Last night as we sat around the dinner table, my eldest (7 years old,) expressed his glee for not having school thanks to the holiday. I can’t lie that I am also glad there was no 6:30am alarm, no arguing about missing shoes, no last minute lunch packing, or fighting over the last banana. But I wanted to make sure he and the other kids understood why they get to stay home and watch Nick Jr while I catch up on some homework of my own.

Upon his words of elation, I immediately formulated a ten question quiz in my head about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. My husband, however, quickly shot me that “calm down professor” look! It brought me back to Earth and off my soapbox, (I still went into a small lecture moment about the importance of the man and the movement.) But it got me thinking about how we teach our children the true history, the one they’re not getting in their white-washed textbooks at school. How do we make them feel pride in their country but instill a sense of understanding about where we’ve come from as a nation, and why it has landed us where we are now?

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

                                         Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Every year on the week of Columbus Day, I cringe and grind my teeth while oohing and ahhing over their drawings of The Pinta and The Nina, all the while suppressing my desire to spout off the real truth about Mr. Columbus and his real “feats.” I’m not trying to pick on Chris, there are plenty of other topics that give me SMH moments. But I don’t want to be the “know it all” mom who thinks she knows better than the local school district and storms into the principal’s office demanding a different curriculum. Or maybe I should, but that seems like a different blog entry all together.

I understand, like most parents, that we can’t subject our kids to every tale of the horrors and atrocities that have been committed in the name of “conquest” and “democracy,” but we do owe them a little respect in preparing them to look past the face value of what they are hearing from one source.

So what are we to do? I think the number one step is knowing your child. As their parent, you know how much they can handle and how much they will understand. You obviously shouldn’t go off the rails and explain how syphilis is spread and how it destroyed the native population of the Americas. It’s also important to use kid safe language when explaining the deeper story of historical events. You don’t have to scar your children for life with the stories about the raping and pillaging done by Spanish Conquistadors, unless you have extra money to put back for their therapy sessions. But you can illustrate the point that sometimes people do bad things. It might also be a good time to point out that every story has two sides, just like that time his sister said he hit her, but he swears he was just playing with his cars.

The other important thing to remember is to tell them these things without damaging their respect for their teachers. There’s no need to go off the handle about how Miss Smith is lying to them or how “the man” is trying to keep everyone in check. Instead you can explain the importance of looking for more than one opinion on any matter and how you should always check sources before you go on to tell others these things that might not actually be fact. You’ll only be doing them a favor when they grow up and face their own world of “click bait!”

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

                                                      

                                       Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

So don’t be afraid to have that discussion with your kids, to broach the hard subjects with them in an effective and appropriate way. We don’t have to let our children become mindless sheep who believe anything and everything they hear, that’s how we got FoxNews! Teach your kids to think about what they hear; teach them to look for answers to their questions; teach them that sometimes we don’t always make the right decision, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep making the wrong decision just because that’s what has always been done. And maybe, just maybe, our children’s children will bring home more diverse crayon masterpieces to hang on the fridge.

 

Happy Birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.