When Do You Discuss/Study Slavery with your Children?

[mom2bee]

So I am creating this thread to prevent the derailment of another thread about Slavery in Sonlight.

 

But I'm intensely curious: When do you study/discuss Slavery/Racism with your children?

 

I guess I am thinking directly about the history of slavery here in the United States of America and how it applies to our countries unique history, but slavery/subjugation/maltreatment of fellow human beings has been a global issue since time began it seems, so if you study any aspect of slavery with your children, please share.

 

When do you discuss it, how do you discuss it at various points in your childrens education? Do you feel this is something to be left for middle/highschool/college level?

[Farrar]

I think it's something best considered earlier rather than later. Of course, the more violent and horrific aspects of slavery can wait until middle and high school, but there are excellent picture books on the topic and there's especially rich materials for upper elementary.

[EKS]

When it comes up.

[mom2bee]

I think it's something best considered earlier rather than later. Of course, the more violent and horrific aspects of slavery can wait until middle and high school, but there are excellent picture books on the topic and there's especially rich materials for upper elementary.

When you say earlier rather than later, do you mind Ker? 2nd grade? I am not trying to be obtuse, I am trying to understand a responsible and sensible approach to what is neccessarily such a sensitive subject for so many.

 

 

Also, how do you broach this subject with young children? Do you use picture books, anecdotal information, documentaries?

How do you balance bringing up informed vs ignorant children when the topic is something like slavery, race-prejudice and human subjugation of some of the worst kind?

[Spryte]

I think it's something best considered earlier rather than later. Of course, the more violent and horrific aspects of slavery can wait until middle and high school, but there are excellent picture books on the topic and there's especially rich materials for upper elementary.

 

This. Slavery is a huge part of human history.

 

Racism we have discussed as it comes up since, well, since DS was too small to really know what it means. He hears our conversations, we talk to him, and he has a good sense of our thoughts on it.

 

Honestly, I worry more about how to broach the subject of Americans treatment of Natives during westward expansion until the present than I do about how to approach slavery.

[Crimson Wife]

With my younger kids, I try to keep a more positive focus by highlighting those who fought against slavery and discrimination. That goes along with my general approach to U.S. history- that we haven't always lived up to our ideals of everyone being equal, but over time we are making progress towards that.

 

There are a lot of good picture books about the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights era.

[Homemama2]

We discussed it lightly when it comes up it history for the young ones. Then the older they get, the more in depth we discuss it. When my oldest was in first grade and we were studying American history we talked about it but kept it very simple. My son's best friend was black so we discussed a lot of it in terms of how the two boys would have been treated differently, how their families would have been treated etc. That helped him grasp the idea of how "bad" and "unfair" it was. Now that we're studying American history again this year (5th and 3rd) we've discussed how they physically treated them so horribly, how they would separate families etc. without being extremely graphic. We plan to handle the holocaust the same way next year....and then save the real in-depth discussions for high school. We handled the treatment of the Native Americans in the same way.

[stripe]

I have discussed racism since my children were very young. I felt it was important to head off the view that one group is superior to another, and that stereotypes about various cultures (including their own) should be accepted. I have discussed positive and negative stereotypes (e.g. good at sports or good at math, as well as smart, "better," more trustworthy). My kids are aware of history. We have covered American slavery as it has come up in the topic, so chronologically, we began with Native Americans, then discussed the treatment of Native Americans when talking about European arrival, then discussed enslavement if Africans when it occured historically. We do not have a strictly European focus in our home or school.

 

Eta: This has also come up during trips to museums. As my children have found some content very upsetting, I do not make an enormous deal about it and try to spin it as advice for them about how to treat others and understand others' reactions to them.

[Aslana]

I told my kids as soon as they were able to understand what I meant. By understanding I mean: "Slavery is when someone thought it was okay to own another person. They did not treat this other person very well. You know what own means, right? Well, back then, slavery meant a white person owned a black person and those black people were often punished (like spanking, only much much worse) in very mean ways. They were taken from their families, forced to work in fields for their owners and do things that you and I would never accept today as right."

 

I understand how limited that is and how extremely general that is. But I had to word it that way because I was speaking to a then 4 and 8 year old. We lived in a very dicey neighborhood then, and they often wondered why certain groups of people treated others poorly (in our case, the minorities in our neighborhood were very mistreating of those they felt mistreated them in the past). So I had to explain that it was not right for anyone to treat anyone else this way, but that there were some people who felt it was okay to treat us this way now because of the way they were treated.

 

That's how our discussion started. Once I got past that, I was able to fully discuss slavery and the whys behind it. So basically, I was very open with them from a very young age. I had no choice but to be.

[texasmama]

Slavery and civil rights issues were introduced early in our history studies. The holocaust was discussed, as well. My boys were in 1st and 3rd grade when we began our first round of American history. I kept the information at an age appropriate level. Next year will be our second round of American history, and my boys will be 5th and 7th grades. We will go into more depth with the information. I don't avoid difficult topics at any age, but I am careful to keep the information at an age appropriate level so as not to overwhelm them emotionally with content that is too mature. We have many freeform discussions during this process. I feel very comfortable tackling difficult material and judging what my kids are ready to manage on an emotional level.

[Aslana]

Oh and to add this: Since I had to be so open so young (something I am not against at all), I decided it was best to show them all the things a poster above said she wouldn't. It was much better to show them the reality of these things earlier on, from actual sources, than it was for me to try and fumble and find the right words or the cutest book that could it explain it to them on younger terms. I just do not believe in doing that. I've always maintained as I stated in another thread, history is ugly, mean, and nasty. To do anything but the truth is sugar coating the reality. It was so much easier for me to just handle it from a source document standpoint, than it was for me to do the cutesy book standpoint.

 

Your mileage may vary and all that.

[mom2bee]

When they are very young they aren't going to understand it like you understand it. KWIM? You may know all the REAL details of it, but you don't need to get that deep until later on.

 

I think I understand what you mean. I know more of what happened and I have a greater understanding of the material, but giving them appropriate portions and doses of the story is my main focus and goal.

Honestly, I worry more about how to broach the subject of Americans treatment of Natives during westward expansion until the present than I do about how to approach slavery.

 

Just curious, why is this more worrisome to you than slavery? Again, I'm only trying to pick other brains because they seem so much better than my own. I don't doubt for a second my ability to teach things like reading and math to young children. I have done it before, I found it manageable and extremely rewarding, but for something like history, it is such a broad subject, it can be done so masterfully or horribly and lately I have been trying to wrap my head around teaching something so open ended well. When I look at the work that many HSers do, I am in awe and inspired but still kind of clueless. I feel quite small in comparison.

With my younger kids, I try to keep a more positive focus by highlighting those who fought against slavery and discrimination. That goes along with my general approach to U.S. history- that we haven't always lived up to our ideals of everyone being equal, but over time we are making progress towards that.

 

There are a lot of good picture books about the Underground Railroad and the Civil Rights era.

Okay I will begin researching. When I think about it, you are most likely very right. I remember reading biographies of various Black Americans as a kid and being able to feel proud and connected, even though there were many darker parts of the story. I remeber Harriet Tubman, George W. Carver and many others being heros to me, and while I was aware of factual slavery, I have to say that I think I took away more from the positive than I did the negative parts.

 

Thank you all for your replies. They are helpful to me as I turn my thinking and planning toward new subjects. I really appreciate the dialogue.

[Joker]

We discussed it very early. All of dh's siblings are adopted and all different races. They heard conversations early about some being treated differently due to skin color. Their questions about those conversations naturally brought about discussions on history, slavery, and mistreatment of people due to differences. It just seems to come up naturally in our conversations from time to time.

[mom2bee]

I've always maintained as I stated in another thread, history is ugly, mean, and nasty. To do anything but the truth is sugar coating the reality. It was so much easier for me to just handle it from a source document standpoint, than it was for me to do the cutesy book standpoint.

 

Your mileage may vary and all that.

See, this is the way that I tend to feel about things. Just be straight, honest and open to the best of my abilities. I am currently against the idea of sugar coating any of the usual things that are deemed "tough conversations" for kids (i.e: sex, slavery, prejudiced, drugs, violence, etc...). If something is natural or fact, then children have a right to it. That is the way that I feel, but I am often told that I will traumatize or ruin/spoil my kids development by this approach. My driving philosophy is something along the lines of "children should be raised to leave their parents and thrive, so equip them for that."

 

I was not a "typical kid" I was always a little more...intense, than many of my peers. I hated being fed watered down versions of fact or truth. But I also understand that people have reasons for what they do, and I'm just trying to understand. I am really trying to. I want to balance my own issues with doing a half way decent job with educating a kid.

[Aslana]

See, this is the way that I tend to feel about things. Just be straight, honest and open to the best of my abilities. I am currently against the idea of sugar coating any of the usual things that are deemed "tough conversations" for kids (i.e: sex, slavery, prejudiced, drugs, violence, etc...). If something is natural or fact, then children have a right to it. That is the way that I feel, but I am often told that I will traumatize or ruin/spoil my kids development by this approach. My driving philosophy is something along the lines of "children should be raised to leave their parents and thrive, so equip them for that."

 

I was not a "typical kid" I was always a little more...intense, than many of my peers. I hated being fed watered down versions of fact or truth. But I also understand that people have reasons for what they do, and I'm just trying to understand. I am really trying to. I want to balance my own issues with doing a half way decent job with educating a kid.

 

I was that kid. I questioned everything. My mother had to constantly come up with answers that were not the typical "because" answers. I read a LOT. And I raised both of my girls to do the same. While neither of them are the voracious readers that I was or that I want them to be, both of them are very well equipped to know how and where to look stuff up if it doesn't sit or sound right to them.

 

I, personally, do not and never will believe that I am traumatizing my kids with the truth. It's traumatizing to lie. It's traumatizing to sugar coat. It's traumatizing to wait until you feel they are older. If they ask the question, I am going to answer it. Immediately and truthful. Even if it makes me uncomfortable. Even if they appear to be "too young" for it. They wouldn't ask if there wasn't a need or a reason for it.

 

That said, I think you should go with YOUR gut. Not the gut of someone else. It perturbs me when I read posts that ask "should I" and the consensus says "no" and the person asking simply says "okay". I'm being very basic with that explanation but it does bother me. Do what YOU feel is right. If your philosophy is to have children raised to leave and thrive, then raise them to do so; which means equip them with as much of the truth as you can. But that's just me. :D

[Pen]

So I am creating this thread to prevent the derailment of another thread about Slavery in Sonlight.

 

But I'm intensely curious: When do you study/discuss Slavery/Racism with your children?

 

 

Here, "discuss" and "study" are different. "Slavery" and "racism" are also different. Slavery here in US was certain groups in particular, not just Africans, though that was a large part of it of course. Racism applies to many groups here.

 

"Discuss" came up early, the first I recall for sure was when we ran into things that brought up such issues, particularly racism (unfortunately) at around age 5ish (which was soon after my ds came to me via foster care/adoption--had I had him earlier the timing might have been earlier).

 

"Study" particularly as to slavery not for the first time until we began US History this year at age 10. Though it had come up earlier (for US and elsewhere) with SOTW, reading Time Cat, illustrated Bible stories and so on, but I would not say it was "studied" at all until this year. It was also this year that my ds first saw Star Wars where Annakin is a slave when we first meet him, and this year when we read through Exodus around Passover time.

 

Whereas racism as an issue comes up more often in daily life--though less than when at a B&M school, and was "discussed" earlier, I am not quite sure what studying it would mean. It has certainly come up as part of history studies--especially reading Howard Zinn and James Loewen. But I am not sure it has been "studied" any more than slavery was studied when it came up in SOTW.

 

I guess I am thinking directly about the history of slavery here in the United States of America and how it applies to our countries unique history, but slavery/subjugation/maltreatment of fellow human beings has been a global issue since time began it seems, so if you study any aspect of slavery with your children, please share.

 

Yes. Via history studies. Via discussions when watching movies. Increasingly via choosing materials that bring it up such as John Adams, film version, The Civil War Journals, Gandhi movie version, Martin Luther King, Jr. materials, and so on. We have not yet taken on the holocaust, but that will come too. We live in an area that has migrant farm workers and tribal areas--but these are somewhat hidden--I have been looking for ways to make them less hidden.

 

We have seen places where the Occupy movement has set up a rally, and have talked about that--

things going on now, and here, not just from the past,

and a past where from a child's POV anything back in the nineteens (so include 1999)

is pretty much ancient history.

 

 

When do you discuss it, how do you discuss it at various points in your childrens education? Yes. Do you feel this is something to be left for middle/highschool/college level? No.

 

 

In everyday life the biggest issues are how to deal with racism when we are the objects of it, and how not to be racist with regard to others, not even unconsciously so. Our own family is a "melting pot" and it does not seem possible to not actually be aware that there are races, ethnicities, religious groups...

yet to realize that on an individual level as well as universally we are all One-- that is possible.

 

To understand also, that many in our society do not agree with that idea, that too is present day reality.

[Hunter]

I don't focus on any one marginalized group, but spend a lot of time teaching the Declaration of Human Rights. I don't teach black, women's, disabled, gay, children's or any other type of rights. I just teach human rights. These videos are coming from a slant that that is unpalatable to conservative right-wingers, but they are an easy if narrow introduction.

 

As for slavery, I am very careful to teach the FULL history of slavery and refuse to elevate the history of of any one time and place as more significant and horrible. And I teach slavery as ONE of the MANY horrible human rights violations.

 

I had one mental health professional label what happened to me in my past as "torture". Every day women and girls (and some boys) are tortured right in their American homes by "upstanding" citizens. This is a PERSONAL violation that happened to me, but still I don't focus on women's or children's rights. I don't think I am racist to not teach American slavery as a stand alone topic. It's all about what it means to be HUMAN to me.

 

I start with what it means to be human and how humans SHOULD be treated and stick there, until a student is ready for examples of violations. The positive comes FIRST.

[beaners]

My main problem with the way US slavery is covered for elementary age children is the "Rah, rah North!" "Boo South!" oversimplification. I was literally taught that people in the South were bad because they liked slavery, but people in the North were good because they didn't. There is so much nuance to the way people throughout the US reacted to slavery, that I find this a repugnant representation of the actual history. Discussions of the Civil Rights Movement follow a similar pattern. A lot of young children can understand that someone can do something good for the wrong reasons and that people are not only good or bad. It's also beyond a lot of young children to make those distinctions. Not to mention the fact that children often take away something very different from these discussions than what we have intended.

 

My children have talked about it briefly before Kindergarten. They know it happened. At the age of my children, I spend more time focusing on the idea that people can look different but still like the same things and be good people.

[texasmama]

Coming back to add that I take the approach of presenting the facts as best as they can be determined (given that every historical writing has some sort of slant) and allowing my kids to think/feel what they will about it. These are complex issues, and all opinions are welcome during discussion. I am teaching them to be thinking people. In the course of discussing difficult and painful and horrific historical topics, they form beliefs about these on their own. I consider it my job as a parent/teacher to give information at an age appropriate manner and their job as individuals to form their own opinions about the information. There is no white-washing involved, but I am conscious of the developmental stages of my children when giving information. Thus, the topics are introduced early, and the depth of the information is given in layers as they mature, if that makes sense. As another poster stated, I believe that each parent should evaluate their own children's needs/maturity/personalities/etc. IMO, there is not a "one size fits all" approach to how to do this and do it "correctly". My approach is informed by my professional experience as a therapist with kids/adolescents, which likely has both positive and negative affects in practice regarding homeschooling my own kids.

[stripe]

My main problem with the way US slavery is covered for elementary age children is the "Rah, rah North!" "Boo South!" oversimplification.

 

And it also implies that just because slavery wasn't practiced in the North, that everyone there was not only sympathetic to, but an activist in favor of, civil rights and racial equality, which was certainly not the case.

[MeganW]

My kids heard about slavery first at Sunday School when they were preschoolers (Israelites being slaves of the Egyptians). They came home talking about it, and said "that was a really really really long time ago - so glad we didn't live then", and so I explained at that point that not nearly so long ago, we had had slavery in America.

 

So we started talking about it when they were very young!

[Crimson Wife]

I've always maintained as I stated in another thread, history is ugly, mean, and nasty.

 

 

This is one of the biggest problems I have with how modern PS teach history. I am an optimist and while I certainly have no desire to whitewash history, I strongly believe in presenting an optimistic view of history. Even while the darker parts were happening, there were people who recognized them as very wrong and bravely fought against them. I hate, hate, HATE the whole "doom and gloom" treatment of history that is so popular in PS today.

 

Was the past perfect? Of course not. But over time the mistakes of the past have been acknowledged and where possible, corrected. I think it is very important to foster patriotism in our children and an optimistic POV in general.

[Hunter]

My kids heard about slavery first at Sunday School when they were preschoolers (Israelites being slaves of the Egyptians). They came home talking about it, and said "that was a really really really long time ago - so glad we didn't live then", and so I explained at that point that not nearly so long ago, we had had slavery in America.

 

So we started talking about it when they were very young!

 

 

And slavery is still taking place, now, all around the world. It never stopped happening. It is not legal in The USA, but it is still taking place here too.

[PachiSusan]

We have talked about it on and off for a few years. (Girly is 10) It all came to a head when we were watching "Quantum Leap" as a family. Sam leaped into the life of a young black Pre-Med student who worked in the Watts area during the riots. It was raw and disturbing and a little less than half way through it we stopped it and had a long discussion about racisim, slavery, and why one of the characters was so very angry at the world. She was very very upset about it and got really indignant. "How DARE they think they can own people??"

 

I don't believe in whitewashing history or anything else, but I do my best to talk about things at her level and when she's ready. Sometimes life just presents the opportunity and you have to do it regardless of whether you are "ready" or not. I have been told that we tell Melissa too much too soon. I hope not, but we have always done what we felt best at the time.

 

Now that I think about it, "Quantum Leap" was the impetus for the "birds and the bees" talk too.

 

Dangerous show!!! :lol:

[Aslana]

 

This is one of the biggest problems I have with how modern PS teach history. I am an optimist and while I certainly have no desire to whitewash history, I strongly believe in presenting an optimistic view of history. Even while the darker parts were happening, there were people who recognized them as very wrong and bravely fought against them. I hate, hate, HATE the whole "doom and gloom" treatment of history that is so popular in PS today.

 

Was the past perfect? Of course not. But over time the mistakes of the past have been acknowledged and where possible, corrected. I think it is very important to foster patriotism in our children and an optimistic POV in general.

 

I strongly disagree, but I cannot put into proper words why I disagree. Everything in my head is screaming right now, at this statement. I think I need to acknowledge the fact that you said it and simply bow out for a brief moment while I go beat up the voices in my head. I'll still disagree with you, but at least I can put it into words then.

[reign]

Slavery has come up repeatedly since my girls were fairly young. I'm a bit obsessive about going to the library and have therefore encountered many books on slavery. I mean really it's all over history. I'm in the Detroit area and we have been to several American slavery related museums/exhibits.

[corduroy]

We have not yet talked about slavery, but we've talked quite a bit about what happened to Native Americans when Europeans arrived. My child is young, so the way we talk about it is not terribly sophisticated, but we do talk about it somewhat regularly. It's important to me that he have a better understanding of early US history than I did! It is particularly important to us that his sense of the agency of the peoples involved is accurate. I think the racism in a lot of texts about Westward expansion and slavery is not of the obvious type, but of the more pernicious type that casts Indians and Black folks as passive recipients of the hostile or helpful actions of white people.

 

So I guess my approach, such as it is, is to do things like attempt to select picture books that show people of color who have agency in their own lives, are the star of the book, etc. More so than "Now let's read this book about civil rights". Sometimes this is pretty easy (there are lots of excellent, entertaining picture books that feature a Black protagonist.) And sometimes it feels impossible, like when I wanted to find some books that explained Thanksgiving, and everything I looked at that was appropriate for a little kid featured the same old set of canards about how the Indians were so nice and shared with the Pilgrims and everyone was the best of friends.

[Dahliarw]

My kids have known the basics of what slavery is since they were really young. It comes up in the Old Testament (usually starting in Sunday School with Moses). All 3 of my kids could probably tell you that being a slave means you have to work for someone and you don't get paid. My oldest would probably add on that a lot of the times slaves were not treated very nicely and were beaten. But that's pretty much all they know for now. They don't need to know specific horrors and things like that yet.

 

Next year as we go throught world history to 1850, I know I will go on a bit more about it with my boys. Things like the conditions on slave ships and such will come up. But I do plan to minimize the nastiness of it all for now and try to keep it age appropriate. Givings kids who are not ready too much information on a topic can be really overwhelming and stressful for them. But I do also pay attention, if they want to know more, then I feed them bits and pieces until they feel satisfied with the level of information the have. All kids are different, and what one 8yo can handle may be way too much for another 8yo.

 

On a related note of the less desireable aspects of history, my kids know about Hiroshima and the A-bomb from when we went there. But they pretty much just know that the US dropped a really big bomb on Japan to try to end a very long world war and that a lot of peaple died. We did not tell them about nuclear fallout, radiation poisoning, injuries and suffering, etc. That is stuff they just don't need to know yet. (and we did not take them into the museum there for that reason as well).

[Pen]

And it also implies that just because slavery wasn't practiced in the North, that everyone there was not only sympathetic to, but an activist in favor of, civil rights and racial equality, which was certainly not the case.

 

 

 

It was also practiced in the North. Most of us received very poor educations so that we think it was not in the North, or so that we think the West was not affected. And that is not much corrected by current curriculum materials either.

[Pen]

 

This. Slavery is a huge part of human history.

 

Racism we have discussed as it comes up since, well, since DS was too small to really know what it means. He hears our conversations, we talk to him, and he has a good sense of our thoughts on it.

 

Honestly, I worry more about how to broach the subject of Americans treatment of Natives during westward expansion until the present than I do about how to approach slavery.

 

 

 

Don't know the age of your dc, but somewhere in the Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose series books, Laura is in a debate for the entertainment of their town, where the topic to be debated is whether Native Americans or African Americans (by whatever terms were being used then), were worse treated. That could give you an entree. As could the differences in attitude toward Natives as depicted for Ma vs. Pa Ingalls.

[Pen]

See, this is the way that I tend to feel about things. Just be straight, honest and open to the best of my abilities. I am currently against the idea of sugar coating any of the usual things that are deemed "tough conversations" for kids (i.e: sex, slavery, prejudiced, drugs, violence, etc...). If something is natural or fact, then children have a right to it. That is the way that I feel, but I am often told that I will traumatize or ruin/spoil my kids development by this approach. My driving philosophy is something along the lines of "children should be raised to leave their parents and thrive, so equip them for that."

 

I was not a "typical kid" I was always a little more...intense, than many of my peers. I hated being fed watered down versions of fact or truth. But I also understand that people have reasons for what they do, and I'm just trying to understand. I am really trying to. I want to balance my own issues with doing a half way decent job with educating a kid.

 

 

 

I think it is possible to to be straight, honest and open without traumatizing children.

 

I think sometimes it can be better to wait till a child seems old enough to be able to be honest with the child, rather than presenting a sugarcoated version at a younger age. I am concerned about sugarcoating with storybooks and making things seem okay when they are not okay.

 

It is also, IMO, helpful to present multiple sides and view points. To present complexity. Such as that Jefferson was apparently against slavery and yet had slaves. And I like to bring in present dilemmas, such as that i would like to not use so much fossil fuels, and yet that I drive a car...and that, I suppose somewhat like Jefferson, I cannot figure out how I can manage my circumstances without doing so. (This is applicable at our present stage.)

 

When in doubt, I tend to think erring on the side of too young is better than too old, because I want mine to learn about things like sex and drugs and so on that you mention from me at home first, not from a stranger, and not to have a first exposure be a solicitation.

 

Racism come up in our society, so far as I can see, very early and very widely upon contact with the world. So, I think it needs to be dealt with early.

 

 

I do also think there needs to be sensitivity as to age and understanding. Not just with regard to traumatizing a child, but also to not go over their heads entirely, and also not to present things in a way that normalizes that which is abhorrent.

 

From my own childhood, as an over their heads example, my parents thought they were being very open about sex (as their parents had not been with them) from my earliest ages, such that they thought I understood it at age 2, but the explanation was so incredibly scientific and complex that while I supposedly "knew" all about it, could do an excellent "narration" back showing my understanding--I actually did not really know anything of importance at all. It was not until as a 4 year old, when I let out my in-heat dog, that I finally grasped how puppies came about, and how the sperm met the egg. I was not trying to be "bad" and do something that was forbidden (as my parents thought)-- but words like "fallopian tubes" "gestation" or "fertilization" or "embryos"--while meant to give me full information-- had left me clueless that my action in opening a door at that time would be likely to lead to puppies. It was also too scientific and factual, too little giving me an emotional and social understanding. These are things I have tried to do differently. I think successfully.

 

 

I think, similarly, young children need to know in concrete real terms about how behavior of others and themselves should be so as to achieve fairness and justice without regard to the things -isms are made of. The word "racism" itself is a bit grand for a toddler. But the idea of "fairness" is something that toddlers seem to grasp, and they complain of things being"unfair" when that is their perception. So it is a great time, IMO, to include within their ideas of fairness things that include not being racist, and not standing by when others are. Including everyone on the playground in their games and being nice to that person-- regardless of that person's skin color, or whether that person wears a different sort of clothing than they do, or goes to a different sort of church, temple, mosque, or to none-- that is the sort of thing a young child can understand and apply. It makes the subject real and important and relevant to their own lives, rather than abstract and distant and apparently about something from the past or about other people elsewhere.

 

In many of these areas that you mention, I have tried to keep my explanations to what I feel are honest, but not gone on beyond what was needed, by asking something like "Is that enough of an explanation for now, or do you want to know more?" And, "Was that clear and do you feel you understand now, or did I not really answer your question?"

[stripe]

It was also practiced in the North. Most of us received very poor educations so that we think it was not in the North, or so that we think the West was not affected. And that is not much corrected by current curriculum materials either.

 

You're entirely right. My phrasing was awkward; I meant the idea that around the time of the Civil War, the North was a bastion of racial justice and home to abolitionist activists, and that all those who did not own slaves, did it as a form of protest against the institution.

 

Reading what Thomas Jefferson, slave owner and father of Sally Heming's children, whom he also "owned" and refused to free, had to say about black people is hard to stomach. I am not sure how to remain upbeat about that.

http://www.historytools.org/sources/Jefferson-Race.pdf

[Kathryn]

We first discussed it in any detail at age four when we were going through the "What Your Preschooler Needs to Know" book and came to Abraham Lincoln and MLK Jr. We talked about it a few times the next year, but not in a purposeful/curriculum-guided way. Then, at age 6, while doing Sonlight's Core A overview of history, we discussed it again and then reading through "A Child's History of the World." This year, at age 7, slavery has been discussed a good deal in our ancient history year. I expect it will be touched on next year as we go up to the founding of America, and then in much greater detail the year after as we study the 1800s.

 

I've never hidden the dirty details of history from my son. He knows about slavery and its effects. He has ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War and he knows that. He knows about genocide, both ancient and modern. My family were victims of both Stalin and the Nazis and he knows that.

[stripe]

Don't know the age of your dc, but somewhere in the Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose series books, Laura is in a debate for the entertainment of their town, where the topic to be debated is whether Native Americans or African Americans (by whatever terms were being used then), were worse treated. That could give you an entree. As could the differences in attitude toward Natives as depicted for Ma vs. Pa Ingalls.

 

If you want to use Little House books, there is plenty about savage Indians especially as expressed by Ma, and Pa dresses up in blackface, so there is more than one opening to that conversation...

[laughing lioness]

It first comes up in the Bible or ancient history studies and then as we read/study history. Usually when they are in early eled.

My 10 yo is fascinated right now by civil rights. We watched the Help and she wants to watch it over and over. She is having such a hard time wrapping her brain around lack of options and why cruelty was tolerated by the individual. We've had many, many discussions about slavery and it's fall-out since.

 

My younger kids have been exposed to a wider range of topics at a younger age than my olders by the simple fact that they (have) live(d) with more adults than kids. We deal with it as they have questions.

[Korrale]

Earlier this year I read the book Who Own's the Sun to my 3 year old son. It is a beautifully poetic written story about slavery.

It was able to open up a dialogue for us. And he was able to come to his own ideas about it being right or wrong without my impression of it.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Owns-Sun-Stacy-Chbosky/dp/0933849826

[pitterpatter]

Thanks for the heads up...I didn't remember this. DD loves Little House books. We've read the first aloud and will be progressing through the rest.

 

OP, perhaps it depends a bit on your children and family environment? Our extended family is multiracial. At six, DD is not mature enough and is not sensitive enough to emotions to handle the material as it pertains to American History. She has no filter, so we will be waiting until we get to the material during the fourth cycle of history. We don't focus on slavery during ancient or Biblical history as a race issue. Right now, DD understands slavery as a bi-product of being conquered by a more powerful kingdom/people. 

 

Don't know the age of your dc, but somewhere in the Laura Ingalls Wilder/Rose series books, Laura is in a debate for the entertainment of their town, where the topic to be debated is whether Native Americans or African Americans (by whatever terms were being used then), were worse treated. That could give you an entree. As could the differences in attitude toward Natives as depicted for Ma vs. Pa Ingalls.

 

[mamawaabangi]

Two of our children are black... while this could complicate our discussions I have found that this is a basic understanding of what needs to be told to a child staring in kindergarten depending upon their sensitivity levels:

 

- Slavery has always exhisted.

- Slavery isn't about skin color or ethnicity, it is about what ever people group is in power at the time inposing power over another people group.American slavery was defined by white land owners buying typically african slaves who they used as workers on their farms, but that isn't a world wide picture of slavery. Whites enslaved whites in fudel England/Ireland, Egyptians enslaved Israelites, Muslim blacks enslave Christian blacks in Africa today, Children are enslaved in Asian, etc...

- Slavery looks different in different cultures and in different time periods, Greco/Roman slavery was very different than American/Modern Slavery.

- Today slavery is as bad as it was in the past, we just don't know it because it isn't something people like to talk about because it would require us to change our practices (what we buy and eat).

- Racism, "white privilege" and those kinds of concepts aren't too big for little children, we talk about them often, but I also think that it is probably wise to let a child have a ideal concept of themselves and others until they personally take note of it. When they do, as a parent I think the considerate thing to do is to talk to your child about race and adoption and trans-ethnic families and explain that "race" isn't a true thing, ethnicities are. There is only one human race, with multiple ethnic groups. In those groups people vary in color and types. We need to know that in the US stereotypically black men are feared or treated with some level of suspicion, but they are just men like other men. Additionally, we need to understand that white people automatically have a benefit for being white... people generally assume the best in them while that generally isn't done for people of other skin tones or ethnicities. Also please explain adoption and trans-ethnic families and that a white child can have a brown skinned mom or vise versa... and that is normal and a "real" family just like more typical families.

[Heartsjoy]

I don't focus on any one marginalized group, but spend a lot of time teaching the Declaration of Human Rights. I don't teach black, women's, disabled, gay, children's or any other type of rights. I just teach human rights. These videos are coming from a slant that that is unpalatable to conservative right-wingers, but they are an easy if narrow introduction.

 

As for slavery, I am very careful to teach the FULL history of slavery and refuse to elevate the history of of any one time and place as more significant and horrible. And I teach slavery as ONE of the MANY horrible human rights violations.

 

I had one mental health professional label what happened to me in my past as "torture". Every day women and girls (and some boys) are tortured right in their American homes by "upstanding" citizens. This is a PERSONAL violation that happened to me, but still I don't focus on women's or children's rights. I don't think I am racist to not teach American slavery as a stand alone topic. It's all about what it means to be HUMAN to me.

 

I start with what it means to be human and how humans SHOULD be treated and stick there, until a student is ready for examples of violations. The positive comes FIRST.

 

My children had a foundation of how evil and broken our world is starting with ourselves.  Forced slavery is just one of the many examples we cover. As far as how detailed to describe or look at, my children have always clued me in to when they want more information and when it's overwhelming them. I just respect their individual boundaries and limits.

 

The second part of my children's foundation is similar, I treat you with respect for your person and property because you are not mine but God's.

 

These two foundations have made it relatively easy to discuss the horrors in our world. The truly difficult things to teach are where I have a bad habit myself and need to help train my child not to the same bad habit. That's where the rubber really meets the road.