Posted on July 20, 2022 by Rosario Arán
Pride Month is an excellent occasion to start teaching your kids about LGBTQIA diversity. Exposing them to TV shows with diverse characters is a wise starting point. By signing up to Oznoz , you will access shows that feature characters from LGBTQIA community, such as 16 Hudson and The Bravest Knight.
As we celebrate Pride month, there are so many things that we can do to support the LGBTQIA community as individuals. As a theme for June, kid readers might focus on reading books featuring LGBTQIA characters. Others perhaps may pay a visit to their local museum that features artists from the community. It’s all part of the “educate-yourself” attempt to be more inclusive and understand diversity. And that’s a beautiful thing to celebrate and reinforce as a society!
More so, as parents we must approach teaching kids about LGBTQIA diversity and inclusion respectfully and using the right tools. We know that in the everyday world, they can come across all perspectives, even some that are opposite to LGBTQIA acceptance. So as parents, it becomes crucial to acknowledge what Pride Month is all about and teach their kids about people’s individuality and the freedom to be whoever they feel they are!
Using elements such as TV shows and books has proven to be significant elements in exposing them to diverse characters that can easily relate to them, make them laugh, and take them on great adventures. In addition, they will want to watch or read stories that portray their friend’s cultural heritage or families, proving that there can be a lot of possibilities and stereotypes are challenged.
First exercise for parents: educate yourself
Although these are great tools to use, finding the right stories for your kids to watch can be helpful, the first exercise is for the parents. If you as a parent feel that you still need to be educated about LGBTQIA community, take the time and find resources to learn about it in order to be respectful and pass accurate information to your children. Show that you care and accept the community because it is the first step to lower the homophobic and transphobic upbringing that makes children believe that there is only one accepted sexual orientation or ways to perceive oneself, and therefore any bullying behavior towards LGBTQIA peers.
One thing that was common and remains to this day is the notion that toys are meant for a specific gender. As parents, our duty is to balance out the gender equality fight, and that also means normalizing that toys are not to be gendered!
Using a fun environment to show and explain diversity, inclusion, and gender can only result in a positive outcome for kids. They will learn about people’s individuality and how OK it is to be whoever they are without people judging them. After all, kids will repeat and absorb what they watch on TV -that is why at Oznoz, we emphasize that what your kid watches matters!- or see in their books, and it will become more unlikely that they judge or mock a person for their sexual orientation or gender.
How TV shows can teach your kids about LGBTQIA diversity
For decades, Kids’ TV shows struggled to showcase the diversity and inclusion within their characters. They lacked realistically diverse characters that didn’t represent the accurate composition of the American and Canadian societies but also in terms of gender and LGBTQIA diversity. Luckily, the evolution of humanity now understands that families can be formed in many different ways and kids need to see that represented in what they watch and read. After all, that’s a way they can normalize something that for years was categorized as “weird” (in some cultures, it is still taboo, and elderly society still opposes fundamental rights such as equal marriage).
Take Big Bad Boo’s original show, The Bravest Knight , for example. It features Cedric, a farmer who wants to become the bravest knight and tell his story to his daughter. And yes, Cedric is married to the Prince of his dreams, and they adopted their daughter Nia. A kid will watch that show and will find this normal, compared to older generations that still wait to see the traditional patron of mum, dad, and non-adopted kids.
Why is a TV show like The Bravest Knight a great option to start your journey in teaching about diversity? It ticks many of the boxes that NEED to be normalized because we are in 2022, and respecting rights and people’s identity is what we should encourage our children to do for a brighter future for humankind!
In The Bravest Knight, Nia is adopted. Her two parents are two men who teach her about overcoming any obstacles to reach her dreams. A kid who watches this show will only see two men loving their daughter, and trying to help her to fulfill her goals while sharing their adventures with creatures that will make them laugh.
16 Hudson is another excellent option to showcase diversity and inclusion of all kinds to your children. The neighborhood is filled with friends and families from different cultural heritages, including Luc, a boy born in Haiti and adopted by his dads Paul and Bayani. Both parents love Luc and Bayani encourages his son to speak French while laughing because Paul can’t understand a word!
Families and communities are full of different people, and it is about time to celebrate love in all of its shapes and forms. After all, love is love and it does not matter if a girl is adopted or not, if their parents are both women, or if a person prefers the pronoun “they” because they don’t identify with the traditional pronouns and genders. And that’s what matters and what our children should learn about diversity: that as long each individual who lives on Earth is respected and loved by the rest of the people, it doesn’t matter the gender, sexual orientation, cultural heritage or skin tone. And that’s how our kids can become part of a generation that makes the world a safer and better place!