June is Pride month, and it’s the perfect time to celebrate love in all its forms. Though we can’t celebrate with parades and parties, we can still take the time to think about how we all love and respect each other. And we can create beautiful rainbow decorations to brighten everyone’s days!
Here are some ideas for ways to celebrate Pride Month with children, including discussion points, a simple craft and, of course, a booklist!
Tips for Talking with Kids
Some kids may have questions about things they learn during Pride Month. Here are some tips to begin conversations in ways that make sense to little ones.
- Don’t assume that kids haven’t noticed something just because they haven’t brought it up. Talking with your children about sexual orientation and gender identity proactively conveys acceptance and respect, while silence may convey fear or discomfort. You can also help avoid a situation where your child receives misinformation from some other source.
- Let your child(ren) guide your conversation. Encourage them to ask questions. Be direct, but don’t give them more information than they need right now. For example, instead of discussing expressions of love your child may not be ready to learn about yet (you know, “The Talk”), focus on how families love each other and how everyone should be able to choose who they want to be a part of their family, regardless of that person’s gender.
- Don’t shy away from talking about discrimination. Just make it accessible for your child(ren)’s age. Even young children can understand concepts like fairness and not being mean.
- Explain to your child that we need to judge people based on things they can choose, like how nice they are, rather than things they can’t control, like their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Rainbow Garland
You can create a beautiful garland to hang anywhere in your home using simple materials! All you need is paper (construction paper or cardstock work best), scissors, tape, string, and a hole punch. I could only find a heart-shaped hole punch, but any shape would work. Or you can carefully poke holes with a pencil. If you don’t have rainbow colors of paper, you could use white paper and color it yourself.
Cut the paper into strips. These are approximately 1 inch wide and 12 inches long, but you could choose whatever size you’d like as long as you keep your strips in relatively this proportion. Fold one strip in half, then curl the ends around to meet at a point. Tape both sides of the paper together to make the inner point of your heart. Repeat this step for all your hearts.
Arrange your hearts how you’d like them to hang on your garland. Punch holes in the tops and bottoms of the hearts, then thread a string through the holes. You can tie the string onto the bottom heart like in this photo, or you could tie a large bead or button onto the bottom of the string to hold them on. If you find your hearts scrunching or twisting in a way you don’t like, tape the inner points of each heart to the string to hold them steady.
Hang your hearts wherever you’d like!
PRIDE Booklist for Kids