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At some point in just about every child’s development, they will be exposed to a sense of unfairness or injustice that will upset them – whether it is about skin color, religion, hair, clothes, gender, learning ability, you name it. Making it clear to your child from young that they have the agency and tools for talking about it, says to them, “Your feelings are valid and important. You can feel strong and you can affect change.”

Being an upstander is one of the most effective ways of affecting this change. For a child, being an upstander is hard – it is hard to be the first to speak up, to move through discomfort, to get the words out. Is your child ready and able when the opportunity arises? Try using our:

• Guiding principles to navigate conversations with your child;
• Concrete strategies and scripts for practice.

What is An Upstander?

Any opportunity to speak or act in support of a cause or an individual who is being treated unfairly is an opportunity to be an upstander. It is about speaking up whenever they see any form of injustice or unfairness. For a child, this can include a wide range of behaviors from racism to teasing on a playground to bullying (1 in 5 high school students reported being bullied on school property. See research.)

Children intuitively perceive what is fair and unfair, so upstanding is a concept that generally resonates with them. It is a social skill – a life skill – that gets honed with practice, and helps children appreciate that they can respectfully, peacefully and productively disagree with one another.

The Skills to Be An Upstander

Upstanding skills are teachable. But if you want your child to be ready to be an upstander for big moments in their lives, it requires ongoing practice and a progression of learning – routine habits that empower your child to critically think about their point of view, to hear themselves use their voice and to be comfortable with the discomfort that speaking up may cause.

Raising an upstander is about teaching your child the skills to:

• Recognize when a situation requires ‘upstanding’;
• Decide or feel comfortable enough to say something; and
• Say/do the upstanding thing.

Teaching your child to be an upstander is about empowering your child with the skills to assert themself into a situation and helping them see their agency when they observe a change needs to happen. Let your child know that there are many ways to be an upstander; it is not simply about being the loudest person in a room or being the most aggressive or dominant figure in a conversation.

When a child learns upstanding skills, they are learning problem-focused coping skills and how to independently create a supportive and learning environment for themselves. Children learn better when they are in a socially and emotionally safe learning environment.