Childhood Bias, Learning, and “Jimmys”

Rebecca Dore, lead investigator of a recent University of Virginia study on biases among children, argues that adults need to address this issue early and I might add, often.  But how?

A few years ago, I asked my youngest daughter Suzy a question along the lines of, “What is one thing Mom and I did to help you become more open-minded?”  And yes, we do talk about this kind of stuff 🙂  Half joking, she answered, “You had Jimmy.”  Jimmy, our eldest son, has autism, and is an everyday personal reminder of the presence, pervasiveness, and pain of bias.  He also continually enlightens our daughters about the value of diversity.

Whenever we did anything, individually or collectively as a family, we knew that bias might rear its head.  And we knew it might come at those moments when we least expected it.  Take family vacations.  One summer, we took a family vacation to Virginia Beach.  After dinner, we were walking back to our hotel and happened to pass a gentleman on the street who was holding up a sign with a Biblical verse and an admonition to “sinners.”  I happened to be holding my adult son’s hand at the time, since he could very well dart out into traffic at any time.  As we passed this man, he yelled out, “God hates faggots.”  That one incident put a damper on our plans for the rest of the night, but it also presented us with an invaluable teachable moment once we could sit down and talk.

The more I thought about Suzy’s answer, the more I thought about what we can do as adults to address bias.

1. Start early.  My daughters grew up around difference; it was part of their everyday life.

2. Do not keep difference at a distance.  My daughter’s relationship with Jimmy was up close and personal.  The closeness of this relationship taught them volumes about themselves and others.

3. Talk about difference whenever and wherever if at all possible.  Diversity and bias were not something that we purposely talked about each week.  Rather, it was infused into our life experiences at church and school, when we went shopping and visited relatives, and when we watched a movie or television and talked about homework.

4. Don’t just talk about difference, experience it.  Promote experiential learning.  We did not just talk about difference at home, school, and in the community.  We lived it 24/7.

5. Use one dimension of diversity to learn about other forms of bias.  Living with Jimmy opened my daughters’ eyes and hearts to racial, gender, class, and appearance biases.

Not all of us have “Jimmys.”  But in a way we do.  We might have a grandmother who is trying to cope with the onset of Alzheimers, a neighbor whose children are English Language Learners, or a daughter who is ostracized at school because of her religious values.  Diversity surrounds us.  Use it, and teach your children some valuable lessons in the process.