How to Teach Your Kids About Diversity

Children living in today’s United States are exposed to a wide variety of racial and cultural diversity, creating the potential for well-rounded perspectives and an appreciation of all that we both share and have to learn from others.

Whether or not your child is asking questions about different cultures depends largely on the diversity of your family, local community, and the types of messages shared with him or her at daycare or school. While toddlers can observe and take part in cultural activities that enrich their experience and broaden their horizons from an early age, grade-school children can put cultural and racial differences into perspective.

At Kidspace Child Enrichment Center, we strive to offer horizon-extending experiences to children, ages, 2.5 to 12. Consider the following steps for exposing your child to diversity:

• Think about your own cultural beliefs: Show, don’t tell, or so goes the old adage. When teaching your children about cultural diversity, parents benefit from clarifying their own beliefs before sharing with their kids. How can we accomplish this? Grab a journal and jot down a few notes about your own openness to other cultures, races, and belief systems.

• Try new foods: Love palak paneer? Share it with your kids! Or better yet, experience a new cuisine for the first time, together! Children are sponges and soak up new experiences with enthusiasm. By introducing them to unfamiliar flavors and types of food, you encourage your young ones to be curious about the world around them, to learn new words in the form of names of dishes, and to create positive associations with a wide range of cultures.

• Get a map or globe: Planning your next family vacation? Show your kids the exact location of your next jaunt by pointing it out on a colorful map. Globes can offer a fun game: just spin this 3D map, stop it randomly with one finger, and discuss the name and location of whatever country or body of water you land on. Don’t know anything about the location you picked? Grab your encyclopedia or look online, including your child in the research.  Allowing children to visualize parts of the world encourages them to ask questions and engage in meaningful discussions.

• Decorate with culturally-diverse items: Using various cultures as inspiration, you can make your home a veritable smorgasboard of new and stimulating images. Invite your kids to paint chopsticks to use as Christmas tree ornaments, or decorate with flags from around the world. The sky’s the limit!

• Find pen pals for your children: For kids who can read and write, interacting with a pen pal is an excellent way to allow your child to interact with and gain greater understanding of other cultures by building a relationship that knows no borders. There are many organizations that help with locating pen pals, including Kid World Citizen.

Introducing children to other cultures is an excellent way to increase their awareness of global interdependence. By educating our children through fun and memorable activities/ experiences, parents can help children associate cultural development with play.