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If you follow my work you know that in all of my endeavors my focus is to reduce harm. There’s no way to eliminate harm but when you know better you can certainly do better and that gesture alone can ripple into a cascade of awareness and kindness for our collective communities. During all holidays, I find this to be even more important, as during this time of year we want to focus on positive collective impact and not uniformed practices that rely on bypassing burden.

Let us remember that Halloween can be magical for children. From their first costume as babies; dressed as pumpkins with orange cheeks and tiny leaf head pieces, or as adorable kittens and witches, to their excited trick-or-treating years, in the United States this holiday centers around childhood enjoyment. I personally love to see the creativity of each person who comes to my door. If it aligns with your family’s values, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating Halloween. However, as we approach Halloween 2025, it’s crucial for all parents to understand which practices cause real harm.

In American tradition, October 31st marks when the veil between our world and the spirit world grows thin. The custom of scary decorations and costumes originally served a purpose: to blend in with wandering spirits so they wouldn’t target your home or family. Children dress as frightening creatures to disguise themselves from actual threats that are now “among us”. Keeping this in mind, may help clarify why using someone else’s identity or culture as your “shield” is inappropriate.

Lets break down some simple examples:

1. Painting your child’s skin black or brown is never acceptable. This practice has deep historical roots in minstrelsy, which depicted Black people as unintelligent performers existing for white entertainment. No character requires darkening skin to complete a costume when done respectfully.

2. Afros are not costumes—they’re natural hair that grows from people’s bodies worldwide. Wearing disheveled afro wigs perpetuates harmful stereotypes that cast Black hair as “unkempt,” “unprofessional,” or “wild” when worn naturally, and beautifully by Black people ourselves.

3. Deities, religious figures, and cultural identities are not props. Hindu priests, Indian goddesses, Egyptian royalty, and historical figures like the Queen of Sheba are deeply meaningful to millions of people daily and around the world. They’re not tools to “scare away demons” or entertainment for Halloween night.

Halloween offers endless creative possibilities: zombies, witches, vampires, scarecrows, spiders, ravens, ogres, ghosts, skeletons, and countless other spooky creatures. Focus on these traditional elements rather than appropriating identities, cultures, or appearances that aren’t yours to wear for fun or entertainment. Teaching your little ones to stay within the moment

Let’s keep Halloween about children’s laughter, spooky fun, and candy bags they won’t want to share, while ensuring everyone can celebrate and we can actively reduce racial and cultural harm at the same time.

Ayisha Elliott is a mother, grandmother, and relational parenting guide who understands the beautiful complexity of raising Black children in today’s world. As a mother of three and grandmother of five—currently raising three of her grandchildren—she brings both lived experience and 25 years of professional expertise in relationship-centered approaches to the everyday realities of parenting across generations. From navigating school systems and cultural identity to managing sibling dynamics and travel logistics with children, Ayisha has learned that the same principles that transform organizations can revolutionize family life. As the content producer of the podcast Black Girl From Eugene, award-winning columnist, and sought-after speaker, Ayisha creates authentic conversations about what it means to raise confident, grounded children while honoring their heritage and preparing them for the world as it is. Her unique perspective comes from successfully balancing entrepreneurship with hands-on parenting, traveling internationally with the children she’s raising, and understanding that every parenting decision carries both personal and cultural weight. Through her writing and speaking, Ayisha offers practical wisdom, honest reflection, and relationship-building strategies that help Black families thrive—not just survive—in complex times.

A couple of years before I decided to have a child, I relocated from Upstate New York to Oregon. My greatest concern about being in a new place as a new parent was how I could get the social support and practical information I needed to become the best parent that I could to be. That’s when I discovered some local parenting groups that were available to me.

In these parenting groups, which were designed for families with young children, I found a sense of belonging, my struggles were normalized, and I got to share the many joys and challenges of parenting with others going through similar experiences. For many years now, I have cherished the friendships that grew out of those early group connections, and we’ve celebrated our children (who have become amazing young adults.) It does indeed take a village!

What to expect

Parenting groups are often put together by family-centered organizations and are run by Parenting Educators. Parenting Educators facilitate parenting groups for families to explore what they want and need on their unique journey. In addition to guiding the group through meaningful activities and supporting topical discussions, the facilitator can also offer information on other local resources families may want or need.

As new parents we were asked by our facilitator to name our values in a guided activity. Knowing our family values helps us to focus on the important things in our everyday interactions as we parent our children. We visualized our children growing up into adulthood, and imagined the types of experiences, skills, and knowledge they could have by the time they got there. The beauty of this exercise is that as a diverse group of parents we can each choose what we value and learn how to achieve our goals through our family practices and daily routines.

In our parenting group we also focused on the benefits of adult self-care and stress management, so that we can communicate and connect with our children in nurturing and responsive ways. We explored the importance of understanding and meeting the child’s needs at different developmental ages and stages, and adjusting our approach for individual differences in temperament. We examined ways to build strong parent-child relationships, connect using the power of play, and offer positive guidance and discipline strategies to help our children learn and grow in healthy ways.

I’m grateful for the parenting groups I participated in over the years. I treasure the information I gained from the content offered and the way other parents were there for me. My wish for all families is to find a way to engage with others and have meaningful connections that help us thrive.

As a parent, I do not believe that we are meant to raise our children alone.

Resources

For families living in Lane County, here are some of the local parenting resources available to you. Check out a parenting class or family resource today!

Early Childhood Hub of Lane County

Eugene Public Library Parenting Supports

Aoife Rose Magee, PhD, earned a doctoral degree in Special Education from the University of Oregon Early Intervention Program. Her personal and professional interests have been largely focused on the social-emotional development of young children and how positive parenting and teaching practices may contribute to healthy development, promote resiliency, and mediate risk factors. Aoife is professional development specialist for students and practitioners in the areas of Early Childhood Education, Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education and Parenting Education.  Aoife serves as a Master Trainer for the Oregon Registry and frequently provides community based and private workshops for early childhood educators, parenting educators, and other professionals. For more than thirty years, she worked directly with families as a parenting educator, and she is a former Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative Hub Coordinator for the Parenting Success Network. She currently teaches as a full-time faculty in the Early Childhood Education Program at Lane Community College. She is also the mother of a fantastic young adult son and enjoys nature and creative pursuits in her spare time.

As school time arrives, there’s so much to cover and yet so much we have to wait and see how it turns out. Undoubtedly, the school year brings hopes of friendship, growth, and a chance to see your child grow into a new version of themselves. Social interaction is critical for brain development, so the quality of those interactions is essential. The children want to connect. When we have little ones under the age of 8, the social interactions aren’t just with their friends—it’s also with the adults who guide them throughout their day.

When you are a parent of a Black child, the typical environment of any classroom has markers that are inherent indicators of one or two things: the classroom is set up for either their growth or their erasure. It may sound hyperbolic, but it is indeed one of the easiest mistakes parents in predominantly white spaces overlook—the visual, physical, and audio cues in classrooms that are rooted in eliminating the prospect of collaboration and diversity.

The assumption that your classroom has to have a percentage of representation reflective of the student body is technically and numerically accepted. However, it’s not generally a safe space for a growing mind to understand their full society. If there’s even just one child who is “different,” separating that difference as unique, unusual, or special is tokenism and effectively eliminates the truth that the space this person shares with others is uniquely lacking in diversity, not the other way around. It’s important to note the power dynamic of spaces that are homogeneously white rather than other ethnically coded cultural spaces. The tendency to lack general knowledge or the need to acknowledge other practices or norms is considered bad form. The “othering” is profound. It is deeply harmful. Whether this “othering” is loud or quietly practiced, your child feels it.

As I continue to write what may help you in assessing the safety of your Black child’s educational experience, I cannot emphasize enough that you MUST be an active participant in normalizing their existence far before they reach school. Their skin, their hair, their bodies, their sensibilities ARE different from your own. It is CRITICAL that you familiarize yourself and normalize the spectrum of existence for Black people so you are not experimenting on your child as they grow. You are still their first experience in this world. It is far too common for two white parents, identity-struggling biracial parents, and white primary caregivers to be their child’s first racist experience. This can be prevented. So please keep this in mind as you approach your child’s school. You are their first line of defense, so know the game.

It is critical to have conversations with the teacher and administration about:

• What their practice and policy is around racial discrimination

• What is their knowledge and approach to avoid racial profiling in behavioral norms for Black children

• What practices and policies do they have for engagement during holidays

• What curricular diversity is planned to include the positive contributions of Black people, not only in the United States but throughout the world.

I would suggest you follow up and get their responses via email as well.

What to look for in the school/classrooms:

• Names AND pictures of Black scientists, artists, writers (not just entertainers or MLK)

• Circle time books—are the illustrations diverse?

• The toys—all boys? All girls? All shades and shapes?

• The emotional regulation board—who are the angry characters and who are the regulated characters?

This is by no means a complete list. These are starter points. The society we have created requires your personal growth and deep advocacy. It requires your activism. Raising a Black child is an ultimate gift. Do your best to ensure the spaces that mold them are also reflecting that truth.

Ayisha Elliott is a mother, grandmother, and relational parenting guide who understands the beautiful complexity of raising Black children in today’s world. As a mother of three and grandmother of five—currently raising three of her grandchildren—she brings both lived experience and 25 years of professional expertise in relationship-centered approaches to the everyday realities of parenting across generations. From navigating school systems and cultural identity to managing sibling dynamics and travel logistics with children, Ayisha has learned that the same principles that transform organizations can revolutionize family life. As the content producer of the podcast Black Girl From Eugene, award-winning columnist, and sought-after speaker, Ayisha creates authentic conversations about what it means to raise confident, grounded children while honoring their heritage and preparing them for the world as it is. Her unique perspective comes from successfully balancing entrepreneurship with hands-on parenting, traveling internationally with the children she’s raising, and understanding that every parenting decision carries both personal and cultural weight. Through her writing and speaking, Ayisha offers practical wisdom, honest reflection, and relationship-building strategies that help Black families thrive—not just survive—in complex times.

My family teases me about my vast collection of picture books. They say I can open a library out of our home. I give picture books as gifts to recipients of all ages.

They are works of art! Literally! I am constantly amazed at the artistic skill of the illustrators. The authors magically make the readers feel inspired, cozy, seen, happy, and mighty in just 32 pages. 

Behold, the Picture Book 

Mac Barnett was recently named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. This prestigious appointment comes with an opportunity to choose a platform on which to focus for the tenure. Barnett named his theme, Behold, the Picture Book! Let’s Celebrate Stories We Can Feel, Hear, and See, to elevate the status of these texts.

When we take a moment to consider the talent required to create a book that makes the reader feel so deeply and to acknowledge the special rituals that often surround snuggled-up book reading time, the word “behold” is perfect. These books have become beloved by children.

As Barnett says in an interview with NPR, “The picture book is my favorite art form. It’s such an incredible, vibrant, exciting, forward-looking, experimental art form.”

Rebellious Read Alouds 

OPEC’s Training Academy hosted former kindergarten teacher and author, Vera Ahiyya, to discuss her book, Rebellious Read Alouds and the power of picture books. She shared staggering statistics about diverse representation in picture books.

Animals are the 2nd most popular primary character, and Ahiyya said children are less likely to emulate book behavior from an animal character than they are from a person. Learning valuable lessons from books would have a larger impact if the characters were people.

Ahiyya reiterated the importance of reading “mirrors, windows, and sliding doors” books, an idea coined by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop. Dr. Bishop suggests that we need all three types of books. Mirror books reflect the reader’s experience; they see themselves in the story. Window books help the reader see into other worlds. Sliding glass door books help the reader enter into another world through empathy.   

Finding a “Just Right” Book 

As a classroom teacher, I loved the challenge of matching the perfect book to a student. Learning a student’s interests and reading ability, thinking through my favorite stories, and handing a child a book they loved was highly fulfilling.

I love seeing a kid who is learning to read and cautiously sounding out words, laughing at the book in their hands instead of throwing it down in boredom or frustration. Our school and public librarians create magical storytimes and community outreach events that help libraries become important “third places” for children and families. 

“If we think that children’s books are anything less than real literature, it’s because we think kids are something less than real people. If we believe they’re real people, then they deserve good art.” – Mac Barnett

Resources to find high quality children’s books:

American Indians in Children’s Literature 

Award Winning Books

Caldecott Award Winning Books

The Horn Book

Newbery Award Winning Books

School Library Journal Contenders for Awards

By Megan McQueen.
Spanish translation by  Dr. J Senior Consulting, LLC 

Megan McQueen is a warmhearted teacher, coach, consultant, and writer. She grounds her work in empathetic education, imparting a strong sense of community and social skills to those with which she works. Megan prioritizes emotional learning and problem solving skills. When not at work, she is most likely playing with her husband, two children, and pup.

Learn more about the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative and read our blog!

If you have Black children, you are a Black household.

This seems straightforward, but most people reading this will immediately resist that description. If you pause a little longer, you might realize something crucial: if your children are Black and your household doesn’t actively understand and engage with issues that uplift or impact the Black community, you’re effectively leaving your child to navigate that terrain alone.

There’s a razor-thin line between othering your child and truly accepting the reality that your entire household is affected by what affects them.

If you’re a non-white parent who doesn’t understand society’s impact on Black children, this understanding is imperative. It’s not enough to simply know the statistics—the likelihood that your child could (and most likely is) experiencing racism in school, extracurricular activities, or while engaging with social systems as basic as riding the city bus.

What’s imperative is navigating the nuances of such ignorance with a deep radar for being gaslit and dismissed back into your comfort zone. If your gut is telling you something is off, it is off. If racism wasn’t in your top two explanations, double-check whether you’re avoiding what has been normalized in your world—not necessarily the world your child experiences daily.

If you find yourself asking, “Could it really be…?” It could. And most likely, it is.

What This Looks and Sounds Like

The manifestations are countless:

• Assumptions about behavior leading to predictions of “nefarious pathways”

• Presumptions about likelihood and capability

• Adults showing apparent lack of experience with Black children, then either refusing accountability or using “not knowing” as justification for inaction

• Absence of dialogue around the impact of cultural, racial, and ethnic experiences in our society

• Describing appearance with coded, generally negative words: “wooly,” “frizzy,” “little monkey,” “hyper,” “loud” (when referring to excitement or energy)

• Labeling children as “different” when the real issue is adults’ lack of exposure to Black children

I could go on. They can go on as well.

Some of these incidents might seem “silly” to address. However, your position should align with your child’s experience, not your own understanding of it. It’s crucial that your child isn’t taught to comply just to get along.

Every issue that affects a Black person must fully affect your household. Without this perspective, you effectively leave your child alone to address the fear and, ultimately, the shame of their involuntary inclusion in whatever the Black community is being charged with.

Everything charged to the Black community is being charged to yours.

One privilege of being white is that when the white community faces behavioral accusations, it’s not charged to the entire community. For example, though most mass shooters are white males, we haven’t labeled this demographic as “dangerous when angry and in crowds.” Yet any deficit attributed to the Black community—whether an individual act or not—lands as the responsibility and reflection of the group entirely.

Your child is no exception.

Your Essential Role

As parents, your job is to ensure that in a world directed at invalidating your baby’s existence, you empower your child with this truth: there is nothing—NOTHING—wrong with how they exist.

Your active commitment to engaging with Black history through the eyes of the Black community is essential. You don’t need to be different people. You do, however, need to be well-informed and an active advocate for your child and their community to live unharmed.

Parents are parents—you don’t want anything to happen to your precious child. This is precisely why it’s imperative to examine which lens you’re using when teaching your child how to be in this complicated society.

White parents especially must address their fear of their Black child navigating an aggressive world. (I’ll explore this more in a future post.) After consistent work on your own personal experiences, narratives, and conditioning, the short answer is this: don’t teach them to fear what being Black means.

There’s often a hidden narrative that white parents carry—one that positions their Black child as somehow complicit in persistent stereotypes, or as having innate knowledge about their “racial role.” This usually isn’t conscious.

There is a solution—many, actually. First and foremost: teach your child a deep understanding of their strength, and of the strength, beauty, and brilliance that is their Blackness, however that presents itself.

This foundation of strength and clarity will prove far more valuable when the day comes that they must stand up for themselves—and that day will come.

The concept of a Black home isn’t just about recognition—it’s about transformation. It’s about ensuring that every child who enters your door knows they belong not just in your family, but in this world, exactly as they are.

Ayisha Elliott is a mother, grandmother, and relational parenting guide who understands the beautiful complexity of raising Black children in today’s world. As a mother of three and grandmother of five—currently raising three of her grandchildren—she brings both lived experience and 25 years of professional expertise in relationship-centered approaches to the everyday realities of parenting across generations. From navigating school systems and cultural identity to managing sibling dynamics and travel logistics with children, Ayisha has learned that the same principles that transform organizations can revolutionize family life. As the content producer of the podcast Black Girl From Eugene, award-winning columnist, and sought-after speaker, Ayisha creates authentic conversations about what it means to raise confident, grounded children while honoring their heritage and preparing them for the world as it is. Her unique perspective comes from successfully balancing entrepreneurship with hands-on parenting, traveling internationally with the children she’s raising, and understanding that every parenting decision carries both personal and cultural weight. Through her writing and speaking, Ayisha offers practical wisdom, honest reflection, and relationship-building strategies that help Black families thrive—not just survive—in complex times.

As humans, our everyday experiences make up our lives. Often, we spend our time and attention focused on the big stories or major moments in life. Think of these like waves in the ocean, rising and falling one after another and carrying us along with them. But all the while, it’s our little stories of minor moments that capture the depth and breadth of life. These ripples are what create the shimmer and sparkle over the water that surrounds us.

Over the last few days, I made a list of a few of the little moments that made up my lived experiences.

• Watching a swallowtail butterfly landing briefly on meadow flowers.

• Enjoying how my son dangles a feathered toy on a stick to engage playful kittens.

• Contemplating the phase of the moon and constellations as the night comes.

• Inhaling the sweet smell of roses in the local rose garden.

• Savoring a cup of Earl Gray tea with cream and local honey.

When we pay close enough attention, curiosity, wonder, awe and delight can be found everywhere at any time. And, luckily for us, parenting and teaching allow adults to bear witness to many hours of lived experiences for the children close to them.

Creating safe spaces and opportunities to observe and share thoughts and feelings shows how our everyday experiences are valued. What inspires you? What inspires your child?

To practice, make a list each day of at least ten moments that caught your attention. Some people keep a journal, fill a jar with slips of paper, or make notes. Capture your precious – and simple – observations with short stories, anecdotes, pictures, sketches, or video recordings. I invite you to gather your little moments in a way that best fits your preferences and give it a try. If it works for you, that’s great; it might work for your kiddos, too.

You can support your children’s early journaling by offering them paper and art materials to document their experiences through writing or drawn images. For very young children, adults can write down what the child dictates. The end of the day is often a great time for reflection and capturing these little moments, and it supports a positive rapport between the child and adult and builds greater capacity for connection.

Gratitude and mindfulness go hand in hand, because they’re both about raising our awareness and becoming more present to the meaningful little moments in our lives. A simple practice that we can use to support mindfulness is called the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, which includes taking several deep breaths and then tuning into our environment through our five senses. 

First, take three slow belly breaths.

List 5 things you can SEE

List 4 things you can FEEL

List 3 things you can HEAR

List 2 things you can SMELL

List 1 thing you can TASTE

Lastly, take another three slow belly breaths. 

Being grateful and present with our children is a gift for us all. Children often require us to slow down and take note of the many little moments. Perhaps the glacial pace of a fully lived moment is an antidote to the frenzied pace of modern life.

Resources

Want some inspiration on capturing the beauty of nature and cultivating gratitude? Louie Schwartzberg offers us a beautiful reflection through his story and deeply touching video images in the TED Talk on Gratitude.

To learn more about gratitude and related activities that parents and teachers can do with children and adolescents, please check out the links below.

1.     Positive Psychology shares their 20 Gratitude Exercises and Activities to Boost Well-being.

2.     At We are Teachers,  adults who support elementary and middle-school children might want to explore the 36 Meaningful Gratitude Activities.

3.     Pathway to Success offers 30 Gratitude Activities for Children and Teens

Aoife Rose Magee, PhD, earned a doctoral degree in Special Education from the University of Oregon Early Intervention Program. Her personal and professional interests have been largely focused on the social-emotional development of young children and how positive parenting and teaching practices may contribute to healthy development, promote resiliency, and mediate risk factors. Aoife is professional development specialist for students and practitioners in the areas of Early Childhood Education, Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education and Parenting Education.  Aoife serves as a Master Trainer for the Oregon Registry and frequently provides community based and private workshops for early childhood educators, parenting educators, and other professionals. For more than thirty years, she worked directly with families as a parenting educator, and she is a former Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative Hub Coordinator for the Parenting Success Network. She currently teaches as a full-time faculty in the Early Childhood Education Program at Lane Community College. She is also the mother of a fantastic young adult son and enjoys nature and creative pursuits in her spare time.