One of the most impactful and beneficial things parents can do for their child is to spend regular and intentional one-on-one time with them. Spending one-on-one time with your child will:

• Increase closeness and warmth between you and your child

• Strengthen the parent-child relationship

• Give your child positive parental attention

• Make your child feel important to you

• Increase your child’s self-esteem

• Decrease negative attention-seeking behaviors

• Give your child space to talk to you about things that may be hard to talk about in other settings

• Allow you to tune in to their world

Life is full of consequences. In fact, some would argue that consequences (or the fear of them) drive our behavior. As parents, we deal with consequences in spades. Your toddler throws their cup on the ground (for the millionth time!), your teen refuses to get off their phone during dinner, your five-year-old hits their younger sibling when they are arguing. Then what? What’s your next move as a parent? Do you yell? Do you “come down hard” and be authoritarian? Do you let it slide and “lose the battle to win the war?”

Here you are, the parent of a preschooler or an even younger child. Maybe you are a first-time parent. Maybe you are a parenting pro. No matter, you are questioning how you’re going to begin a conversation, one that you know you should have and might not know how to start, or what is appropriate for the developmental level of your child. A conversation about race.