Teaching Children about Difference and Kindness through Books with Courtney Westlake

Today I’m interviewing Courtney Westlake, author of A Different Beautiful: Discovering and Celebrating Beauty in Places You Never Expected and the newly released Celebrating Our Stories: Teaching Children about Differences and Kindness through Books (affiliate links). I hope our discussion encourages us all to take steps to each our children about differences and being kind.

I got to know your family through your first book, A Different Beautiful: Discovering and Celebrating Beauty in Places You Never Expected. Can you introduce yourself and your family to our readers?

My husband Evan and I live in Illinois with our two children, Connor and Brenna. When Brenna was born in 2011 with a rare, life-threatening skin disorder, I began to blog about our family life raising a child with special needs and visible differences. Both of our kids have taught us so much about finding the good in the hard of daily life and learning to celebrate our differences!

What inspired you to write Celebrating Our Stories: Teaching Children about Differences and Kindness through Books?

After years of writing about physical differences and learning how to appreciate others as unique images of God, I have gotten so many questions about how to best teach that message to children. One of my pieces of advice is to start reading books about those topics, so of course the next question is always: “what books do you recommend?!” My list of recommendations has grown tremendously over the years and encompasses such a range of themes under this umbrella. So that’s when I realized it was time for a book speaking specifically to helping children understand and appreciate differences and rounding up all of my recommendations!

Is there a book you include that your son especially loved? One that encouraged him as the typical sibling?

I love this question, but I have to laugh at the word “typical.” It is really hard to describe a child with special needs versus a child who doesn’t have what we would consider special needs, so “typical” is probably most appropriate… but when you think about it, none of us are really typical! We love to say in our family “we’re all weird.”

Both of our children love to read, so we had a lot of fun doing all of the research that came with my new ebook! Connor’s favorites included Not Your Typical Dragon, Different Is Awesome, I’m Not and Exclamation Mark. One that he really related to for himself was Happy Dreamer, which is about a boy who is smart and creative but a little scattered and often gets lost in his own thoughts.

At what age should we start introducing our kids to these lessons on differences and empathy?

It’s never too early. Children begin to notice differences on a more acute level when they are around 3 or 4. Developmentally, their brains start processing and sorting differences in color and appearance. If they are exposed to a wide variety of people of different colors, abilities and backgrounds from a young age, though, different won’t seem strange. It’s important not to make this a taboo topic of conversation. Instead, we need to help our kids recognize that everyone is different in some way, and practice using kind language when talking to others. God-given differences are a positive thing to be noticed, accepted and appreciated – not something to be feared. Teaching our children about differences is essential to help them to become accepting, kind and respectful individuals who love others well!

Why is reading books so powerful for learning about how to treat others?

Stories really do have the power to be transformative, and reading with your child is a tremendous gift you can give to them! Reading enables us to imagine how we might feel in situations we have never been in or to appreciate someone’s life we have never met. Reading provides us with the framework for developing empathy for those we encounter throughout our lives.

A new story expands our children’s worldview and perspectives, educating them that there is far more beyond their own small lives. I have started telling my kids that our way of life is just one way, not the way! Reading also teaches them commonality—that despite vast differences in clothing, food, culture, abilities, appearances and work, people are simply people. And we were all created as unique masterpieces by the same great God!

Connect with Courtney on her website, www.courtneywestlake.com, and check out her books on Amazon!

Want to see even more book recommendations from our writing team? Check them out here.