Addressing a Lack of Economic Diversity in Preschool

I was speaking with a colleague the other day, and she shared a dilemma she's been facing with her daughter's Montessori friends. Her daughter attends public school during the year, but over the summer she's been back at her Montessori preschool/children's house program. This program is diverse in many ways, but not economically--most children are from upper middle class backgrounds. My colleague's daughter remarked that the other children at the school were not very nice sometimes, and sometimes acted snobby. My colleague wanted to know how she could support her daughter and the school through this dilemma.

Key Messages

When you're working with children, it's usually helpful to break things down into the most basic messages you can. Nothing is 'too simple' to share explicitly with a young child (or even older children or adults sometimes!). Here are the key messages I would share with the children in this school:

Everyone is trying their best.
We are all people, and all humans deserve to be treated kindly.
Some people in America have more access to resources like jobs, housing, and education. This isn't fair, but it's how our country is set up right now.
Having more of something (car, house, money, new shoes) doesn't make you better than someone who has less.

These messages may seem obvious to us as adults, but are they? The way society and the media push information at us, how many of these positive, equity-centered messages are coming through loud and clear? Which messages do you have to actively think about in contradiction to what you hear and see on a daily basis? My experience is that most of these messages are easy to say but hard to believe when you look around America. The myth of meritocracy is alive, homelessness is effectively criminalized, and public benefits are constantly in jeopardy. It takes active work to build humanist, equity-centered values in young children and in ourselves.

I should note that these messages are intended for younger children (approximately 3-6 years old). With older children, you can introduce ideas of systemic racism, classism, etc. as they are more cognitively able to process societal/structural issues.

Building Awareness

Often young children are saying things that they hear or see in the media or at home without critically examining those messages. Their prefrontal cortex (the home of critical thinking ability) is still developing through the early twenties. This is why you will hear children repeat things when they don't even understand what they're saying, and why all children need support with critical examination of the messages they hear, see, and read every day. As adults with fully developed brains, we can help children think about what they see, hear, and experience, and what that leads them to believe. We can help them question society's messages relative to our values. We can also provide them with experiences designed to expand their awareness of how the world works and then help them process what they experience in productive ways.

Here are some ideas for experiences to help children expand their understanding of economic diversity:

Experiences: If your children spend the majority of their time in class-segregated neighborhoods, try taking a trip to a different part of town to give children a new experience. Visit a restaurant in an area different from yours. Volunteer in a shelter or soup kitchen. Take the train downtown to visit the central library or a new museum. You can do these as a parent with your own children, or as a teacher with your class. As you go about these activities, ask children what they see. Use descriptive, non-judgmental language to discuss things that are different from what they see every day. As appropriate, weave in the key messages above. If you hear children repeating stereotypes or society's judgments of people or places, gently ask what makes them think those things. Help them question what society has been teaching them about the world, and push in an equity-centered perspective instead. Additionally, building human connections as you engage with different communities will add weight to the key messages above. *Note that it's always better to have enduring, authentic relationships with people from different backgrounds, but here I'm acknowledging that these relationships and experiences are not a frequent part of many Americans' everyday lives given the segregated nature of our current cities.
Books: Reading high-quality children's literature can be helpful in raising equity issues with kids in a classroom setting or at home, especially when children aren't exposed to specific aspects of diversity every day. As you read books centered on topics of diversity and equity, ask children what they notice. They may or may not notice the same things that you do! As with field trips, use descriptive language to point out what you notice. Ask children what those things make them think and why or where they heard that. Gently push in equity-centered messages as appropriate for the story. Here are a few high-quality titles specifically focused on economic diversity:
- A Chair For My Mother by Vera Williams
- Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts
- Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña
Conversations: Often topics of equity and diversity will come up in casual conversation with children, because they aren't yet aware of social prohibitions on discussing these topics. It can be difficult to know what to say at first, so be kind to yourself if you have been in this situation and you haven't said the right thing (or if you didn't say anything). Here is some advice on how to approach conversations with your child or small groups of children.
- First, hear more about the situation. If your child is saying something that surprises you, ask them where they heard that word/phrase. Ask them what they think it means. Ask them why they're saying it right now, or who said it at school. As you're questioning, try to use a calm tone and be easy-going. Kids can sense when we are uncomfortable or trying to pressure them, and this can lead them to shut down.
- After you have done some fact-finding, bring some empathy into the conversation. Ask how that statement made [the target] feel. How did it make your child feel? What happened after it was said, and was that a positive thing? Sometimes, gentle questioning can help children realize that the statements they are hearing or making are not kind, not true, or not fair. Depending on the age of the child, you may be able to ask them to share how others may have felt, or you may need to supply these answers.
- If necessary (for example, if your child is not pulling these lessons out themselves), reinforce the equity-centered messages above. Try to refrain from punishments or admonitions like "Don't say that ever again!" - if your child is strong-willed, this may heighten the moment for them and cause them to say it again to test your reaction. Using a calm tone of voice to discuss the situation and reinforce kindness, empathy, and fairness for everyone will be the best bet in the long run.
Also, remember that it's never too late to come back to a topic that made you uncomfortable at first. Choose a time when you are calm and your child is calm, perhaps engaged in a mildly entertaining activity like coloring (not fully immersive such that you are interrupting their attention) to bring up the topic again.

Further Resources

The issue of how to treat others with kindness and fairness despite the differences between you is a foundational topic in early childhood. The ECE field has long discussed this issue, and we have a number of solid resources to address these types of concerns. Of course, the best thing is to be proactive as well as responsive, so experienced teachers will purposefully build in experiences and conversations to bring these subjects to light. We also recognize that as adults, we are constantly fighting against society's oppressive messages ourselves, and thus we also need to do personal work to stay focused on equity. If you are a parent or teacher who needs additional resources on equity conversations in the classroom, here are a few of my favorites.