Helping your kids include everyone

The YouTube video attached is one of my all time favorite animated short films. The little blue birds are so into their exclusive ‘only our kind’ club and eliminating all threats to uniformity, that they’re blinded to what’s going on around them.

Children left to themselves tend to act exactly like that. She’s too young to be with us, he’s a boy, she’s my sister not my friend, they aren’t part of our class, club, team, school etc. If we’re not careful we can excuse this behavior as normal childhood antics. However, if we do, these seemingly innocent weeds can lead to full blown exclusive adult attitudes and behaviors such as prejudice and a lack of compassion and empathy for those that are different. Read more