Tolerance: Sorting Things Out
Children are amazingly tolerant and judgmental at the same time – at least mine are. One day, they will breeze past a situation in the grocery store that very nearly made me circumnavigate the batteries just to avoid an unfortunate comment. While the next day, they point out a minor difference that I hadn’t even noticed. Loudly… and embarrassingly.
From an early age, I’ve seen both my daughters sort the people of their world into categories. The first was girls versus boys, much to the dismay of my inner feminist-public-policy-major. From there, they began noticing those who have cats (like us) or no cats or dogs or hamsters other exotic housemates.
Some days, it seems they believe there are two kinds of people in the world: us and them. This judgment carries no malice. Not yet. It’s just an almost-three-year-old and newly-five-year-old’s way of understanding things. For now.
But these judgments reminded me to guard against an inherent danger in all of our family volunteering efforts. I would hate to impart to my children that “we” are the “helpers” and “they” are simply and permanently “people who need help.”
This is an important lesson in the introduction of our Executive Director Jenny Friedman’s book The Busy Family’s Guide to Volunteering.
“All of us are givers and receivers, contributing what we can and benefiting from the bounty of what we obtain from others. It is critical that we help our children understand the cooperative nature of community service, encouraging them to value and respect those who benefit from their family’s volunteer efforts, and also to appreciate those individuals and families who have improved their life through kindness and service.”
I have worried that these little projects don’t just give a sense of control and “I can help,” but also the sense that issues like poverty and homelessness are easily solved. For example:
One paper house + one letter to Senator Klobuchar = problem solved.
Perhaps that’s over analyzing a kitchen table activity with kids under six, but as they grow some negative messages will stick. Stereotypes will be unknowingly reinforced. Complex problems will be be over-simplified and unfairly attributed to specific segments of our population.
How do you teach kindness and generosity without also conveying a sense of superiority?
This post is getting long enough, so I’ll simply pass on an incredibly useful tool, designed for teachers but helpful for parents.
Teaching Tolerance: A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center offers an array of classroom activities teaching difference, compassion, and tolerance for all ages. The activities are sorted by age, so I was able to quickly find a few projects to bring home to my kitchen table. I’ll share how they work for us soon.
Tags: Parenting Challenges
