Tamara Fyke 
edCircuit note: Tamara Fyke wrote this essay in early June 2020, days after the murder of George Floyd, about the conversations with a 17-year-old daughter that weekend. The essay is unchanged below. After it, an update draws on pediatric guidance and research published since then to set out how parents and teachers can talk with children about race at different ages.
I am the mother of three beautiful bi-racial children. Their father and I adopted domestically from the Nashville area because we couldn’t have children of our own and were committed to serving children in our community. My children are now 22, 17, and 14. We have a complex family story. For the past twenty-two years, my children and I have had regular conversations about race and identity. This past weekend, those conversations went to a whole new level.
Last Thursday, May 28th, 2020, my 17-year-old daughter sent me 4 screenshots of a message she had composed for Instagram. “Also should I post this on Insta?” she asked. The picture was a Black Lives Matter banner, and her post stated that even though she doesn’t post much she wants to use her voice. Then she succinctly and eloquently stated her view that black people should not be afraid to go for a run (Ahmaud Arbery) or go to the grocery story (George Floyd). I told her it looked good and gave a quick edit.
My daughter: Okay thanks. I’m proud of myself tbh (to be honest). It’s gotta be voiced and I don’t do it enough.
Me: I’m proud of you too!
Being a thoughtful and intentional young woman, she posted on Friday, May 29th, 2020. Why ask me and why wait? My daughter lives with her dad and stepmom in a predominantly white community. Although she is mixed, she is light enough that she could pass for white. Her post was not just about the events in Minneapolis. It was about identifying as a young black woman amongst her peers. She wasn’t sure how her white Instagram followers would respond to her statement. Would she be supported or ostracized? But for her, it was more important to let her voice be heard than to be popular.
On Saturday, May 30th, while we were FaceTiming and making plans for her to come over, she sent me images of two dark-skinned black women wearing bright orange outfits.
“I wish I could wear clothes like this. The contrast of their skin and the bright colors just pops!” she confessed.
When she arrived at home, she immediately told me about the ever-growing positive response to her post, which had encouraged her to share more. After dinner, we turned on network news because I wanted her to see the extent of what was happening across the country. Until then, she had received most of her news via TikTok. We watched in disbelief as police in Minneapolis threw tear gas and shot rubber bullets at protesters and news reporters, and then we turned to local news, shocked to see our courthouse burning and our city under a 10pm curfew. Both of us were talking with each other, interacting with social media, and texting friends simultaneously. We were engaged with history in the making.
We took a walk on Sunday, May 31st. We reviewed the events of the weekend, discussing the direct impact on her two brothers. Somewhere in the midst of the conversation, I gently asked, “Remember those two photos you sent me of the girls in the bright dresses?”
“Yes,” she responded.
“Tell me more about that,” I prompted.
She went on to tell me how sometimes she wishes she was darker. “I’m light enough to pass, but I’m black.”
“I thought that was part of it, sweetie. Listen, you are a beautiful, strong black woman. And you could rock those bright colors if you want. You’d look great!” I encouraged.
She half-smiled, taking it all in.
This is only a snapshot of our weekend together. I am incredibly grateful that my daughter trusts me enough to process with me, to open her heart and let me in…to give me the privilege of walking with her through the questions and emotions – the anger, the sadness – the pain.
There is no quick answer or easy solution to the events we find ourselves in here in America or the personal impact it has on us as individuals. But what our brothers and sisters in the black community want and need from us is to be heard, just like my daughter.
Here are some suggestions for processing these events with your children of every color:
1. Show them what is happening. – Turn on the news for a limited time (the amount of time depends on their age). Let them see firsthand the events unfolding in our country.
2. Have a conversation. – Ask them what they saw. Let them ask questions.
3. Affirm their emotions. – It’s okay to be sad, angry, scared, and confused. Encourage them to talk, not keep things inside. Let them know they are not alone.
4. Encourage connection. – Remind your children to reach out to their black and brown friends to let them know they care. This is something we need to do intentionally, especially in this time of social distancing.
How to talk to kids about race: what pediatric guidance and research suggest by age
Fyke’s essay shows what many parents want to know about how to talk to kids about race: begin with what the child has noticed, listen longer than feels comfortable, and affirm who the child is. Fyke’s four suggestions at the end, which are to show children what is happening, talk about it, affirm their emotions and encourage connection, were written for a week of national crisis. The guidance below looks at the same question for ordinary weeks as well, when a child asks about a classmate’s skin, repeats something heard at recess or sees a news story. It draws on the American Academy of Pediatrics, on research about when children notice race, and on what teachers report about discussing these topics in school.
Children notice earlier than many adults expect
A common reason adults wait is the belief that young children do not see race. Laboratory research suggests otherwise. In a research presentation posted by the University of Toronto’s education faculty in 2023, developmental psychologist Kang Lee summarizes studies from Lee’s group and colleagues. They found that three-month-old infants already look longer at faces of their own race, a pattern the researchers link to infants seeing mostly own-race faces, and that children aged three to five show measurable implicit and explicit racial preferences. The same work found that training children to tell individual faces of another race apart reduced implicit bias, while simple exposure to those faces did not. These are controlled laboratory studies, many with Chinese and Canadian children, so they show that bias can form early rather than predicting what any one child thinks.
Why parents delay, and what that leaves out
A 2024 study in the Journal of Child and Family Studies by E. E. Coates and colleagues, Preparation for bias decisions and conversations with young children following the murder of George Floyd, asked Black parents whether they had prepared their young children for racial bias after the events Fyke describes. The authors report that the majority of parents of children age six and younger did not. Parents gave reasons that included a belief that young children cannot understand racism, a wish to protect their children’s innocence, and positive views of police. The study is qualitative, built from parents’ own accounts, and the published abstract does not give the number of families, so it describes reasoning rather than how common each view is.
What pediatricians recommend
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ family site carries Talking to Children about Racism: The Time is Now, by pediatricians Nia Heard-Garris and Jacqueline Dougé, last updated in January 2020. Its advice applies across ages:
- Check in first. Ask what the child knows, what they have seen and how they feel, and reassure them that their feelings are normal.
- Limit what children see in the media. Avoid leaving the news on in the background, and keep screens in shared rooms.
- Watch for changes in behavior. Some children become more aggressive and others withdraw or become scared; a pediatrician or mental health provider can help.
- Notice your own emotions, because children read them.
- Use books and other materials when the words are hard to find, and talk about what the family is doing to treat people fairly.
- Model the behavior you want, including how you respond to people who are different from you.
Matching the conversation to the child’s age
The academy’s guidance separates its advice by age in a few places, and these fit Fyke’s experience. For younger children, it recommends telling them what the family is doing to keep them safe and keeping news exposure short, which suggests that Fyke’s first step, turning on the news, suits older children better than preschoolers. For pre-teens and older children, it suggests asking whether they have experienced or witnessed mistreatment or racism. For teenagers, it recommends watching coverage together and pausing to talk, which is close to what Fyke and the daughter did that Saturday night. The common thread at every age is to answer the question the child actually asked, honestly and briefly, and to return to it later.
Fyke’s essay also touches something the general guidance does not cover: a biracial teenager working out how others see them and how they see themselves. Fyke’s response, asking the daughter to say more about the photographs and then affirming the daughter’s identity plainly, is an example of the check-in the pediatricians describe, carried out over several days rather than in one conversation.
In school: the policy setting teachers work in
Teachers face these questions in classrooms too, often under rules parents do not see. Writing for RAND in May 2024, researchers Melissa Kay Diliberti, Elizabeth Steiner and Ashley Woo summarized national surveys of educators. As of spring 2024, 20 states had enacted restrictions on how teachers discuss topics such as race and gender. Fifty-four percent of teachers and principals said there should be no legal limits on classroom conversations about racism and sexism, and about 20 percent supported such limits. Only three in ten teachers in states with restrictions were aware of them, and even where no restriction existed, about half of teachers said they had chosen to limit discussions of political and social issues. The authors note that teachers may also face opposition from families, which reflects real disagreement in many communities about the school’s role.
For school leaders, the practical steps follow from those findings. Make sure teachers know exactly what state and district policy requires, rather than leaving them to guess. Give them a plan for answering a student’s question honestly and at the child’s level, and for telling families when a topic has come up. Work with parents as partners, since, as Fyke’s essay shows, the most important of these conversations usually happen at home.
Further Reading
- edCircuit – #SELChat: It’s Okay Not to Be Okay
- CNN – How to talk to your children about protests and racism
- Education Week – As Protests Erupt After George Floyd’s Death, Teachers Grieve With Students From a Distance
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