Each day, parents have opportunities to help children understand the importance of diversity in our society and in our everyday lives. Here are ten tips parents can use to encourage an appreciation of diversity in their family.
1. Mark Your Calendar
Keep a calendar of cultural events in your community and try to attend one or two events each year, such as a Chinese New Year celebration or an event during September's Hispanic Heritage month.
2. Explore at Home
Purchase a world map and create an exploration game with your preschooler. Choose a continent, then call out a letter and see if your child can find a country that begins with that letter. Create flash cards and find craft ideas online based on the things you learn about various cultures there.
3. Invite Friends Over
If you have friends from different cultural backgrounds, invite them to your house for dinner and holiday celebrations.
Have a potluck dinner in which guests bring one favorite dish from their culture and perhaps share one childhood story specific to their background.
4. Start Cooking
Purchase a cookbook that highlights different cultural dishes, then plan and prepare a meal with your child, explaining the origins of the cuisine, how it is eaten, and what foods and spices are involved.
Even picky eaters tend to be interested in new foods if they participate in their preparation.
5. Encourage Curiosity
When kids ask questions like, "Why is that lady's skin brown?" and "Why does that man wear that funny hat?" and "Why doesn't Annie celebrate Christmas?"--it can make parents uncomfortable, but try to answer directly and without making your kids feel bad for being curious. For example, you can say "That lady's skin is brown because everyone is slightly different from each other. Some people's skin color is a lighter shade and some people's skin color is a darker shade."
If you don't have an answer, say, "You know something, I'm not sure. Why do you think that man wears that hat?" Doing this will encourage your child to want to learn more about differences and be more comfortable about differences they see in people every day.
6. Read All About It!
Ask your librarian for storybooks from different cultures and pick one or two a month to read together with your preschooler.
7. Listen to Music
On your next visit to the bookstore, let your kids to listen to a CD from a different country and let them pick out one to take home. Even if they can't understand the words, you'll still be exposing them to new sounds
8. Watch a Movie
Watching DVDs is a good way to help kids learn about different cultures. Kid-friendly Japanese anime titles like My Neighbor Totoro and Castle in the Sky present the world from the standpoint of Japanese children. Kirikou and the Sorceress, based on a West African folktale, is an animated film in which a small child must match wits with an evil sorceress.
9. Eat Out Somewhere New
One of the best ways to experience a different culture is through its food, and a visit to an ethnic restaurant is a perfect opportunity to expose your child to new tastes, new languages, and new people.
Holiday festivals are also a good time to visit an ethnic neighborhood so children can see how different cultures celebrate familiar holidays like Christmas or Chanukah. If you're excited about trying something new and different, your child may be, too.
10. Lead by Example
If you cultivate friendships with a variety of different people, then your kids may follow suit.
If you take the time to explore different cultural experiences--such as listening to salsa music, taking an African dance class, or cultivating a taste for black beans and rice--your children may be less troubled by new and unfamiliar experiences in their lives.
