--- title: Columbus Day: How to Talk to Your Kids About America description: Advice for kids of every age canonical: https://time.com/4069556/columbus-day-christopher-america-parenting/ author: Carey Wallace article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-12T12:30:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:57:26.957Z og:title: How to Talk to Kids About America Before Columbus og:description: Advice for kids of every age og:url: https://time.com/4069556/columbus-day-christopher-america-parenting/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82e4699e0f0eefe2/698867c75f570f2d57b1dcc2/gettyimages-179543790.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 179543790 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How to Talk to Kids About America Before Columbus twitter:description: Advice for kids of every age twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82e4699e0f0eefe2/698867c75f570f2d57b1dcc2/gettyimages-179543790.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How to Talk to Kids About America Before Columbus  by [Carey Wallace](https://time.com/author/carey-wallace/)  ## Carey Wallace Oct 12, 2015 12:30 PM UTC  Statue of Christopher Columbus. Statue of Christopher Columbus.Chris Mellor—Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images  by [Carey Wallace](https://time.com/author/carey-wallace/)  ## Carey Wallace Oct 12, 2015 12:30 PM UTC Ask a kid who Columbus is, and she’ll probably tell you that he “discovered America.” But long before Columbus set foot in the Americas, millions of other people were already aware of the continent’s existence: the indigenous people who lived there. Not only that, says Ned Blackhawk, professor of history and American Studies at Yale University, but the history of the first people in the Americas is “arguably the longest-standing chapter of human history in our nation’s past.” And if we don’t understand the history of the original inhabitants of the Americas, he says, we can’t understand the profound ways “these communities shaped European and American history.” Still, as he observes, “this is not a short or simple subject.” So where can parents begin? **_Elementary age kids_** can start with the basics: that America was full of people long before the Pilgrims landed. In fact, Blackhawk says, at the time of Columbus’s journeys, the number of indigenous peoples in the Americas was comparable to the number of Europeans in Europe. And the Americas were every bit as diverse and complex as Europe, says Blackhawk: “an astonishing universe of social communities inhabited the American landscape.” Parents can start conversations by asking kids what kinds of things they’d be curious to know about the people who were here before Columbus, and what their lives were like. **_Middle school kids_** can start to think about how indigenous cultures compared to European cultures as the time that Columbus arrived. “Spaniards in Central Mexico were astonished to find cities larger than those in Spain,” says Blackhawk. And in North America, the powerful indigenous urban center of Cahokia, in modern-day Illinois, boasted around 30,000 residents—more than lived in colonial Boston, Philadelphia, or Charleston. Parents can start conversations about what it might have be like to meet people from an entirely different world, and how kids would feel if they ever did: excited? Curious? Scared? **_High school kids_** can grasp how much the indigenous people of the Americas affected both European and modern American history. Indigenous mining and agricultural practices, says Blackhawk, were so advanced that they “fueled the growth of much of the post-colonial world.” Especially in Europe, plants and agricultural practices from the Americas transformed a continent that had been vulnerable to famine into a “stable and bountiful world, comparatively speaking.” Parents can encourage kids to explore the influence of indigenous people on any area kids might be interested in: astronomy, mathematics, architecture, finance, politics, urban design—even horseback riding. They’ll find significant contributions from indigenous cultures in all of them. For kids at any age, conversation about the original people in the Americas is likely to raise another question: where are those people now? That’s an important question, since “the indigenous people of the Americas suffered tremendously” due to the arrival of Europeans, from both “intentional as well as unintended impositions,” says Blackhawk. So as we explore the complexity and contributions of America’s first people, it’s also important, he says, to remember “the sacrifices initiated within all human societies in the Americas, as we commemorate these national holidays.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4069556/columbus-day-christopher-america-parenting/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4069556/columbus-day-christopher-america-parenting/"},"headline":"How to Talk to Kids About America Before Columbus","datePublished":"2015-10-12T12:30:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:57:26.957Z","description":"Advice for kids of every age","url":"https://time.com/4069556/columbus-day-christopher-america-parenting/","keywords":["Living","Parenting","History"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82e4699e0f0eefe2/698867c75f570f2d57b1dcc2/gettyimages-179543790.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Carey Wallace","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/carey-wallace/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt82e4699e0f0eefe2/698867c75f570f2d57b1dcc2/gettyimages-179543790.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"179543790","caption":"179543790","creditText":"Chris Mellor—Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4069556/columbus-day-christopher-america-parenting/","name":"How to Talk to Kids About America Before Columbus"}}]}] ```