary of Anne Frank, non-fiction about the Civil War, slavery, Martin Luther King. When our kids grew older, we took them to serve at soup kitchens so they would see the reality and effects of poverty, yet remember how loved each individual was by God. We purchased items for Operation Christmas Child talking about children around the world who did not have a Christmas tree or presents. We sponsored a family by buying chickens to provide for those in third world countries. We sponsored a child near each of our four children’s ages through Compassion and invited them to write letters, build friendships, understand how these children lived so differently than them, yet they too were loved by a compassionate God.

Every experience with those of a different race, every word we spoke about people in poverty was about how loved they were and how we should love and accept them too. These moments matter. They build belief systems, values, compassion. 

Consider how you are teaching your children to see the world around them, are you teaching them to notice the forgotten, the impoverished, the marginalized. How are you modeling generosity and humility in a broken world? How are they learning to treat children with special needs? 

Now my children are nearly grown, many of their best friends are different ethnicities, they choose on their own to serve the poor when they have opportunity. It is important to reflect on how their worldview has been formed, what lessons were important for them. Here are five important ways that we tried to model compassion for others:

1. Read books about acceptance of skin color and those who are different than you.
2. Give generously and recognize the value of belongings, practice gratitude and help your children donate out of their abundance.
3. Build relationships with people of color, people with different socioeconomic status than you.
4. Use positive language about and embrace different cultural music, dress, traditions 
5. Seek the heart of Jesus for people, learn how he loved all people. 

We change this world by teaching just one to think differently, love differently, accept differences. I vowed to begin with my own children and am so grateful to see their hearts open to love all people. I pray you will consider being intentional with your children in the little moments that truly matter to teach and model the love of Christ to the world.