Through a Child’s Eyes: The Colors of Diversity

As an author of children’s books, I think a lot about how kids see the world.

In an age where the issues of race, color, and diversity have risen to epic proportions, I often wonder where these divisions in our society started and what we can do about them. Are these solely adult issues, or do they begin as far back as our childhood?

What are the Colors Children See?

As adults, we tend to underestimate the perceptivity of children, especially when it comes to diversity and people of color. We tend to look at the world of children through our grown-up lenses, painting their unique, primary perspectives on human beings with the misconceptions and prejudices we’ve acquired over years of adult living.

In our youth, we are limited in our awreness, often at the mercy of our brain’s hardwiring.

In the 1960s, American neuroscientist Paul MacLean formulated the “Triune Brain” Model, which is based on the division of the human brain into three distinct regions. MacLean’s model suggests the human brain is organized into a hierarchy, which is based on an evolutionary view of brain development. The three regions are as follows:

· Reptilian or Primal Brain — Instinctive Responses

· Paleomammalian or Emotional Brain — Emotion and Memory

· Neomammalian or Rational Brain — Intellectual and Self-Awareness

MacLean’s model claims that activity in the three brain regions is developed over time, beginning in childhood. In our youth, our reptilian and mammalian brains influence our world view. These are the primal drivers that compel us to respond quickly and emotionally to external stimuli taken in by our five senses. As children, we tend feel and act before thinking things all the way through — that comes much later in the development of our Rational Brain.

As children, we use our primal instinctive responses (Reptilian Brain), and our emotions and memory (Paleomammalian Brain) to guide us in how we understand the world and the people in it. We begin “binning” things as familiar or different, safe or dangerous, good or bad. These binary distinctions help us as our brain continues to develop over time into deeper levels of discernment and understanding.

It’s during this time, people in our lives (family, teachers, and our peers) influence us, giving us clues as to whether we’re getting the “binning” right or wrong.

It seems to me that it’s in these formidable years that our perceptions on race, color, and creed are shaped and defined. This is where understanding begins, or prejudice starts.

As children, our natural inclination is to begin binning and sorting things by difference. As adults, we do the same thing, but our ability to discern between these differences lead us to a deeper understanding of diversity and inclusion, or puts us further down the path of prejudice, bias, and discrimination.

As children, we notice the differences in ourselves and others first — I have a big nose, she has long hair, he has dark or light skin, she is skinny, he is fat — this is basic internal sorting we do for primary identification in our brains. The physical world and how it appears to us provide immediate, visible ways in which our brains can sort, bin, and make sense of our external environment, including other people.

Children can be blunt and cruel in this sorting process, for what begins as identifying differences may slowly morph into judgement and evaluation of good or bad, better or worse. Our reptilian and mammalian brains tell us that WHAT IS FAMILIAR may be good and safe, but WHAT IS DIFFERENT may be bad and dangerous.

In children, we see these primal survival instincts at work, and other human beings can’t escape this identification process.

A new study from the University of Washington provides a rare glimpse of this dynamic and illustrates how children perceive their social identities in middle childhood. Published in Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology, the research involved interviews with 222 children in grades two through six at three racially diverse public schools in Tacoma, Washington. None of the schools had more than 50 percent of one racial group.

The research found that children ages 7 to 12 rate gender as more important than race — and that their perceptions of both are deeply integrated with personal and societal influences.

The children were first shown cards with different identity labels — boy, girl, son, daughter, student, Asian, Hispanic, Black, White and athlete — and asked to place each card in a “me” pile if the card described them or in a “not me” pile if it did not. Each child then ranked their selections by level of importance. The five identity areas included:

· Gender

· Race

· Family

· Student

· Athlete

Kiara Moore noted some very interesting results in her review of this study:

· Of the five social identities represented in the “me/not me” test, family was on average the most important to children.

· Being a student was ranked second, followed by gender, then athlete.

· Race was most consistently selected last, as the least important identity.

· Black and Mixed-Race children ranked race as more important than White children.

· In response to the open-ended questions, Black and Mixed-Race children mentioned racial pride much more often than White children did.

· The meanings children ascribed to gender identity tended to emphasize inequality and group differences, while meanings of race emphasized physical appearance and equality.

· There was no difference between boys and girls about how important gender was, but girls mentioned physical appearance as part of their gender identity much more often than boys.

· About half of Black and Mixed-Race children ranked race as “a lot” or a “little” important, while 89 percent of White children considered race a “not important” part of their identity. That gap is telling particularly given that the schools involved are highly diverse.

So what does all this data really mean?

According to the authors, this study suggests that white children and children of color are navigating very different worlds when it comes to race and they’re thinking about race in very different terms. Most white kids said race is not important, it doesn’t matter, but kids of color said, “Yes, race does matter to me.”

The reality is that even in children, the issue of race varies in importance, depending on what their racial affiliation is. I think it’s just human nature to focus and gravitate toward the things that impact your own life, especially the negative ones. For white children, race was never an issue, so it’s lower on their priority list. For children of color, who’ve seen or experienced racial discrimination themselves or in their family, the issue remains a focal point.

The key to growth and understanding on these subjects revolves around education and an ongoing dialogue about the differences and beauty in all people.

As human beings, we are all the same. But as individuals of varying races, creeds, and colors, we are very different — and that’s more than just OK — It’s an incredible opportunity to learn, grow, and deepen our understanding of the world around us.

Overall, this study reinforces the need to better understand how multiple factors, from school culture to societal stereotypes, influence the formation of children’s social identities, highlighting that the issue is not that we’re different, but that there needs to be discussion on the hierarchy and value we place on those differences.

As parents, educators, neighbors, and adult members of a shared community, we need to be very sensitive to the perceptions and points of view of all children, as each one perceives the world in a different way.

For in the end, we are the ones who influence the colors they see, while helping them celebrate the spectrum of diversity that makes us all unique and special.

In Barbara M. Jooses classic children’s story, “I Love You’re the Purplest,” two young brothers and their mother finish supper in the sturdy red cabin and set out to fish. While digging for worms, rowing the boat and pulling in fish, each brother asks his mother which one is the best at each task and, as they are being tucked into bed, which one she loves the best.

The mother responds beautifully that she loves each one of them differently, but not more or less than the other. She loves one the bluest and one the reddest. Together, she love them both the purplest.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a way to do the same for our children and ourselves?