Parent & Teacher Discussion Guide
Parent & Teacher Discussion Guide
Embedded Files
Want to raise socially just kids?
The overarching goal of this book is to help teach children about positive gender diversity and promote inclusive behaviors and attitudes. When you read this story with your child, you might wonder how to incorporate this story and the messages into you and your children’s discussions and daily lives. This discussion guide will provide you with some pointers on this process.
Use more specific language and less generic language
Our brains naturally like to organize our experiences into categories to be more efficient. These categories, however, can lead to biases when applied to other humans in a social environment.
Specific language refers to statements that make observations about an individual (e.g. when you see a girl wearing pink and say “that girl likes pink”).
Specific language teaches children to make observations about individuals and avoid making assumptions about an entire group of people. This helps dampen the development of stereotypes and biases.
Generic language refers to statements that make an assumption about an entire category of people, based on an individual or single experience (e.g. when you see a girl wearing pink and say “girls like pink”).
Avoid rigidity and stereotypes
There are many negative gender stereotypes that exist in our society. Avoid feeding into these stereotypes by limiting the content with gender stereotypes to your children when possible.
Not all stereotypes seem negative, but in reality, the rigidity of any stereotype can be harmful. This includes preference stereotypes, such as girls like pink and boys like blue. Promoting gender diversity by explaining to your kids that there are multiple genders and people of all genders can like different things.
Initiate discussions about how people are unique; focus on personality characteristics and attributes
We want to acknowledge that people are different in demographic aspects, such as gender, race, and abilities. Kids are naturally curious and observant, and they notice that people are different. Avoid general language that implies “everyone's the same”, and promote gender diversity by explaining that there are a variety of genders and other factors that make everyone unique, and that it is normal and okay.
In addition, ask questions and state observations about the other ways people are different in positive ways. (e.g. “Sarah is such a hard worker!” or “Ben is so kind to his friends!”). This teaches them to focus on these types of positive attributes in themselves and others.
Contribute to the discussions by incorporating your own experiences and reminiscing on how you have dealt with gender stereotypes in your life. This further establishes an emotional connection between you, your child, and the narrative that you are discussing.
Activities
While reading the book, initiate conversations about the story and the characters by asking your child for their thoughts and reactions:
When a character is expressing an emotion through the image or words, ask “What emotion do you think ____ is feeling right now? Why do you think that?”
When a conflict arises, ask “What do you think ____ should do now?”
On each page, there will be an example discussion question to initiate a conversation about the story.
When you have finished the book, discuss each character and their attributes. Ask questions that focus on their positive attributes such as:
“What is ____ good at?”
“What makes ____ a good friend?”
“If you went to school with these characters, who would you want to be friends with and why?”
Continue these conversations in your family’s day-to-day life. Help your child make connections between the themes of the book to their experiences:
If your child is experiencing a conflict on their own, lead them to make connections to the story and your discussions:
“When ____ was sad, what did they do to feel better?”
“When ____ needed help, what did they do?”
About The Authors
Daria Tsybina
Daria is a student at Pacific University, Oregon majoring in psychology. The culture she comes from is marked by deep-rooted gender biases, dictating gender roles and expectations. By creating this book she aims to foster societal changes in her home country by sharing knowledge she received in the United States.
Maya Deferme
Maya is a psychology student at Pacific University. Growing up in a gender-inclusive household, she sees the importance of education about positive gender diversity, and wants to contribute to a more gender-inclusive society, one child at a time!
Page updated
Report abuse