How Celebrity Parents Are Educating Kids About Racism Following George Floyd’s Death: Books, Conversations and More

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How Celebrity Parents Are Educating Kids About Racism Following George Floyd's Death: Books, Conversations and More

Open and honest conversations. Thomas Rhett, Katherine Heigl and more stars have shared the ways they’re educating their children about racism following George Floyd’s May 25 death. “As the father of a black daughter and also two white daughters, I have struggled with what to say today,” the “Marry Me” singer, 30, captioned a Sunday, May 31, Instagram post featuring the Romans 12:9 Bible verse. “We have navigated forms of racism directly and while there is mostly overwhelming support and love for our family, sometimes there is just the opposite. Because of that fear, it can be a lot easier to choose silence, but today I’m choosing to speak.” The Georgia native, who shares Willa, 4, Ada, 2, and Lennon, 3 months, with his wife, Lauren Akins, went on to write that he felt “heartbroken and angry” after watching the video of a police office killing Floyd pressing a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes. “I get scared when I think about my daughters and what kind of world they will be growing up in and how my JOB as a father is to show them how to lead with love in the face of hate,” the Grammy nominee added. “To know their worth and value as not only women but human beings.” Rhett and Akins, also 30, adopted Willa from Uganda in May 2017, three months ahead of Ada’s birth. “My heart has always been driven to [adoption],” the Live in Love author told Us Weekly exclusively the following year. “It just started as this calling in my life, to speak for these children who don’t have a voice. This is what I was really here to do. It lined up perfectly with my heart.” [jwplayer 8Rn1yuvO] Heigl, 41, who adopted her now-8-year-old daughter, Adalaide, in 2012 with her husband, Josh Kelley, shared that she has been struggling to tell her daughter about Floyd’s death. “I can’t sleep,” the actress wrote via Instagram on May 31. “And when I do, I wake with a single thought in my head. How will I tell Adalaide? How will I explain the unexplainable? How can I protect her? How can I break a piece of her beautiful divine spirit to do so? I can’t sleep.” Keep scrolling to see how more celebrity parents are having open dialogues with their children about racism. [podcast_block]

Credit: Courtesy of Katherine Heigl/Instagarm; Courtesy of Sheinelle Jones/Instagarm; Courtesy of Lauren Akins/Instagarm

How Celebrity Parents Are Educating Kids About Racism Following George Floyd's Death: Books, Conversations and More

Open and honest conversations. Thomas Rhett, Katherine Heigl and more stars have shared the ways they’re educating their children about racism following George Floyd’s May 25 death. “As the father of a black daughter and also two white daughters, I have struggled with what to say today,” the “Marry Me” singer, 30, captioned a Sunday, May 31, Instagram post featuring the Romans 12:9 Bible verse. “We have navigated forms of racism directly and while there is mostly overwhelming support and love for our family, sometimes there is just the opposite. Because of that fear, it can be a lot easier to choose silence, but today I’m choosing to speak.” The Georgia native, who shares Willa, 4, Ada, 2, and Lennon, 3 months, with his wife, Lauren Akins, went on to write that he felt “heartbroken and angry” after watching the video of a police office killing Floyd pressing a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes. “I get scared when I think about my daughters and what kind of world they will be growing up in and how my JOB as a father is to show them how to lead with love in the face of hate,” the Grammy nominee added. “To know their worth and value as not only women but human beings.” Rhett and Akins, also 30, adopted Willa from Uganda in May 2017, three months ahead of Ada’s birth. “My heart has always been driven to [adoption],” the Live in Love author told Us Weekly exclusively the following year. “It just started as this calling in my life, to speak for these children who don’t have a voice. This is what I was really here to do. It lined up perfectly with my heart.” [jwplayer 8Rn1yuvO] Heigl, 41, who adopted her now-8-year-old daughter, Adalaide, in 2012 with her husband, Josh Kelley, shared that she has been struggling to tell her daughter about Floyd’s death. “I can’t sleep,” the actress wrote via Instagram on May 31. “And when I do, I wake with a single thought in my head. How will I tell Adalaide? How will I explain the unexplainable? How can I protect her? How can I break a piece of her beautiful divine spirit to do so? I can’t sleep.” Keep scrolling to see how more celebrity parents are having open dialogues with their children about racism. [podcast_block]

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Kerry Washington

"I’ve been really trying to use the time to teach them things that may not be on the curriculum ... with a focus on Africa," the Little Fires Everywhere star told Ellen DeGeneres on September 22 of supplementing her kids' homeschool sessions. "I’m scouring the Internet for projects I can do with them and childrens books to really immerse them. A lot of times learning about Black history, you learn about civil rights and the Jim Crow era. You learn about all the things Black people were told we couldn’t do, so I thought it was important to immerse them in the rich culture of who Black people were or are before Martin Luther King and the great, great civil rights leaders."

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Eve

“We are so honest with each other that we have discussions, and that's a beautiful thing,” the rapper said in Entertainment Tonight's September 16 Uncensored clip of her conversations about racism with husband Maximillion Cooper and his four kids. “They don't have to think about it unless they're close to someone who has gone through it, or who can explain to them certain things. But that's a beautiful thing. It's a discussion. And honestly, that's been a really cool thing."

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Tia Mowry

The Sister, Sister alum said in a September 2020 “Being Bümo” podcast episode that anti-racism “starts at home.” The actress explained, "I think what's important, and how you can be anti-racist is not running away from the problem and saying, 'Oh, gosh, you know what? This is a little much. I'm not even gonna talk to my child about this.' No, I think we all should have this conversation.”

Mowry asked listeners not to put "that responsibility on other people," concluding, "It's your responsibility."

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Chrissy Teigen

"Regardless of money or status, they're always going to have their skin color,” the Cravings author told Marie Claire of her daughter, Luna, and her son, Miles, in September 2020. “When it comes to them being treated differently because of the color of their skin, I'm going to look to John [Legend] for a lot of help with that because while they are Asian and white too, their skin color is Black.”

The Utah native went on to say that she and the “All of Me” singer plan to talk to their kids “like little adults.” She explained, “Saying it in words they'll understand, making it known that it's very serious, and letting them ask as many questions as they need."

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Brooke Shields

The model's teenage daughters have "acknowledged ... their "privilege a little bit more" amid quarantine, she exclusively told Us. "I was glad about because I think they get into their bubble. Our conversations started getting much deeper and bigger about the things that you can control in your life."

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Leah McSweeney

"We had these conversations back when she was probably 7 during the first Black Lives Matter protests, which I was apart of when they first started,” the Real Housewives of New York City star told E! News of her daughter, Kier, on August 6. “Obviously, it's a little harder for a kid to understand. ... I had to talk to her about how laws are unfairly made, how the criminal justice system is racist."

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Chance the Rapper

"If we thought that teaching our kids how to read was hard, imagine teaching them that there’s an entire system of our oppression that our society is built on, that they can either be complicit in or work to change,” the rapper told Parents in August 2020 of teaching daughters Kensli and Marli about racism. "It's a difficult task, but it's like we were born or live in this time for a reason. I think we have a pretty crazy opportunity right now to change the trajectory of humanity."

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Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds

“We’ve been teaching our children differently than the way our parents taught us,” the actress wrote in an Instagram slideshow. “We want to educate ourselves about other people’s experiences and talk to our kids about everything, all of it. Especially our own complicity. … We’re committed to raising our kids so they never grow up feeding this insane pattern and they’ll do their best to never inflict pain on another being consciously or unconsciously."

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Monyetta Shaw

"We just said we were just going to take the approach of just breaking it down the simplest way possible,” the Keep It Classy author exclusively told Us of her and her ex Ne-Yo’s conversations with their kids, Madilyn and Mason, about the Black Lives Matter movement. "And if they have questions, let’s answer them without trying to scare them.”

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Garcelle Beauvais

"We talked about race early … since [my sons] were 3,” the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star exclusively told Us. "I didn't want anybody to put any negative connotation on the fact that I'm Black, their dad, [Mike Nilon], is white. … It was just getting ahead of it and putting a positive spin on it before somebody else said something to them when they were 3. It's trying not to scare them, but at the same time giving them enough information so they're aware of what's going on."

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Lindsie Chrisley

"I am now taking the approach as a mother, and Will is taking the approach as a father ... to further educate [our son]," the Chrisley Knows Best alum said during a July 2020 "Coffee Convos" podcast episode. "Just being able to use books and open meaningful conversations [about racism] ... I promise to raise children who are educated on racial injustices."

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Kailyn Lowry

The Teen Mom 2 star chimed in, "My kids are biracial and I need them to know that I'm learning with them. ... The Day You Begin is the first book I got. It's a great conversation starter."

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Phaedra Parks

“They're very politically savvy, but at the same time, it's always been important to me to be very honest with them about being a person of color, in particular an African American person, and letting them know that although we live a very affluent lifestyle, that's not always the norm,” the Real Housewives of Atlanta alum exclusively told Us of her sons, Ayden and Dylan. “It’s sort of tough to talk about it because it's not a comfortable conversation, but it's a conversation that you have to have if you expect to affect change and you want change to come from the ground up.”

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Lauren Conrad

"We've tried to do it as simply as possible so that he can kind of absorb it and understand it,” the Hills alum said of educating her eldest son, Liam. “ We're trying to figure out what are the simplest ways we can work with our child because he's still so tiny.”

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Molly Sims

The model exclusively told Us, “Sometimes it's not going to come out exactly how you want it to come out with your kids, but do the best you can and don't not talk about it. That's my advice.”

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Charlize Theron

"As a parent, it's been a difficult time,” the Golden Globe winner told Entertainment Tonight. “There was a moment where I felt like a little piece of my children's innocence was taken from them during this period because I had to sit down with them and have really, really hard, honest conversations about some really ugly things in our world today that they need to know. I want them to know because I want to raise two little warriors." 

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Kelly Clarkson

“My little girl, [River], is 6 and [when] she catches something, like the news, I just have to explain it simple,” the American Idol alum told 50 Cent on a Kelly Clarkson Show episode. “It’s just like, ‘Well, there's right and wrong. And this person was wrong and that's why they're crying.' … And I think everybody needs to have that uncomfortable conversation that [racism] exists and that it's wrong."

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50 Cent

The rapper chimed in, “[Kids are] delicate, and I always look at [my son Sire] and say, ‘I don't want to overexert these things to him. At the same time, 50 Cent wants to “change his perspective.” 

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Justin Timberlake

“Boys grow up to be fathers,” the singer captioned a Father's Day slideshow via Instagram. “I think about that a lot these days. [Jessica Biel and I] try to teach our son, [Silas], to love and to respect everyone — we teach him that all people are all created equal, and that no one should be treated differently because of the color of their skin. We teach him this because one day, he will go on to teach his kids the same. It’s a cycle.”

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Shay Mitchell

"One of the things that I always get any new parent are books for their children because I think it's so incredibly important to start them off at such a young age to learn the importance of the messaging that no matter what you look like, everybody deserves to love and be loved without judgment period," the Pretty Little Liars alum exclusively told Us. "Especially with Atlas coming from a diverse family herself. I want her to know that.”

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Cameron Mathison and Vanessa Arevalo

“We try to get them involved, try to keep the conversation loud and alive,” the former soap star told Us exclusively.

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Padma Lakshmi

“[Racism] is a subject that we have talked about all through her childhood,” the Top Chef host told Page Six of her daughter, Krishna. “She’s a biracial child, she’s also someone who’s travelled extensively with me, not only domestically but internationally, so she’s very aware of these issues of inequality. Because of my work with the ACLU, I’ve been able to take her to rallies and things like that."

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Faith Stowers

"Right now, it’s tough for people to have conversations with their kids about [racism], especially when it’s racial profiling out there," the Vanderpump Rules alum told Page Six in June 2020. "People are calling the cops ... for absolutely no reason. ... I think it’ll get easy as he gets older because that’s what I’m fighting for now, so the conversation could get easier.”

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Brie Bella

“We have to educate our kids," the Total Bellas star told Entertainment Tonight. "We have to educate our youth of the things going on. We don’t want to shelter them because they’ll never learn. I’m [my daughter] Birdie’s first teacher. I’m her first role model. I’m the first person to teach her to love, so it’s my duty as a parent to instill in her love, kindness and peace.

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Jenna Dewan

“I would like to share some useful resources for parents to teach and educate your children about racism,” the Flirty Dancing host captioned a June 14 photo of her son Callum’s feet via Instagram. “I want my children to grow up knowing that every human is equal and every human deserves to be treated equally. Nothing is more important than spreading acceptance and love to our kids from the very beginning.”

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Ali Fedotowsky

“I have learned so much over the past few weeks and I vow that my children will know better/more than I have in my life up until now (and I will continue to learn/grow/listen/speak up),” the former Bachelorette captioned a June 10 photo of her two children looking at a Floyd mural.

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Kerry Washington

“I think it's really important that we start to introduce the idea of race with a black history that begins before teaching kids what black people were told they couldn't do,” the Little Fires Everywhere star explained to Jimmy Kimmel. “So, there's Maasai Warriors and the kingdoms of Ghana and Queen Nefertiti and the pyramids of Egypt. This idea of teaching kids that black history and black people were a lot of things before segregation and Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement so that we understand the beautiful complexity, elegance and richness of black history before refusing to be put in the back of the bus."

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Jamie Otis

“One of the first things I realized is change starts at home, with our children,” the Married at First Sight alum captioned an Instagram slideshow of her daughter playing. “And our home is so WHITE. All of Gracie’s toys are white (except for a cute doll our Fran @msjay1964 sent when she was born), her books are filled with white characters & most of the shows she watches are with white kids.⁣ So, we bought Gracie her first black baby doll & some books where black kids shine.”

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Jennifer Lopez

“Today I had Emme and Max[imilian] make me and Alex [Rodriguez] a sign for the protest,” the World of Dance judge captioned footage from a June 7 gathering in Los Angeles. “Max told me a few days ago: ‘You know Mom, since you have a following like some of my YouTuber gamers and they ask us to support things and we do, you should do that for George Floyd.’ I said, ‘Funny you say that baby, I am planning a few things. Do you want to help by making a sign?’ And they did! We talked about how if one person doesn’t have justice then no one does. That this country was built on the belief of freedom and justice for all.”

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Hilaria Baldwin

"We have been having many small talks that I believe are age-appropriate,” the Living Clearly Method author wrote on her Instagram Story. “Even if they don’t bring [these things] up first, we must begin conversations to prepare them for what they will experience out in the world."

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Kourtney Kardashian

“[Let’s] allow our children to feel comfortable enough to come talk to us about anything,” the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star wrote via Instagram. “[Let’s] allow conversation without judgement and learn from our children too. We don’t know it all. My children sometimes ask questions that I may not know the answers to, so we explore them together. ... [I] want to educate myself even more, so that I can be a better mother, a better auntie to my nieces and nephews, a better friend and a better person.”

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Victor Cruz

“I had the most difficult conversation with my daughter about the color of her skin last night,” the former professional football player wrote via Instagram. “How there are people in this world that will dislike you solely because of your race and background. Without ever knowing your story or struggles. Could tell she was a bit confused at first but she nodded in agreement right before falling asleep. I nodded in sadness as she slept. This is America.”

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Selma Blair

"We stood outside for 8 minutes 46 seconds to just think of what George Floyd means for each of us from where we are," the actress captioned an Instagram photo. "What he represents also. After a conversation again today about race and fear and sometimes insurmountable financial challenges of black lives, we finally looked at each other after this memorial of 8:46, and he said, 'You wouldn’t live if that happened to me.' And he is mostly right. But I would stand up for people like him for the rest of my life."

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Hilaria Baldwin

“Such a big part of this healing and solution needs to be raising our children right, without prejudice with compassion, respect and to cherish one another,” the Living Clearly Method author wrote on her June 2 Instagram Story after speaking with Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart about having tough talks with children.

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Reese Witherspoon

“Last night at dinner, my 7-year-old asked why all the grown ups were so upset,” the Big Little Lies alum wrote of her son Tennessee on June 1 via Instagram. “We spoke to him about what happened to George Floyd. Being a white mother trying to explain racism and bigotry to her white son, who did not understand why anyone would treat another human being that way, was heartbreaking.”

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January Jones

The actress posted a photo of her 8-year-old son, Xander, at a “small neighborhood protest” on June 1, writing via Instagram: “I promise that I will always continue to talk to my child about inequality. And I promise to do all I can to learn more. We have had many more of these necessary hard conversations over the last few days, about why people are so angry and sad. For a child who didn’t used to see color amongst his friends it’s hard for him to understand, to understand why the past he learns about in school is still very present in our world today.”

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Jenna Cooper

“I will be listening and learning,” the Bachelor in Paradise alum captioned her June 1 Instagram post. “And know for sure that I will be teaching my daughter how God created every human equally and deserving of the same love and respect.”

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Katherine Heigl

The Grey’s Anatomy alum added in her Instagram slideshow: “I lay in my bed in the dark and weep for every mother of a beautiful divine black child who has to extinguish a piece of their beloved baby’s spirit to try to keep them alive in a country that has too many sleeping soundly.”

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Sheneille Jones

The Today anchor said on June 1 that her three children “cried” when she and husband Uche Oje told them about Floyd’s death. Jones didn’t give “mom answers,” but told her brood the truth.

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Thomas Rhett

The “Be a Light” singer went on to write, “I stand with George and his family and all those who have faced racism. I stand with my wife and my daughters. We will be fighting this fight for the rest of our lives.”

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Carly Waddell

“We are navigating how to explain all of this to a 2-year-old who walks by and sees these fires on the news while feeding her white doll in her fake high heels,” the Bachelor in Paradise alum captioned a May 31 Instagram post. “So this has lit a fire under us to educate ourselves so we can in turn educate our kids. We hope everyone is doing the same.”

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Desiree Siegfried

The former Bachelorette wrote alongside a May 31 family photo: “It’s difficult to discuss what’s going on with children but so very important to change the mindsets and complacency in order to make change in this world and hopefully instill morale and the courage to stand against injustice at ALL times as they grow.”

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Eva Amurri

“I’ve been researching ways to speak to my children about race and racial injustice,” the Undateable alum wrote via Instagram on May 31. “I am here to learn. … I know that personally I must and can do better.”

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Amanda Stanton

“Teach your kids to be advocates,” the Now Accepting Roses author captioned a May 30 Instagram post reading, “Have more empathy.”

For more information, visit Blacklivesmatter.com.