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Help your child understand the difference between eye contact and full-on staring, which is a really fundamental Life 101-type skill.
One of parents’ biggest jobs is to teach their children etiquette. Not, like, the rules of fine dining (though kudos to any parents of young children who’ve mastered that). But the really big, foundational stuff. How do children show people respect as they move through their days and lives? In what ways are they considerate of others?
And one area that parents of young children without disabilities sometimes neglect? Basic disability etiquette, which is really about setting expectations for how kids should behave, or not, when they meet someone with a disability or any other external trait that piques their curiosity.
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Delays in important conversations about racial identity could make it more difficult to change children’s misperceptions about themselves or racist beliefs.
Few words are more heart-wrenching to hear from your child than “I wish I didn’t look the way I do” or “I wish I wasn’t my race.”
Those words can spring from a variety of painful experiences: A taunting on the playground for having “different” hair. The slow realization that all their favorite library books feature characters who look nothing like them. Or, later on, the microaggression of a classmate saying, “You’re pretty for a girl.”