If you're ever incarcerated and don't know how to talk to your children about it, Sesame Street can help

Sesame Street recently rolled out a tool kit designed to help children between the ages of 3-8 cope with the stress of having a parent incarcerated. The tool kit, Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration, offers tips and advice for parents to discuss their incarceration with their children as well as for the caregivers and children of incarcerated parents.

Despite crime rates that have continued to drop, the incarceration rate in the United States has continued to rise as prisons continue to become big time profit centers.

The U.S. makes up five percent of the world's population but nearly a quarter of its prison population as nearly 2.25 million Americans are currently behind bars with another 7 million under correctional supervision.

That leaves 2.7 million children in the country with at least one parent incarcerated. Sesame Street aims to help these children, their un-incarcerated parent or caregiver, and imprisoned parent cope with the added stress of the situation with 16 educational videos, a tip sheet (Phone calls are a great way to reach out. Help your child to think of something she'd like to tell her incarcerated parent, and give her a photo of her parent to hold during the call.); and information packets for caregivers and providers. The program also features Apple and Android apps.

The program is just one of at least 20 other took kits Sesame Street has produced.

There are similar took kits for military families and families going through divorce.

There's even a program aimed at ensuring kids don't grow up hating and stereotyping Arabs. (Normally I think people should raise their own kids, but if your children have to watch Sesame Street to learn that racism is wrong, maybe Big Bird raising them isn't such a bad thing.)

There's a few on health, such as dealing with asthma and serious health issues and eating right, even on a budget and the importance of dental hygiene.

In true Sesame Street fashion, there are a number of educational programs as well ( Learning is everywhere, math and science) and they've got emergencies covered (including hurricanes.)

And because there's an Elmo App for everything, Sesame Street also offers advice for avoiding lead poisoning.

Bonus Thursday Throwback edition: Here's the link my 2008 blog about Elmo coming to town.