Ep 73: Preparing Our Kids to Meet this Moment

I want all our children- whether in Gaza, Congo, Sudan, or Minneapolis- to be safe. When this desire is out of balance, my auntie instinct is to protect children at all costs. I know you have the same parenting instinct too. And in times like these, that can look like shielding our children from the oppression we’re seeing on our phones and in our neighborhoods for as long as we can, despite our social justice values and intentions. I really, truly, wholeheartedly understand. And yet, you and I both know that this kind of protection is a disservice to our children because we’re not preparing them for the reality they’re in. My invitation today is to shift from reflexively protecting our children to tactically preparing them for this moment of unrest and uncertainty. And that begins with seeing our children as active participants in their learning instead of passive blank slates. Respecting the agency of our children lets us make parenting political and raise them to become future change agents.

[INTRODUCTION]

Welcome back to episode 73 of the Come Back to Care Podcast. Please allow me to begin by grounding us in this moment. I’m recording this episode on February 1st 2026 as the dominant group in the United States is beginning to face the same violence from the state that marginalized groups have been experiencing for many generations. A white racial identity that used to protect from oppression is no longer shielding people from bullets and other forms of brutality. For you and I to meet this moment strategically and effectively as caregivers and parents, we must change how we practice care. In the previous episode, I invited you to change reactive care into radical care by practicing social justice with your child in everyday parenting. Instead of thinking of social justice action as something that happens at mass protest in response to kidnappings and killings, I invited you to think of your parenting day to day, even when you’re triggered and tired, as an opportunity for social justice action.

In this episode, I’d love to invite you to change care to be radical by changing how we look at our children and therefore changing the way we raise them. You and I are going to explore what it takes for our children to survive and thrive. Then we’ll explore what it means to raise them to become change agents- not just quote unquote successful, or kind, or compassionate, or conscious? And lastly, how are we going to go beyond protecting our children by shielding them from reality to effectively preparing them for this reality? If that sounds generative to you, let’s get started.

[EPISODE]

Raising Change Agents

What’s your response, if I ask you “what would you like your child to grow up and be?” Across 20 years of working with families, I’ve heard responses like “I want my child to be successful,” “to not be a jerk,” “to make it,” “to be compassionate…” Do any of these echo your desires for your child? Across races, classes, and genders, most parents want better lives for their children. And in these times of unrest and uncertainty (or let’s call it what it is: fascism), it’s helpful to get specific about what we mean when we say “we want a better life for our children.” I’ll break “a better life” into two buckets: to survive and to thrive. To survive often looks like two things: to be successful and to be safe. When your child is successful by capitalism’s definition, they have enough resources like money to eat, pay bills, pay rent, and access health care, all of which are necessary to survive under capitalism. When your child is safe, they know how to navigate this yikes-on-bikes system of power dynamics, from talking to police officers, and acting quote unquote professionally with their employers, to behaving like a good, obedient student with their teachers. To survive systemic oppression, your child knows what they need to do to be successful and safe. To say it another way, your child has what it takes to be survival smart.

Now thriving means having the necessary social skills and emotional sass to rock with the communities your child is a part of. Your child respects who they are so much that they honor their community members who look, live, love, and learn differently from them. Your child respects their own boundaries so much that they don’t let others walk all over them. Your child knows how to stand with someone in solidarity instead of standing above them as a savior. They know how to practice mutual aid, interdependence, conflict resolution, and other skills needed for a community to keep struggling towards liberation without falling apart at the first sign of discomfort. Thriving is collective and communal. To say it another way, your child has what it takes to be liberation smart.

When your child has what it takes to survive and thrive aka to be survival smart and liberation smart, you’re raising them to be change agents. Under fascism, they need both sets of skills. As a change agent, your child knows how to stay safe when they need to and how not to play it safe when it’s time to take a stand. As a change agent, your child has what it takes to outsmart oppression and kick start a revolution with their co-conspirators too.

Still with me? So the question becomes how are we preparing our children to survive and thrive? How are we preparing them to be survival smart and liberation smart? You and I both know that protecting our children by shielding them from reality has never been effective. Some families never have this privilege to begin with.

The Hidden Cost of “Protecting Children’s Innocence”

In fact, shielding our children from reality prevents care from becoming radical. Rather, it makes care either coddling or carceral. Coddling because we protect our children’s innocence and comfort instead of preparing them with right-sized information and strategies to make sense of what’s happening. Carceral because we control our children to be obedient to be safe, or we toughen them up at home so they’re ready for the tough world, or we instill fear in them, hoping that this fear of those in power will protect them. And yet we know that we don’t have to police our children to protect them from police brutality. We can practice liberation through everyday parenting as a way to prepare them to survive oppression and thrive with their communities.

Whether care becomes coddling or carceral, either way we slice it, your fears and worries hijack your parenting intentions. And you end up equipping your child only with survival smart skills. Liberation smart skills are missing. And our change agents need both sets of skills to survive and thrive; to be prepared to step in and out, up and back to make liberation a verb with their community.

And I know you’re exhausted. I know the system isn’t supporting you in showing up as the parent you know you can be and here I am asking you to do more and prepare your child to become a change agent who knows how to stay safe under oppression but doesn’t play it safe when it comes to collective liberation. Preparing your child to survive and thrive isn’t about creating a spreadsheet that outlines 10 new rigorous lesson plans for your family every week. Rather, this preparation already takes place in everyday parenting moments. Moments like when you yelled at your child but then got yourself together to apologize and come up with an accountability plan for the future together; or when you tell your child you can’t stack blocks with them right now because you need to wipe your tears in that locked bathroom and gather yourself and you tell your child to count to 10 and wait; or when you ask your child to make choices and you both share decision making power together, and so many other ordinary moments like these.

If you’d like a DIY approach to your practice, please check out any previous episodes and find the ones that talk about power-with. For example, Episode 37: Where do I start “meeting my child where they’re at”? and Episode 61: Unlearn Adult Supremacy & Power-With with Your Child are a great start. I’ll link them in the episode show notes for you.

Invitation: Preparation Over Protection

But for this episode, I’d love to invite you into one practice: preparation over protection.

When your survival instincts tell you to shrink and stay silent to be safe- which then shapes your parenting, instead of trying to protect your child from the world, choose to prepare them for the world. How would you invite your child to participate in their own learning and prepare them to be a change agent? Together with your child, you practice ways to be survival smart and ways to be liberation smart…most of the time.

When you see your child as an active change agent, it’ll likely lead you both out of despair, cynicism, and freeze stress responses and into some “good trouble” together. You and your child might pick one out of ten social justice roles you both can play at school or in the neighborhood like we discussed with Deepa Iyer in episode 66. Or you might talk to your child about what’s happening with immigrants right now to help them make sense of the situation before bringing dinner over to the neighbors. Episodes 10 and 67 have great frameworks for you to talk about social issues in ways that your child gets and you don’t sweat, if you’d like to check them out.

Your child is not a passive victim that needs to be coddled just like you’re not a passive bystander. You both are active participants that our liberatory movements need.

By taking small, consistent actions in your home and neighborhood, you’re raising change agents, both the one in your home and the one inside of you.

For more practical ways to practice social justice with your child in ordinary moments like mealtimes, play time, the morning rush, meltdown times and so on, please consider pre-ordering my upcoming book, Raising Change Agents: Practicing Social Justice in Everyday Parenting anywhere books are sold.

[CLOSING]

If this episode fills your cup, please share it with folks you love, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, or join our Come Back to Care Patreon to keep our learning space advertisement free. This show is fully listener funded. I cannot thank you enough for being here with me and raising our future generations to be change agents who survive and thrive.

I’m with you, my dear co-conspirator, in solidarity and sass. Until next time, please take care.