Culture is the root of our livelihood and the value that we follow. It helps us to shape ourselves and to connect to our inner soul. It helps us to know who we are and from where we have come. With school education, inducing cultural values is also important. Different countries have different culture, but it becomes easy for us to mingle with everybody if we know our and their culture. This is the reason why nowadays education about different culture is being given to children at school.
Children must know about different countries as well as different cultures they follow. Let’s look at things which can help our kids understand different cultural values.
Talking about festivals
In India we have lots of festivals to celebrate which our kids know and love to enjoy. With the festivals of our country, it is also important for them to know about festivals which our neighbouring countries celebrate or which are celebrated by some renowned countries. Like in the U.S.A and the U.K, Christmas is the biggest festival in the same way that in China Chinese New Year is the biggest festival.
Try different cuisines
In India we do prepare some Chinese and Italian recipes like dumplings and pizza. Include kids too while preparing such dishes and let them know which country that food belongs to, what their eating habits, how they eat etc. Your child will be excited to know that Chinese and Japanese people use chopsticks to eat their food instead of a spoon or fork.
My son loves to have cake, so while preparing cake I include him with me so that he can prepare the batter with me. He comes to know about all the ingredients he should use while making cake and, along with that, he also comes to know that cake is not an Indian dish.
Celebrating Ethnic Day
Most of the time we have an ethnic day celebration for our kids. These moments can be utilised to take them near the cultural dress of different countries. In our India, as a country, we have different states. And each state has their own culture and heritage to follow. Such occasions can help our kids to get to know our country better.
Reading Books.
Books are our best friends, and they will always be as it provides us with lots of knowledge. Read books with them and let them know different cultural values that other countries follow. They will be excited to know that in some countries people do a handshake when they meet people, while in others they hug to greet people. The most important thing to notice here is Indians do not like hugging and kissing at all while meeting people, we love to do NAMASTE, which is being adopted by many countries nowadays.
Being Indian, we know what culture is, and we are attached to our culture. Still, we touch the feet of our parents and elders for blessing, and we still love to meet with our family and friends during pujas.
