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The phrases “tolerance” and “acceptance” are often used to talk about diversity. Sometimes, they are seen as words in posters around classrooms. Other times, their words are echoed in assembly rooms. However, teaching diversity requires meaningful, planned activities and discussions. There also needs to be a clear distinction between both words. Sometimes they are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. However, these words have their own unique meaning.
Diversity is defined as differences in race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, political beliefs, physical abilities, and more (CUNY). There is a philosophical divide on whether to tolerate or accept diversity.
In this article, we explore the difference between acceptance vs tolerance. Next, we include 10 fun ways to teach diversity concepts.
Acceptance vs Tolerance
There are significant differences between acceptance and tolerance. Let’s explore:
Tolerance
Tolerance is the “level of ability that someone has to recognize and respect other values and differences” (Psychology Today). This includes restraining oneself from negative expressions or opinions about people who are different. However, the word “tolerate” means to put up with something that is possibly painful, harmful, or is simply not wanted (Psychology Today). Consequently, it means something that must be endured. When we consider the root of this definition, we must consider the underlying implications.
Acceptance
Acceptance of diversity means to respect other people’s differences and backgrounds. Similarly, it means recognizing individual differences (CUNY). These differences can include race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and much more. While tolerance simply endures people that are different, acceptance moves past that and promotes an environment of equity, mutual respect, and appreciation. Acceptance also encourages others to see people as individuals versus groups of people.
Which one is better?
When it comes to tolerance vs acceptance, acceptance is the better concept to understand and apply. Anyone can tolerate another person or group of people. It’s acceptance that lets us see diversity as an asset, not a threat. When we strive for acceptance, we also strive for equality and mutual respect.
Best Ways to Teach Diversity
Some of the best ways to teach diversity are through activities. Here are 10 activities, grouped by age, that students can enjoy.
Elementary
Listen to songs in different languages. Some of them can include nursery rhymes or fun learning songs. If the song is different from one they know, include lyrics so they can follow along. You can even teach your students a new song to sing to their families!
Have students put together a world map puzzle in groups or as a whole-group activity. Discuss how big the world is, landmarks, and geography. (Naturespath).
Use online courses to supplement learning. Soul Shoppe’s Respect Differences course teaches elementary students how to appreciate the things that make us different and unique.
Middle School
Go out and experience a local ethnic restaurant.
Have students write to a pen pal abroad (penpalworld.com).
Listen to multicultural music as students journal, or have a mini dance party. (Naturespath).
Go on a field trip to a local museum to learn about different cultures.
High School
Take students to a local cultural festival.
Have students read books on other cultures.
Have students cook foods from their own culture or different cultures and share dishes. (Be sure to offer resources for those who need them.)
There are many activities for kids that embrace diversity. Click for more activities for younger students and students of all ages.
Conclusion
It’s important to teach students to do more than tolerate diversity. Being accepting and striving to understand other cultures is an important part of childhood emotional development. Furthermore, it helps create a culture of inclusion where students of different backgrounds can reach their full potential. It is important for educators and caregivers to help children learn these skills.
Soul Shoppe has social emotional learning programs dedicated to the mission of creating safe learning environments. Soul Shoppe helps schools, parents, and businesses teach empathy, emotional literacy, conflict resolution, and more.
We know that social distancing, schedule changes, quarantine, and all-around uncertainties can take their toll on everyone, especially our little ones. It may feel like things are spiraling out of hand. In these times, it’s important to take care of yourself and to teach kids how to establish self-care activities of their own.
Take your arms and reach them out wide. Now wrap them around your chest and give yourself a big hug. You have just completed a simple self-care activity. Doesn’t that feel good?
What is Self-Care?
Self-care is the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health, well-being, and happiness, particularly during periods of stress. Psychology Today adds that self-care is “the joy of recharging our tanks”. For adults, it can include going to the gym, a concert, or experiencing a quiet night at home. For children and young students there are easy activities that can help with their overall enjoyment of life and help them shrug off stress.
Self-Care Activities for Students
Go Outside
The weather can dictate how much we want to be outside, but studies show that being outside, even for a little bit, has massive benefits. If it’s snowing, have your little ones build a snowman. If it’s raining, build a paper boat and float it down the street. Or, if the sun is shining and the weather is nice, go for a walk and enjoy the world without electronics. Being outside can lower the stress hormone cortisol, raise endorphins, decrease depression and anxiety, and strengthen the immune system. Your self-care activity for students doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate when it’s right outside your door.
Let It Rain
Sometimes the stress builds up inside and makes students (and adults) feel like they might burst. Instead of trying to hold it all in, tell your kids that it’s okay to let it out. A good cry just might be the relief that is needed. Talk with your children about their emotions and why they are feeling this way. After the crying has finished, check on them again. Crying is shown to improve spirits and mood, stimulate the production of endorphins, and restore emotional balance.
Laughter Is the Best Medicine
Doctor Patch Adams said it best: Laughter enhances the blood flow to the body’s extremities and improves cardiovascular function. Laughter releases endorphins and other natural mood elevating and pain-killing chemicals, improves the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to internal organs. Laughter boosts the immune system and helps the body fight off disease, cancer cells as well as viral, bacterial and other infections. Being happy is the best cure of all diseases.
While telling someone who is stressed or overwhelmed to just “be happy” isn’t going to work (and possibly met with a severe glare), the facts are that laughter does help with elevating someone’s mood and reduces stress. Tell a joke to get that grin. Watch a silly show or movie to turn that frown upside down. A good chuckle, belly laugh, hy-yuck yuck, hee hee, ha ha will help alleviate any dampened mood. As far as self-care activities for students go, this one is easy and doesn’t cost a dime…only a smile.
Dance Your Cares Away
Sometimes words alone cannot express what’s going on inside. Our minds and mouths don’t seem to work as one and we are left without the ability to convey what is really going on. So what can children and adults do when words fail us? We can dance. Not a dancer? Dance anyway! No choreography? Dance anyway! Never took lessons? DANCE ANYWAY! Dancing isn’t just for the ballroom, the stage, the movies, or the superstars. Dance can help everyone to let loose and free themselves of their stress and worries.
Not only does dancing lower stress, but it’s also a workout that burns calories and improves cardiovascular health (that’s what’s called a two-fer). If you can’t seem to get your child to a dance studio, there are plenty of dancing games at home that the whole family can use. Games, such as Just Dance, have a wide variety of songs for all ages, so you can get that self-care for your students without them even knowing it. If a gaming system is out of the question, just pick any song and get groovin’! After the moves have been busted and the dance floor cleared, you will see a much-improved attitude and overall feeling in the room.
Eat Healthy Foods
Your students might be tired of hearing “eat your vegetables” or listening to talking points on the five food groups, but the truth is that healthy eating does fall in the realm of self-care. We aren’t talking about going on a diet, but rather taking into consideration what’s being put into our bodies. If a student is observed with stress or fatigue, a proper meal may be the key to lifting their spirits and energy levels.
Stress can affect how your body processes foods and absorbs water. This can lead to feelings of fatigue or lagging. Adopting a proper meal plan can greatly improve spirit and health. A variety of fruits and vegetables along with proper hydration is a self-care activity for students that everyone can get behind.
Find Your Path
While there are many options of self-care activities for students, it’s ultimately up to you and your students to determine the best course of action that will yield the best outcome. No one thing works for everyone, and every self-care activity will not work for each and every instance. Like your diet, go through a variety of things to find out what benefits you and your kids the most. What works one day might not work the next, so switch it up and keep things interesting. Stress rears its head in very unusual and unpredictable ways, so be ready to challenge and defeat it, no matter where it turns up.
Merriam-Webster defines self-esteem as a feeling of having respect for yourself and your abilities, or a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. Self-esteem helps children face challenges, try new things, learn well, and develop well in general (Raising Children).
A child with healthy self-esteem is more likely to be successful academically, socially, emotionally, and even physically. Conversely, low self-esteem can contribute to mental illness such as anxiety and depression, and is often a cause of poor physical health. Low self-esteem negatively affects all types of relationships: friendships, work relationships, romantic relationships, to name a few. It also impacts work and job performance, and creates a predisposition toward abusing alcohol and drugs (CMHC).
Read on to learn what self-esteem is, why it is important, and some of its characteristics. Then we’ll share actionable ways that caregivers and teachers can promote healthy self-esteem for kids.
What Self-Esteem Means for Kids
Self-esteem has been called “the mainspring that slates every child for success or failure as a human being” (CHHS). That said, nurturing self-esteem in a child is one of a caregiver’s most important responsibilities.
Children need to feel proud of themselves for what they can do, see the good in themselves, and accurately assess their own strengths and weaknesses. This will help them believe in themselves and be resilient when facing adversity (Kids Health).
Why Self-Esteem Is Important
Mental Health
Research by the American Psychological Association has shown that having good self-esteem is essential for positive mental health and well-being. It also helps children develop empathy and perspective, as well as coping skills and perseverance (Very Well Mind). And, as stated above, having poor self-esteem contributes to a variety of mental health issues (Positive Psychology).
Academic and Life Success
Self-esteem often means that kids hold high standards for themselves. This manifests itself in several different ways. First, these high standards can help kids set goals—in school, and beyond. As a result, they improve their ability to cope with the setbacks and difficulties in reaching their goals. They learn to persistently try until they achieve success, ultimately have more opportunities and broader life experience.
Relationships
Good self-esteem is an essential component of high-quality relationships. When a child sees their own value, it allows them to better see the value in others. This leads to better interactions, which in turn leads to better self-esteem. The result is a cycle of growth that can last a lifetime.
Physical Health
Children who like themselves treat their bodies well. They typically take care of their physical health and are healthier in general. They are more likely to exercise regularly and subsequently recover faster from illnesses (Positive Psychology).
Characteristics of Self-Esteem
Kids with self-esteem often exhibit the following characteristics:
Trying new things, including those that they might not be good at
Facing challenges instead of avoiding them
Persevering in spite of difficulties
Coping with stress, anxiety, and pressure, whether at home or school (Very Well Mind)
It is possible to build self-esteem at any age. While earlier is better, supportive parenting can change the trajectory of a child’s life no matter where they are in their development.
Warm and loving parental relationships are the basis of self-esteem. They make children feel worthy and valued. Here are some specific suggestions for strengthening your relationship with your child and building their self-esteem.
1. Set boundaries and limits.
Set boundaries and limits to help your child feel secure and grow emotionally (Sanford Health).
2. Show interest in what your child values.
If they love music, listen to or play music with them. If they love books, take them to the library. Engaging with your kids shows them they are worth your time and attention (Raising Kids).
3. Have them do chores or help around the house.
This can include helping prepare meals, making their beds, feeding pets, or washing dishes. Contributing to the household makes kids feel accomplished and shows that you trust them to help (Kids Health).
4. Treat each child as a unique individual.
Remember, one size never fits all…so parent each child in a way that works for both of you.
5. Give balanced feedback.
This means praising your child for trying their best or doing something new, not for being the best. This teaches children to value their own efforts, and to be a good teammate (Raising Children).
6. Listen to and acknowledge your child’s thoughts and feelings.
Teach them how to deal with uncomfortable feelings and, ultimately, to self-regulate.
7. Give your child choices.
Give options and allow your child a feeling of reasonable control over their life (CHHS).
8. Make family meals together.
This strengthens family ties and allows everyone to contribute to the meal. Children can set the table, chop vegetables or cut fruit, or wash lettuce for salad. Meals also give everyone a chance to connect as a family (Raising Children).
9. Show love and affection to your children regularly.
Exhibit love and affection including physical affection—hugs, kisses, etc. Do not withhold affection even if they are misbehaving. To be effective, your love must not be conditional. Continue reinforcing that your child is lovable (CHHS).
10. Encourage them to keep trying even when things are hard.
Praise the effort. Reward perseverance. This builds their resilience.
11. Coach children through difficult social situations.
Children can experience difficult social situations at school or elsewhere. Role-play them, talk through them, etc. This helps prepare children for these situations and build confidence (Raising Children).
12. Keep children connected.
Keep children connected to family friends and extended family as much as possible. This helps develop their sense of belonging and identity. Other options include being part of a religious community, sports club, or another group (Raising Children).
13. Allow them to make mistakes.
Do not expect children to be perfect. Instead, let their mistakes be learning opportunities (Sanford Health).
14. Keep realistic expectations of your child.
This helps them meet the expectations or exceed them. Their self-esteem will grow as a result.
15. Focus on the positives.
Notice what your child is doing right, and praise them for those actions. This reinforces positive behaviors and discourages poor choices (Sanford Health).
Conclusion
Self-esteem can be nurtured in children during their childhood development. It is essential in helping them feel worthwhile, secure, and develop self-worth. This affects every area of their life.
Soul Shoppe provides social emotional learning programs for parents, schools and businesses. Soul Shoppe helps children with empathy, emotional literacy, conflict resolution and more.
Coming off a year when classes were largely online, the need for social learning is at an all time high. Online learning has created obstacles for many families. Several parents are left needing to provide some form of home education on top of distance or remote learning for their kids, especially if they have children who need more attention in the classroom already.
So, how can students learn social skills online or in the home? There are many virtual social learning activities that can help students refine their social skills while staying remote. These practices can be modified to fit the needs of any age group and are easy for students, teachers, or parents to participate in. Here are four social-emotional learning activities that can be done from home:
Virtual Social Learning Activities
1. Find A Penpal
A fun way to get students socially involved in others’ lives while staying at home is connecting with a penpal. Some schools and communities have sponsored programs that safely and securely connect students (with parental consent) to penpals around the same age. If your community doesn’t have a program like this, you could ask your student to make a list of friends or family members they want to try to write to. It is important that students do not contact strangers or give out personal information for safety reasons. Fortunately, there are many penpal connection sites, but ensuring your student uses one through a trustworthy program (like a school or government agency) is key for this virtual social learning activity.
Having a penpal not only helps with writing and grammar skills, but also builds social skills. It also helps them learn about another community or culture. Writing is a fun way to practice socializing from afar.
2. Word and Image Association Games
Games designed to build associations between different situations and the emotions they involve have been used by K-12 teachers for decades. There are a few different ways to put them into practice. All forms of these exercises will help students pick up on social and emotional cues from themselves and the people around them.
The most commonly used method involves showing a student an image of a face and asking them to name the emotion the face is expressing. For example, a smiling face might be labeled as “happy” or “excited.” Check our Pinterest boards for social learning worksheets! Once the student becomes comfortable with that portion of the exercise, move on to asking the student how they would express certain emotions. As an example, a teacher or parent could say the word “worried” and see what facial expressions and body language the student expresses. These types of exercises are helpful in regulating social-emotional awareness.
3. Decision Making Scenarios
A step up from the word and image association game are decision making scenarios. These exercises involve having students decide what the morally right thing to do is in a given scenario. Teachers or parents can read the scenario out loud and then ask the student what the “right thing to do” is. Typically, the scenarios in question involve moral decisions such as returning lost items, reporting dangerous situations, and not giving into peer pressure.
To take this a step further, give students scenarios in which someone did something wrong. Then they answer the question “how should the antagonist in this scenario apologize to that person?” or “how could this person voice their feelings to the person that hurt them?”. I Message is a great tool for this. Virtual social learning activities like these give students the opportunity to recognize and practice navigating through challenging social interactions they will likely encounter at some point in their lives.
4. Writing Prompts About Emotions
One of the more common virtual social learning activities practiced is writing. Some behavioral specialists call this method “tracking and unpacking”. It entails writing about one’s emotions as they come up and then taking an inventory of them later. Ask students to turn their feelings into creative projects like songs, poems, or stories for additional excitement. But, if your student prefers traditional journaling, that works just as well and is potentially more straightforward of an approach.
5. Play Social Skill Games Online
There are websites that will provide social skills games when you sign up. However, you could also facilitate group time with video chat through platforms like Zoom to connect to friends and family. Plan social skill games for these times. One easy game that will encourage social behavior, is to throw ideas the student enjoys talking about in a cup and draw them at random to have all participants engage in conversation about the chosen topic. The topic could be anything from a place they like to go, to games they like to play, etc. Be as specific as possible with the topic such as Minecraft, Harry Potter, etc. to encourage detailed discussions and reciprocity.
There are so many virtual social learning activities to try. One of these is bound to help your student thrive.
Organizations That Can Help With Social Learning
Soul Shoppe has been recognized by many educational institutions for bringing students together and effectively training them in social and emotional intelligence. From in-person assemblies and workshops with students of all ages to online learning, staff members are trained in “activating empathy” and encouraging social positivity among students of all walks of life. Soul Shoppe uses research-based and psychologically-backed models of learning to “integrate more love” into everyone’s social inventory.
“The things that make me different are the things that make me.” – Winnie The Pooh
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We’re all different in our own unique ways. We have different appearances, talents, and abilities. We all think, feel, behave, and believe differently. That’s what makes life so interesting!
Sometimes we celebrate these differences. We heap praise on people like Steve Jobs, Serena Williams, and Greta Thunberg who break the mold and challenge the status quo. But sometimes we exclude, judge, or disparage people because we think they aren’t like us.
At Soul Shoppe, we show kids that if we just take the time to look beneath the surface, we’ll find that we have a lot more in common than we think. But how do we learn to really see beyond our outer appearances and get to know someone for what’s inside?
We can play the Same Same Different Game.
Last week, over 350 students joined us to play what we call the Same Same Different Game! How does it work? Well, we asked kids to look at two different people –me and our big-hearted facilitator Arek – and describe the differences and similarities they saw.
They pointed out that I’m a girl and Arek is a boy. They noted that we both have dark hair, though mine’s long and his is short. But our gender and our hair don’t make us who we are! There’s so much more that makes us unique, and these young people know it. They understand how to find the things we all have in common, whether it’s a love of dancing or a distaste for brussel sprouts.
But learning to appreciate and honor our differences takes practice. That’s why we created Respect Differences.
Respect Differences is an online course designed to teach K-6th grade kids how to recognize and appreciate all the things that make us unique. In this on-demand course, kids are guided through lessons that will help them build up their self-esteem so that they can show more empathy toward people with ideas, appearances, likes, and dislikes different from their own.
We show kids how they can play the Same Same Different Game to celebrate differences all the time. Visit our website and learn more. Or, you can click the button below.
Thank you for attending Soul Shoppe’s virtual game show, Kids Say the Smartest Things!
We had a blast sharing superhero trivia and imitating animal sounds, talking about polar bears and playground problems, but more importantly: your kids had a lot of wise insights to share.
They showed us how to navigate tough conversations, how to face overwhelming emotions, how to stand up to peer pressure, and much, much more. All this just goes to show that kids have innate peacemaking and problem solving skills. We adults could probably learn a thing or two!
Thanks to your little ones and their profound kid wisdom, we feel that we have a much brighter future ahead of us.
Now we want to know what you thought of our virtual events this year. Whether you’re a parent, a teacher, or a school administrator, we’d love to hear from you so we can continue to improve our programs to best serve your kids and students.
Simply click the button below to take a very brief survey (only 3 questions!) and give us your feedback.
