If your children are lucky enough to live between two cultures. And you’ve ever wanted to teach them about their cultural heritage. That is, the culture you or their grandparents grew up in. Then you’re reading the right article!
The world is fast becoming a global village with the advent of technology. It is important to utilize this benefit to keep our cultural heritage alive. Many of us come from beautiful and rich cultures. Let us teach our children to embrace and celebrate this.
Teaching your children to love and embrace their cultural heritage helps in raising children who are ethnically diverse. In addition, it ensures that family traditions are not lost as they are passed onto the next generation.
In order to raise children who are aware of their culture and heritage. A parent or caregiver must weave elements of the child’s culture into their daily lives. This can be done by teaching, affirming, and reinforcing the positives of their culture. Teach your children to celebrate and embrace their roots!
Read on, to discover 5 simple and fun ways to teach children about their cultural heritage.
Tell Your Children About Their Ancestral Home Country And Take Them There If Possible
I did not actively seek additional information about my cultural heritage while growing up in Nigeria. This was partly because I was born and raised in Nigeria and had access to my rich Onitsha culture.
However, when I got married and moved to the UK. I began to miss aspects of my culture which I couldn’t easily access. I didn’t want my children to miss out on their rich cultural heritage so my husband and I took active steps to bring this alive in our home.
Luckily my husband shares the same cultural heritage with me, making it easy to bounce ideas around and educate our children. This is still a work in progress for us and we are continuing to do research to fill any gaps we have whilst we educate the kids.
In the same vein, before you teach your child about their cultural heritage. Firstly, consider doing some research to update any gaps you have. For example, you can speak to your child’s grandparent/close family members and read specific cultural books. You can also get information from the internet such as YouTube (remember to fact-check this!).
Secondly, take your children to visit their ancestral home country if their grandparents or close relatives live there. You can still plan a holiday even if none of your family lives there. Visit places of interest, and get a feel of the environment and culture.
There is something empowering about visiting your ancestral home country and learning about your family history.
Engage With Communities That Reflect Your Children's Cultural Heritage And Faith
Be intentional about engaging with ethnic and faith communities that reflect your children’s cultural heritage. By getting involved with these communities your children will have opportunities to:
- Learn about their cultural heritage
- Get information about specific cultural or religious holidays and why they are significant.
- Be informed about important personalities within their culture or country of origin
- Learn about the mode of dressing, greeting, entertainment, and socializing
- Get involved in celebrating these holidays and traditions either at home or within these communities.
Be prepared to answer any questions which may arise from these interactions. If you are just starting to teach your children about their cultural heritage, be aware that they may not want to embrace every facet of their culture.
This is because they may be more comfortable in the culture where they live. However, continue to teach, affirm and reinforce and they will begin to value it eventually.
Teach Your Children To Embrace Their Ethnic Name
A name is an important part of a child’s identity and a way of affirming their cultural heritage. Most ethnic names are powerful and are believed to influence destinies.
In why you should not change your beautiful ethnic name. I wrote about the rewards and challenges of having an ethnic name.
I concluded that your environment or attempting to make others comfortable should not be reasons for you to change or use a shortened version of your name. In other words, you must teach your child to embrace their ethnic name and wear it with pride.
Bearing that in mind, some of the ways you can help your children embrace their ethnic names are by:
- Explaining the meaning of their first name(if they have one) and surname.
- Sharing the reasons why the name was given to them.
- Teaching them to pronounce their names correctly.
- Empowering them to correct people who mispronounce or misspell their names especially friends and teachers.
Use Story Telling and Movies To Teach Cultural Heritage
Children love stories, therefore share with them their cultural folklore, jokes, and riddles. Alternatively, get their grandparents involved either in person or via video call to talk about their ancestors and family history. This is a way of passing stories from one generation to the other.
Likewise, if your children have not traveled to their grandparent’s country of birth. You can educate them by identifying it on the map of the world.
Talk about topics such as where it is located (geography), economy(economics), historical context(history), language(languages).
Your children are already taught geography, history, and other subjects in school. Therefore, they are used to learning about other countries and cultures.
Furthermore, use books and movies to teach. Encourage your children to read books that reflect their culture. These books can be by authors who live or have lived in their country of origin. Watch movies that depict and celebrate the positives of your children’s culture.
Also, use YouTube as a resource for teaching about culture. Stream live annual cultural events which the family can watch together.
The global news often amplifies the negatives of non-western cultures. It is important to change that narrative by celebrating the positives while being open about the negatives.
Incorporate and Embrace Your Children's Traditional Food And Language
Food is a fun and exciting way to teach children about their cultural heritage. Incorporate your traditional food as part of your family diet. This ensures that your children experience the best of the two cultures they have.
Explain to them the significance of various foods. Get older children to follow food bloggers who make their traditional meals so they can learn different ways of making them.
Finally, communicate with your children in your native language. Start early to reinforce this. Being bilingual is a strength!
I have to admit though, it’s easier to understand a language than to speak it. My children are still at the intermediate stage in their language learning. This is still a work in progress for us.
Conclusion
This blog post focused on 5 simple ways to teach your children about their cultural heritage. These tips are easy to implement. It works even if the parent or caregiver has never lived or visited their children’s country of origin.
Leave a comment to say what other methods you use in teaching your children about culture.
I love this! I’ve been wanting to do this for my own children and this is a big help.
Hi Kathleen. I’m pleased you found this helpful.Thanks for stopping by.
You have no idea how helpful this post has been for me. In the past few year I found my biological family, and learned that I was born Jewish. I was not raised Jewish though. Now, I am trying to learn how to celebrate our family’s culture and teach my children about it all at the same time. It is such an interesting place to be for me. Thank you fo such a thoughtful post.
Hi Lauren. It’s always a joy to learn about one’s cultural heritage.I’m pleased you found this post helpful. Thanks for stopping by.
Nice read.
Thanks Stella
Quite inspirational and very helpful.
Hi Chichi, Glad you found this helpful. Thanks for stopping by.