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One day, a little boy named Jonathan came home from preschool and told his mother that a friend of his had said

this. Your skin is brown because you drink chocolate milk. Too much chocolate milk, he said.

Though it wasn't a bad theory on the part of his friend, right, a three-year-old had observed him

drinking chocolate milk and so thought, hmm, that must be it.

But I wondered, was anybody explaining to him that his chocolate milk theory was not accurate?

It did also clue me to the fact that teachers and parents are often very uncomfortable with these conversations. And sometimes when we're uncomfortable with something, if we don't really

want to deal with it, we kind of tune it out.

I'm Anya Kamenetz, an NPR reporter, and the mother of two girls.

I'm Corey Turner, an NPR reporter, and the father of two boys.

And you're listening to Life Kit for Parents with Sesame Workshop.

We're here to help you through the tough conversations that kids throw at us about death, divorce.

And we do it with help from the child development experts at Sesame.

In this episode, we're going to explore a topic that families told us they really struggle with.

Yeah, how to talk about race.

In addition to Sesame, we're also going to get

some help from the voice we just heard, Beverly Daniel Tatum. She's not just a mom who found

herself in one of these tough conversations. No, she happens to be an expert in the psychology

of racism. And the author of the classic bestseller, why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?

When we come back, what she told her son about the chocolate milk, along with five strategies to help you talk to your kid about race.

...