Background: Parent–child racial‐ethnic socialization conversations are animportant tool to cultivate a sense of pride and equip youth to deal withdiscrimination. However, conversations about preparation for racial bias canbe particularly difficult for parents to deliver effectively. Little researchhas been done that illuminates the types of challenges parents within andacross racial‐ethnic groups experience with this task. The currentqualitative study addresses this gap. Design: The study draws on focus groupdata collected from parents and children from African American, ChineseAmerican, Mexican American, and Indian American (South Asian) families (N =138 individuals; 30 focus groups). Coding was done by a racially andethnically diverse research team using inductive thematic analysis (Braun &Clarke, 2006). Results: Youth and parents reflected on barriers to havingeffective preparation for bias conversations, including (a) parents’uncertainty in approaching the conversations; (b) tensions in identifying,understanding, and decoding racial discrimination; and (c) generationaldifferences between parents and youth. Conclusion: Themes are unpacked from asocial learning perspective, approaching the barriers from a person‐based,context‐based, and behavior‐based point of view. Unique and similarexperiences across the racial‐ethnic groups were noted, includingperspectives from U.S.‐born and immigrant parents. Implications: The authorsshare implications for racial‐ethnic socialization intervention strategieswith parents are shared