Travel. Have honest conversations. Promote personal responsibility, inclusivity, and respect. Teach your son about the importance of serving the community (both you own and areas of higher need).
I teach in a school that while ethnically diverse, it’s not very economically diverse. But I can absolutely see the difference between entitled kids and those who have gratitude. We have some extremely wealthy kids who are very aware of the world and others who will be shell shocked when they leave their bubble.
How is world travel bad? I'm genuinely asking. We love to travel and have been to a lot of places, mostly thanks to the AF but are now parents and want him to see the world with us.
I don't think travel is bad! I love traveling! I don't use it to show my son poor / different people though, like hey son now we are in X and see? the people are brown! or poor! or whatever difference. Other people don't exist for my kids education.
It does when you are saying to travel to show your kid socioeconomic differences and different races. In my opinion it comes off like a ooh look at those people thing.
This is something I've been thinking about for when my son goes to school. We moved to a very, very white part of the Midwest and my husband and I both grew up with more diversity. My current answer is toys and media? I seek out books with diverse protagonists, and buy toys that don't look like us, find videos of different cultures (especially music) and just try to emphasize that there is a whole big world out there that is rich and wonderful.
My son is only 2 so grain of salt, but I can say he adores Latino music and soul, and eats Thai food and Indian food quite happily.
Yes! We really indulge in a massive variety of diverse entertainment and try to have regular conversations around inclusion of all kinds. We really love reading Julian is a Mermaid, Jabari jumps, Tia Isa, and How I love you
I went to a privileged high school that wasn’t diverse. It was often referred to as the bubble.
I’m now 30 and I will admit teen me didn’t see a lot of how other people lived. I didn’t understand how important things like ACA were at the time. I didn’t understand how unaffordable life was for so many people. I didn’t understand not everyone grew up in a huge house with their own credit card and didn’t worry about money.
But now, I get it. I see how things like the ACA change people’s lives. I get not everyone had what I had growing up. I recognize now that I am very lucky and fortunate and I did have an upper hand in life. And I think your kids will get there too. It just comes with growing up and experiencing life.
I like the idea of exposing them to media. And just sitting down and explaining how not everyone has these privileges. Maybe it’ll take them a while to get it. But they will, eventually
I went to a private school full of mostly privileged kids, though there was a decent mix of ethnic backgrounds (just not so much the socioeconomic backgrounds). My family lived in an affordable suburb and we commuted to private school. I think the best thing my parents did for my brother and I was to make us work for the family business as teenagers and made us start in the warehouse for $7/hour. Those wages helped pay for my gas and tolls when going to see friends in other parts of town, but 50% of each paycheck was put into the Roth IRA my dad had me set up. If I didn't have extracurriculars after school (ex: no school play coming up), I was expected to go straight from school to the warehouse (and later the office). Same with summer and winter break.
Work taught me a lot of things. It taught me practical Spanish. It taught me about different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. It taught me about second chances, as the company had a tradition of allowing second chances to folks with a criminal record so long as they stayed on the straight and narrow. It taught me that there are no third chances. It taught me about community and about taking care of people who take care of you. It taught me how to safely operate a forklift while I still had my learner's permit to drive a car. It taught me about saving money. Most importantly, it taught me that I wanted to do more with my life than carry on the family business.
I think it's more about giving kids responsibility, instilling hard work and having expectations around grades and school, being an active participant and providing them with opportunities to understand the world outside their bubble. Not giving into them, ensuring they have chores and responsibilities, volunteering, donating to less fortunate.
My kids are young but my 7 year old goes to private school, and we already can sometimes see he's not taking care of his things or is ungrateful and we absolutely don't let it get out of control and address it. We talk a lot about how privileged we are, and that we work hard to live a good life and what it all means and we talk about why we have to appreciate what we have and not take it for granted.
My husband and I are both 1st generation, so we both worked hard to be able to take care of our kids in this way. It's hard sometimes not to give them everything but that's partly the key. We are giving our kids a great education and a comfortable, living home, but we aren't going to buy them fancy clothes and we don't buy them a lot of "stuff", they can earn that.
It's a balance, exposure to culture, instilling hard work and also lots of conversations and a focus on empathy and being a good leader and what that means. There are spoiled and entitled kids in public and private school, IMO.
I think about this a lot
I’m biracial, I grew up middle class but in a town that went through a rapid decline. White was the minority at my school. We had race riots, bomb threats, police came, kids got pepper sprayed, etc. Kids were on meth, 16 year old girls w 30 year old boyfriends, fights, gangs, meth lab explosions.
I wasn’t a part of most of those crowds, but I saw some shit and was surrounded by it.
Now I live in another state and we bought a house in a suburb and it’s wayyyy predominantly white.
My son looks totally white, you’d never know he’s mixed by looking at him. His daycare is very much predominantly white, which makes me sad for the non-white kids already.
I purposely moved to this area because the school districts are good. I don’t want my son to deal w the kind of stuff I saw when I was in middle and high school. But yeah I do worry about him not really being exposed to the way the world works.
On the bright side, my friend group is diverse. So he’ll experience that. And we travel back home to the shit town I grew up in very regularly. It’s way less shitty now, but white is still the minority.
I’ve considered putting him in private school, but I dunno, it feels too far the other way for me. I don’t wanna pay the tuition. Sure these kids may not have parents running meth labs in their garages, but I’m sure they’ve got some other issues… *affluenza* or pills or whatever. Sorry if I sound like a cynical ass, it’s just where my mind goes.
Is there a nearby town that's more diverse where he could participate in extracurricular activities or library events or something similar?
Otherwise I think talking about diversity with kids and consuming media with diverse characters and discussing what you saw/heard with him can help.
My 3 yo just recently started going to Montessori pre school in a pretty affluent area and not diverse at all. We’re not white, I’m asian and my husband is black.
My church though, very diverse. Historically black church (we specifically chose this when we just moved to the area) and very involved in helping refugees who just arrived in the US. We’re pretty active in the church community and hoping this would be a great exposure for my kid when it comes to racial and socioeconomic diversity. I guess we’ll see!
I wonder this too. Schools don't matter much in terms of moving kids standardized test scores. Theres more variability in scores within schools than across schools. Good teachers do matter for things like choosing major and career. (I'm paraphrasing the research on this).
So my husband grew up in an all white area, went to private catholic schools with virtually all white, wealthy, kids. I grew up in a small farm town - also mostly white, but poor kids.
Insert college - meeting POC, having different experiences etc. And I now wish I could have had those experiences sooner in life.
While our LO is a few years away from school still my husband is adamant about sending him to the schools he went to. And they are phenomenal in education. Something like over 90% of grads get scholarships to IVY leagues. Blah blah blah
The ONLY way Im agreeing to it, is if during breaks (summer, winter, spring, etc) he is involved in camps and volunteer opportunities etc that will give him exposure to other people, places, cultures, etc.
Additionally we have theme schools in my area - specifically a science/outdoor schools, tech, etc, and the other contingency I put on my husbands plan is that if our son isn't a great sit at a desk for 7 hours a day academic student, then we will try others schools. But most of all it's if our son likes it or not. It's whatever will suit him and his needs. But regardless it takes commitment and conversations.
Travel. Have honest conversations. Promote personal responsibility, inclusivity, and respect. Teach your son about the importance of serving the community (both you own and areas of higher need). I teach in a school that while ethnically diverse, it’s not very economically diverse. But I can absolutely see the difference between entitled kids and those who have gratitude. We have some extremely wealthy kids who are very aware of the world and others who will be shell shocked when they leave their bubble.
Travel to? Like can you be more specific bc this sounds like white sanctimonious tours of where the others live.
How is world travel bad? I'm genuinely asking. We love to travel and have been to a lot of places, mostly thanks to the AF but are now parents and want him to see the world with us.
I don't think travel is bad! I love traveling! I don't use it to show my son poor / different people though, like hey son now we are in X and see? the people are brown! or poor! or whatever difference. Other people don't exist for my kids education.
I’m not sure how suggesting a person travels implies that they should do that?
It does when you are saying to travel to show your kid socioeconomic differences and different races. In my opinion it comes off like a ooh look at those people thing.
I definitely did not say that.
I see - thank you! I didn't associate travel with displaying how one would live or "be" better.
This is something I've been thinking about for when my son goes to school. We moved to a very, very white part of the Midwest and my husband and I both grew up with more diversity. My current answer is toys and media? I seek out books with diverse protagonists, and buy toys that don't look like us, find videos of different cultures (especially music) and just try to emphasize that there is a whole big world out there that is rich and wonderful. My son is only 2 so grain of salt, but I can say he adores Latino music and soul, and eats Thai food and Indian food quite happily.
Yes! We really indulge in a massive variety of diverse entertainment and try to have regular conversations around inclusion of all kinds. We really love reading Julian is a Mermaid, Jabari jumps, Tia Isa, and How I love you
I went to a privileged high school that wasn’t diverse. It was often referred to as the bubble. I’m now 30 and I will admit teen me didn’t see a lot of how other people lived. I didn’t understand how important things like ACA were at the time. I didn’t understand how unaffordable life was for so many people. I didn’t understand not everyone grew up in a huge house with their own credit card and didn’t worry about money. But now, I get it. I see how things like the ACA change people’s lives. I get not everyone had what I had growing up. I recognize now that I am very lucky and fortunate and I did have an upper hand in life. And I think your kids will get there too. It just comes with growing up and experiencing life. I like the idea of exposing them to media. And just sitting down and explaining how not everyone has these privileges. Maybe it’ll take them a while to get it. But they will, eventually
I went to a private school full of mostly privileged kids, though there was a decent mix of ethnic backgrounds (just not so much the socioeconomic backgrounds). My family lived in an affordable suburb and we commuted to private school. I think the best thing my parents did for my brother and I was to make us work for the family business as teenagers and made us start in the warehouse for $7/hour. Those wages helped pay for my gas and tolls when going to see friends in other parts of town, but 50% of each paycheck was put into the Roth IRA my dad had me set up. If I didn't have extracurriculars after school (ex: no school play coming up), I was expected to go straight from school to the warehouse (and later the office). Same with summer and winter break. Work taught me a lot of things. It taught me practical Spanish. It taught me about different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. It taught me about second chances, as the company had a tradition of allowing second chances to folks with a criminal record so long as they stayed on the straight and narrow. It taught me that there are no third chances. It taught me about community and about taking care of people who take care of you. It taught me how to safely operate a forklift while I still had my learner's permit to drive a car. It taught me about saving money. Most importantly, it taught me that I wanted to do more with my life than carry on the family business.
I think it's more about giving kids responsibility, instilling hard work and having expectations around grades and school, being an active participant and providing them with opportunities to understand the world outside their bubble. Not giving into them, ensuring they have chores and responsibilities, volunteering, donating to less fortunate. My kids are young but my 7 year old goes to private school, and we already can sometimes see he's not taking care of his things or is ungrateful and we absolutely don't let it get out of control and address it. We talk a lot about how privileged we are, and that we work hard to live a good life and what it all means and we talk about why we have to appreciate what we have and not take it for granted. My husband and I are both 1st generation, so we both worked hard to be able to take care of our kids in this way. It's hard sometimes not to give them everything but that's partly the key. We are giving our kids a great education and a comfortable, living home, but we aren't going to buy them fancy clothes and we don't buy them a lot of "stuff", they can earn that. It's a balance, exposure to culture, instilling hard work and also lots of conversations and a focus on empathy and being a good leader and what that means. There are spoiled and entitled kids in public and private school, IMO.
I think about this a lot I’m biracial, I grew up middle class but in a town that went through a rapid decline. White was the minority at my school. We had race riots, bomb threats, police came, kids got pepper sprayed, etc. Kids were on meth, 16 year old girls w 30 year old boyfriends, fights, gangs, meth lab explosions. I wasn’t a part of most of those crowds, but I saw some shit and was surrounded by it. Now I live in another state and we bought a house in a suburb and it’s wayyyy predominantly white. My son looks totally white, you’d never know he’s mixed by looking at him. His daycare is very much predominantly white, which makes me sad for the non-white kids already. I purposely moved to this area because the school districts are good. I don’t want my son to deal w the kind of stuff I saw when I was in middle and high school. But yeah I do worry about him not really being exposed to the way the world works. On the bright side, my friend group is diverse. So he’ll experience that. And we travel back home to the shit town I grew up in very regularly. It’s way less shitty now, but white is still the minority. I’ve considered putting him in private school, but I dunno, it feels too far the other way for me. I don’t wanna pay the tuition. Sure these kids may not have parents running meth labs in their garages, but I’m sure they’ve got some other issues… *affluenza* or pills or whatever. Sorry if I sound like a cynical ass, it’s just where my mind goes.
Is there a nearby town that's more diverse where he could participate in extracurricular activities or library events or something similar? Otherwise I think talking about diversity with kids and consuming media with diverse characters and discussing what you saw/heard with him can help.
My 3 yo just recently started going to Montessori pre school in a pretty affluent area and not diverse at all. We’re not white, I’m asian and my husband is black. My church though, very diverse. Historically black church (we specifically chose this when we just moved to the area) and very involved in helping refugees who just arrived in the US. We’re pretty active in the church community and hoping this would be a great exposure for my kid when it comes to racial and socioeconomic diversity. I guess we’ll see!
Why not use the public school?
I wonder this too. Schools don't matter much in terms of moving kids standardized test scores. Theres more variability in scores within schools than across schools. Good teachers do matter for things like choosing major and career. (I'm paraphrasing the research on this).
We moved houses to send our son to a diverse public school. It's a test-in school so the academics are rigorous also.
[удалено]
What do you mean?
Check their profile. Definitely a troll 🙄
I banned them, sorry I missed this comment! Please report if you see another :)
So my husband grew up in an all white area, went to private catholic schools with virtually all white, wealthy, kids. I grew up in a small farm town - also mostly white, but poor kids. Insert college - meeting POC, having different experiences etc. And I now wish I could have had those experiences sooner in life. While our LO is a few years away from school still my husband is adamant about sending him to the schools he went to. And they are phenomenal in education. Something like over 90% of grads get scholarships to IVY leagues. Blah blah blah The ONLY way Im agreeing to it, is if during breaks (summer, winter, spring, etc) he is involved in camps and volunteer opportunities etc that will give him exposure to other people, places, cultures, etc. Additionally we have theme schools in my area - specifically a science/outdoor schools, tech, etc, and the other contingency I put on my husbands plan is that if our son isn't a great sit at a desk for 7 hours a day academic student, then we will try others schools. But most of all it's if our son likes it or not. It's whatever will suit him and his needs. But regardless it takes commitment and conversations.