At some point in your parenting you are going to hear your child say some things that are going to shock you. Most likely they will be repeating what they heard someone else say. It may be a stereotyping of Asians, African Americans, blondes, football players, the elderly, police officers, or something as simple as “those guys are a bunch of fags”.
When you are present and a comment or joke is made along those lines as a parent who wants to teach tolerance, we must speak up immediately and let them know that we find it disrespectful and biased. Our children need to see that we are not comfortable with talk like that and we will not permit it to happen.
If we start this early in the child’s life they should begin to imitate this response among their peers, setting them up as an example of a tolerant person.