Raising Kids Who Aren't Assholes: 24 Children's Books About Protest
As their parents become more politically engaged, children often tag along to protests and marches. How can we help kids understand the power and purpose of movements like these? Whether you bring your children or not, how do you make certain they know what it’s all about?
Welcome to Raising Kids Who Aren't Assholes.
You may notice that this monthly resource guide used to go by a different name. After feedback from our writers, we've changed the name to something less problematic. You can read more about the change here.
Shannon, her husband, and their six children.
On our SKEW team, I’m the lone parent in the bunch, but with six children, I have enough kids for all of us, right? As a parent, I know all of us are hungry for resources, especially if you’re like me and didn’t talk about these topics with your parents when you were a kid. It’s not just parents, either; if you’re a teacher, grandparent, older sibling, or neighbor, these are questions worth considering. Every month, I choose a topic and offer a handful of suggested resources, sometimes based on the calendar and sometimes chosen for some other reason. Wwe’re all in process. I’m learning along with you, and none of us are experts. So let’s figure this out together, for the sake of the generation.
I never marched for anything as a kid.
I did stand on streets with signs encouraging passerbys to vote for certain candidates (about whom I knew nothing other than that my parents liked him, always a him and never any other pronoun). I did ring the bell outside the grocery store for the Salvation Army while singing Christmas carols off key. I was a prop at best in each scenario, never knowing the reasoning for what I did.
Today, record-breaking marches and demonstrations fill news cycles. The March for Our Lives was organized by students. As parents, how can we help our kids understand the power and purpose of movements like these? Whether we bring our children or not, how can we make certain they know what it’s all about? In order of age appropriateness, here’s a list of books that have served our family well.
Click on the images to read about each book!
