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Quote of the Week
"When I see you through my eyes, I think that we are different. When I see you through my heart, I know we are the same." --Doe Zantamata
How To Raise Kids Who Are More Tolerant Than You
Globally we are in a time of intense political partisanship. One new study from Stanford University even found that most Americans now identify more with their political parties than their religion or ethnicity—a mindset that, if unchecked, can breed hostility and discrimination. As parents, we don’t want to model this kind of dismissive thinking for our children, and thus contribute to an even more polarized future.
So, how do we avoid programming children to think badly of people they’ve never met? How can we help them to keep open hearts, in part so that they can make up their own minds about the issues they’re going to face as citizens, as they grow? This week's article by Dr. Maryam Abdullah, Parenting Program Director at the Greater Good Science Center, dives into five practices that can help you raise kids who are tolerant of diverse perspectives.
Reading Corner
 Title: Six blind mice and an elephant
By: Jude Daly
Ages: 4-7
"Six blind mice are roused from sleep by an unfamiliar scent, and they follow it until they catch scent of a cat. They hide, listening to the gathered humans marvel about this “elephant,” and when the people leave, they follow the scent again. As the mice each find a different part of the elephant, they all describe what they’ve felt as if it were the whole elephant. By now, the elephant is awake and explains that they’re all “a little bit right,” but they’ve each described parts of a whole elephant. It drifts off to sleep, and the mice tiptoe back home, squeaking about what they’ve learned. In a note, Daly explains that her book is based on the 19th-century poem by John Godfrey Saxe, itself based on an ancient Indian fable told by Buddhists, Jains, and others (and retold in many picture books before this), but Daly has added an ending so the mice learn the whole truth...[ ]... Sweet illustrations and an updated ending to an old fable allow the moral to come through without the conflicts of earlier versions." --Kirkus Reviews
Recommended by Kindful Kids Editors
Be The Change
Watch this beautiful video version of a classic Dr. Seuss children's tale on what happens to a community when they only look at their differences.
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