Resource eBlast July 2020 for families of children and youth with special health care needs

A Meeting of Minds and Hearts: Connecting with Teens about Racism, Social Justice, Police Brutality, and Protests On a good day, talking with your teen about how their day went in a two-way conversation can be a challenge…let alone discussing topics such as racism, police brutality, and social justice. Here are some ideas, tools, and resources to become informed yourself and help connect with teens through their media platforms and in their “language.” For conversations with other child populations, check out the last two eBlasts: Connecting with your Child with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities about Racism, Police Brutality, and Protests Talking with Young Kids about Racism, Police Brutality, and Protests

IMPACT

Let's start with some information for you (and it can be shared with your teen too, of course) about the impact of racism on teens and adolescents. How does this bias affect them in the short and long term? Your pediatrician is reading this policy statement in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics: The Effects of Racial Bias on Teens and Adolescent Health

From the American Psychological Association: Becoming an adult in the face of racism: The transition from adolescence to adulthood has unique physiological, psychological and sociopolitical consequences for African-American youth. This article informs not only about impacts of racism but also suggests ways to alter impacts with positive development.

CONNECTION GUIDES

Resources to prepare yourself, organize your thoughts, and connect through media, conversation, or shared action: How to talk to kids about race and racism contains wonderful and relatable advice (such as “actually talk about it,” “navigate their curiosity, or “address mistakes”) with embedded links to books and other media to help connect with your teen. . Have a Teenager Joining a Protest? Talk About Safety First! Keep COVID-19 social distancing while speaking up and out! Great conversational article on how to talk about issues for black and white children around fear, trauma, and understanding of racism and police brutality, guided by questions submitted by families and available in English and Spanish. Ways to help your kids handle troubling news such as racism and violence.

TOOLS

Great article about how black, brown, and white families can start, explore and continue conversations about race and racism using a variety of formats/modalities and media. . This interactive site allows you to search for books about racism and social justice by age group.

ADAPTABLE LESSON PLANS

Summer school is in! Take these as a summer “class,” just read and learn, adapt for dinner table discussion, host a family/friend zoom call. These plans allow you to adapt for the classroom of life: This site is full of definitions, lesson plans, posters, and multiple languages including Arabic and Spanish. Grounded in the 13 principles of Black Lives Matter, these materials are thoughtfully written by educators and organized by grade and school level. Although the ideas, lessons and tools on this site are centered around setting up discussions “in a classroom,” they are easily adaptable for lesson planning in the classrooms of life, like the dinner table, or a Zoom call.

PODCASTS for your teen and for you!

The Talking to Teens podcast features Dr. Tatum (author of "Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?”) includes show notes and scripts to help families start conversations. Code Switch is a top podcast right now. Explore these fearless conversations about race produced by NPR and journalists of color. Code Switch for kids 1619 is a hot podcast right now and for good reason. Beautifully produced and poignant, you will feel transported into history, and not just textbook history but true accounts of history that help to understand how we evolved from slavery to structural racism. Great to listen to on your own or with your teen as conversations that flow from this will be deep and quickly focus on "why" and how do we make the promises of the constitution--"all men are created equal"--finally whole?

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