57. Creating Inclusive and Diverse Communities with our Tweens and Teens

Tess Connolly LCSW talks with Sarah McLaughlin LSW about creating inclusive communities which is a chapter in her book “Raising Humans with Hearts”

• Tess gives an introduction to the topic and her experiences with building her own community when moving areas with her then 5yr old after her divorce.
• Tess and Sarah talk about the importance of creating an inclusive community.
• Tess and Sarah discuss how we can help develop inclusive communities within our own parenting journey. 
• Sarah talks about being aware of ourselves and how we were parented and what changes we might need to shift in our own parenting journey compared to what we experienced when we were growing up. 
• Tess talks about her experiences regarding her son and his experience of school and the diversity that he sees and how we learn a lot from our children and how fluid their view is now with regards to sexuality within their peer groups. 
• Sarah talks about groups that are available within our community called “Talking Circles” and these are groups that come into communities and talk about their earliest experiences about race. 
• Sarah talks about one of our biggest biases is that we don't see our own bias and that there are tests we can take via Harvard implicit association tests to see where we can see how biased we are and she also talks about a podcast that helps us to look at our own biases called “Nice white parents”.
• Tess and Sarah talk about what we can do as parents to help shift and open up ourselves to becoming more inclusive so we can become a more credible model to our children.
• Tess and Sarah talk about instances where conversations might come up with our children where they witness something that they question, for example homeless people in the street and how we have the conversation with our children about differences between people in our community. 
• Tess and Sarah talk about the importance of getting comfortable being uncomfortable and getting honest with yourself so you can be honest with your children. Looking at the fact that we are learning alongside our children. That we can tell our children that we didn’t have these conversations when we were younger within our families so they have an understanding of where we are coming from. 
• Sarah is most grateful for her stove in her house keeping her warm with the cold weather she is experiencing where she lives at the moment. 

Harvard Implicit Association Tests - Take a Test (harvard.edu)

Podcast mentioned by Sarah - Nice White Parents on Apple Podcasts

Follow this link to Sarah’s book “Raising Humans with Hearts” - Raising Humans with Heart: Not A How To Manual: Maclaughlin, Sarah: 9781735725628: Amazon.com: Books

Follow this link to find out more about Sarah - Sarah MacLaughlin, LSW | Parent Educator, Author, Speaker

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📧Connect with Therese (Tess) Connolly, LCSW, CCC here: [email protected]

Website: www.mindfulkidsandfamilies.com

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