What to Expect the Toddler Years (118 page)

Connect your child with his or her roots. In order to feel good about others,
one must first be comfortable with and connected to one’s own heritage—family, ethnic, religious, and/or racial.

Meet your child’s emotional needs. Children who lack for love, attention, or caring may become hostile toward others, particularly when they are under stress or feel life is out-of-control—striking out at others makes up for their feeling unloved and unwanted. Make sure your child feels loved, and he or she will be far more likely to have the ability to love others.

Accept your child. A child who is accepted unconditionally just the way he or she is—differences, imperfections, and all—is likely to accept others the way they are, too.

Help your child to develop empathy. A child who can feel for others will be less likely to do something hurtful, at least consciously. Empathy isn’t a quality toddlers can be expected to develop overnight. Even with regular parental encouragement and parental expressions of empathy toward others, it appears only sporadically before the preschool years, and consistently only once a child has reached the age of nine or ten. But it’s never too early to begin fostering it; see page 42.

Expose your toddler to differences. Children who, from an early age, see many kinds of people from many different backgrounds as part of their lives, are more likely to grow up feeling comfortable with, rather than suspicious of or threatened by, differences. When comparing preschools or day-care facilities, look for one that includes children from different backgrounds, possibly even children who are developmentally or physically challenged. Encourage, too, play dates with children who are socially compatible but not the “same.” If possible, visit playgrounds where a diverse group of children gather.

If all your friends tend to fit the same mold, strive to expand
your
horizons, too. Invite to your home people you’ve become friendly with (either at your toddler’s preschool, through your religious community, or at work) who are of a different ethnic, religious, or racial background or who are physically challenged. If you have an elderly neighbor or an elderly relative who lives nearby, consider inviting them over or visiting them with your toddler now and then. This will not only cheer up the senior citizen you’re spending time with but help your junior citizen to form healthy attitudes about older folks.

Your efforts to bring more diversity into your life and your toddler’s may seem forced at first—gestures that almost border on tokenism. But making those first efforts is an important first step in making diversity a natural part of your lives.

Your options will, of course, be considerably less open if your town is fairly homogeneous, in which case you may need to seek out other ways of exposing your child to a wide range of people; see more below.

Discuss differences. Being exposed to many different kinds of people is important, but not enough. As your toddler grows older, it will be useful to talk about the differences he or she sees. Whenever the subject comes up, explain that everyone’s different from everyone else, that no two people are exactly alike—some are short and some are tall, some have blue eyes and some have brown, some have curly hair and some have straight, some are young and some are old, some walk and some ride in wheelchairs. Point out that your toddler looks “different” to other people, too. Also explain that in most important ways, all people are the same: We eat, we drink, we love, we work, we play, we laugh, we cry.

Celebrate differences. While it’s important to teach a child that superficial differences don’t make a difference, it’s also important to teach a child to appreciate differences. Explain that the world is beautiful not only because it has many different kinds of flowers and trees, but also because it has many different kinds of people. Expose your toddler to this beauty. Attend an exhibit of Indian art at the museum, an Hispanic dance program, a Chanukah festival, a German Oktober fest celebration, an Italian street fair, an African-American cultural arts event, a Christmas concert.

Bring variety into your home, too. Borrow from the library tapes and CDs of music from all over the world, and books that celebrate different cultures and groups. Be sure that the books in your toddler’s home library reflect the diversity of the world we live in. Vary the dolls in your toddler’s doll collection, too. Watch for television shows about children from backgrounds that differ from yours that you can watch together, or DVDs about other cultures. Celebrate your own holidays, of course—when possible, inviting your toddler’s friends and their parents to share the typical foods and customs. But also try to expose your toddler to the holidays that other people celebrate, attending community celebrations, for instance, on Passover, Easter, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, Cinco de Mayo, and St. Patrick’s Day.

Celebrate similarities, too. Show your toddler that as different as people can be from each other, they are the same in many ways. That while your child’s best friend goes to synagogue instead of church, they both pray; that while the little boy in day care can’t hear, he likes to draw and build tall block towers, just like your toddler; that the very large woman she saw at the restaurant has red hair, just like Grandma; that the man in the wheelchair has a beard, just like Daddy. Finally, even though there are many ways in which she is different from the girl who lives across the street (she has eyes of a different color, different hair, different skin color, celebrates different holidays), there are also many ways in which they are the same (they’re the same age, same height, like to play on the swing, love pizza).

Answer questions about differences. Don’t let embarrassment prevent you from answering questions your toddler might have about differences he or she notes in people (“Why is Andrea brown?” or “Why does Carmela’s mother talk so funny?” or “Why does Sam’s father walk with a stick?”). Instead of changing the subject (which might lead your child to believe that there’s something embarrassingly wrong with the difference), provide a simple but complete answer. (“Andrea has dark skin, just like her mommy and daddy and her little sister” or “Carmela’s mother comes from Mexico, where they speak Spanish; she’s just learning to speak English” or “Sam’s father walks with a stick because his leg is weak. The stick is called a cane and it helps him to walk better.”) If you find yourself without an answer and need more time or more information to formulate one, say so. Then take an appropriate book out of the library, and find the answer to your toddler’s question together.