Guest Post
Children today are too often neglected when it comes to cultural training. Because schools are over-crowded and burdened with heavy curricula, parents need to proactively train their own kids. Here are aspects of culture to focus on for children of all ages.
Foreign Culture Immersion
Image via Flickr by Jennifer
Children that do not experience foreign cultures might think they are weird or strange. However, by showing your child foreign films, allowing him or her to hear other languages, and cooking foreign foods together, you can train your child to enjoy learning about different countries and ethnicities.
Cooking foreign foods might be the easiest aspect of this for younger kids. Start with fun dishes, such as homemade sushi, quesadillas, or French tarts. Your children will gradually become less ethnocentric and more open-minded.
Painting & Art Education
Taking your child to art exhibits will help him or her to see value in finer things. Your kid will learn to appreciate different types of art, such as paintings, sculptures, and blown glass. You might have the most success taking your younger children to child-friendly museums, which can be found in most major cities.
If your home town doesn’t have a museum you could watch educational art films online. Park West Gallery videos are a good place to start for kids old enough to understand basic art.
Experiencing All Music Forms
Image via Flickr by Club Transatlantico
While classical and opera music are generally accepted as the most cultured, parents should look farther than that for rich experiences. Your children might love hearing and dancing to African music, or singing along with Irish folk melodies. Not only does international music teach children about music, but it also helps to make children more accepting of others and their tastes.
Expressing Concern for Others
At least once a month families should try to do charity for those in need. Whether you take your kids to do bingo for seniors or to a soup kitchen to serve dinner to homeless people, they will learn to be more compassionate. By habituating kindness you can make sure your kids will carry-on the tradition of charity into their adult years.
Dressing Appropriately
Image via Flickr by Travis Swan
While attire is much less important than other forms of culture, it does matter. If children learn how to dress appropriately for work, for fancy meals, and for dates, they will be more successful in life. By instilling this knowledge in your kids at a young age you can avoid embarrassment down the road.
Don’t leave your child confused and alone at college: teach him or her what “business casual” and “professional elegant” mean, today. You will be helping your kid to become more employable and more comfortable in all settings.
By training your kids to be more cultured you are setting them up for a richer, fuller life. Your children will grow up appreciating finer aspects of life, such as art, music, charity, and foreign cultures. Try to incorporate your kids’ friends into your cultured events, too, so that they will be good influences on one another.
This is one of the best things about raising a child in the city. My oldest two grew up in London. They went to the theater, museums, nice restaurants and everything in between. They learned so much about life and have taken that into their young adult life. My youngest has not had the same opportunities so we have to make an effort to teach him the same things that just came naturally for the older two.