208. Building Community-Wide Capacity to Engage in Hard Conversations with Preschoolers

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In this episode, we’re talking about what it means to build a community-wide capacity to engage in hard conversations with preschool children. What does it look like to honor their natural curiosity and be willing to have meaningful discussions together?


We break down strategies that educators—and parents or community members—can use with students at any age level, emphasizing the importance of validating a child’s curiosity and encouraging them to ask questions. 

Why? 

Research shows that children as young as four are aware of socioeconomic differences, race, or gender—children recognize differences in identity and are ready to talk about them. It's crucial, then, to provide a nurturing space where kids feel supported to ask questions and explore these topics.

What?

Working with this base assumption that children are not too young to engage in hard conversations, how do we best approach it? Here are some steps educators and other adults can take: 

Step 1: Appreciate the question. 

Validating a child’s natural curiosity is a key first step in the process. When they ask a question, appreciate and affirm it—“Wow, that’s a fascinating question!” or “That’s a great question, thanks for bringing it up.”

Step 2: Get curious back. 

After appreciating their question, go back and ask a follow-up question. You could say, "What's making you think about that?” or “How are you feeling about that?” Open some space for emotions and feelings around the topic, so you can get a sense of where they are coming from. 

Step 3: Follow the conversation. 

With young children, you’re not likely to sit and have a full conversation and be done with it. They will bring it up at other times, or the topic may arise through TV shows, picture books, and other media. Follow the conversation and be willing to check back in with it over time. 

One framework to help build these conversations is adapted from Glasser’s five human needs—the 4 Fs, which are freedom, family, and fun. They relate to human needs and interplay with socioeconomic differences (i.e., how money can facilitate fun, but it isn’t the only way to have fun). You can use this simplified language they understand to talk about differences and how people uniquely experience the world.  

Step 4: Use self-talk to maintain composure. 

It’s important to engage in some self-talk to manage your own emotions. You may want to follow internal scripts like, “I don’t need to have answers, I just need to listen.” This takes the pressure off—you don’t need to know everything. Your goal is to support the child, and you can always follow up later with an answer or support for them to find the answers. 

Another key script to repeat internally is, “The most important thing is that they come to me with questions.” As children grow up, they’ll continue to be bombarded with harmful messaging on social media; it’s critical that they have safe adults to go to with their questions.

Step 5: Engage families and communities. 

This goes beyond just educators and students—it’s community capacity-building. Involve current and prospective families in this, offering professional development and engagement so we can holistically support children together.

Final Tip

Prepare and use scripts for both external conversations and internal self-talk to stay engaged in difficult discussions with children.

To help you implement today’s takeaways, I’m sharing my scripts for staying engaged in critical conversations with you for free. And, if you’re looking for more details on the ideas in this blog post, listen to episode 208 of the Time for Teachership podcast. If you’re unable to listen or you prefer to read the full episode, you can find the transcript below.

​If you enjoyed this episode, check out my YouTube channel where you can learn about more tips and resources like this one below: