ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN TO BE OPEN MINDED?

Let’s play fair and teach our children how to deal with different cultures and communities and give them the chance to communicate and tackle different situations in their lives in peace and harmony.

How can we as adults and parents help our children to learn and cope with different cultures and races? I feel that we need to begin by acknowledging are own attitudes values and think about how these effect us in the way we interact with children today.

It is important to note the following:

  • How do we respond to our neighbors who speak with and accent or who are from a different country to us or who are a different colour etc.
  • How do we feel when we need to communicate with them? Do we feel uncomfortable around them and how do we relay our feelings to our children.
  • Do we communicate with them openly and honestly and accept them as individuals and look for things that we can share with them, or do we look at them at frown and say they are not like us so let’s not talk to them and back away from them.
  • Do we talk to our children about how we feel? Are we able to show our children how to express discomfort when dealing with a new or unfamiliar situation in an open and honest way?

We are all individuals regardless of our race colour religion or culture and yet we belong to a community of many different cultures who have different attitudes and beliefs to us. Our beliefs and values are formed by the way we are brought up. It is important to teach our children to understand the different cultures and behaviours of individuals regardless of their culture. Our knowledge and understanding of the diverse cultures will grow if we as a community are prepared to develop an awareness and acceptance towards people with different value systems to us. I believe that it is important to convey that it is OK to speak differently, do things differently or to look different. There are many ways to do this so that no one feels less valuable than the other. This does not mean that we have to agree with their beliefs although it is important to respect that their views are valued as well as ours. This way we can become more aware of their different views and learn to interact with the more diverse backgrounds.

Children are like sponges and they pick up on different energies.  This means that children pick up on the messages we are conveying to them. Some messages maybe stronger than other.

 A child may observe that some people will associate with members of certain groups in a different way to others, or they may observe that certain groups do not mix in with others in the community. They may also hear some people talk about a certain group in away that is unkind by making nasty comments or jokes about them.  If we choose to ignore this then our children will believe that is acceptable behaviour in our society.

 These days there is so much in the media that says we are the good guys and they are bad guys.  We have all seen westerns movies where the Indians were the bad guys and the cowboys where the good guys.When I was a child I was always on the indians side. Take a look at the film by Kevin Costner Dancing with wolves. He becomes friends with the indians and allows them into his live. Why do fear them so much?   Dark colours are usually respresented as bad the guys and the whites as good guys.   What are we telling our children are we telling them that this is the way that it is supposed to be? They may well believe that people who speak with an accent and who are different in some way deserve to be treated as inferior to us. This is reinforcing the fear of all things different and unknown. Accept people for who they are and learn from them. Children are naturally inquisitive and it is important that we teach them to have an open mind to different cultures and religions etc so that we can live in a peaceful and harmonious community and accept people for who they are regardless of what they believe in.

helen@childlearningsupport.com

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