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It’s so important for us to teach our children about differences and identity, so we are able to embrace those differences in life
Learning to look after yourself and your loved ones is not just about the basics but also about making sure that you teach your children the most important lessons about who they are. It can be a mammoth task, but embracing differences is so important in the modern world. If you go back 50 years, it seems that differences were pointed out more, for the worse. And you can argue that now there’s a lot more segregation in the world. Here are some things that you should try to teach your children about identity.
Teaching Your Children Beyond the Textbook
We can easily say that it is down to the schools to teach our children about differences, but we’ve got to think beyond the curriculum. There are things that we can all do to teach our children about differences beyond what they know. A good example is in the modern curriculum where ethnic minorities are not necessarily given as much focus as the more wide-spanning cultures, such as the aboriginals.
And if you feel it’s important to incorporate this to give your children a wider perspective of identity, you can bring in more learning materials, such as textbooks that explain the origins, perhaps some aboriginal flag merch just to give your children a wider variety of resources to learn from. We can very easily think that the history textbooks in school will give us everything we need, but this is not always the case.
Provides the Varieties of Identity
Identity doesn’t just comprise our heritage or history, but it can go far wider than that such as race, occupation, age, family status, gender expression, and location, to name a few. Becoming aware of our identity is about tapping into each of these areas, and going even further. Asking your children what they believe consists of identity can help them to open their eyes to more than what is just taught in the classroom or what they already know.
Remember: Children Already Embrace Differences!
This is a very important lesson for us as grown-ups. We can talk about everybody being equal, but when our children are young, they will already observe the fact of things being different, and it’s our inability to embrace differences that can set them down the wrong path. Our children are very good at observing different things, and this is why we have to instigate conversations to talk about these topics, no matter how uncomfortable we think they are.
Understand the Concept of Privilege
This is especially important in the context of race. Each set of identities can be different depending on the location, context, and many more aspects of the list of identities mentioned above. Identity is such an all-encompassing subject. If you want to teach your children about the importance of being aware of their identity and embracing who they are, it’s about giving them tools beyond the traditional textbooks.
