How To Teach Your Kids About Their Family Heritage
The decisions of our relatives shape our identity and influence the way we experience the world. If you’re from a particular culture or religion, you might partake in certain traditions, hold unique beliefs, and make different decisions. Preserving our family’s memories and history is important. If we don’t keep them alive, they’ll slowly, but surely fade. But heritage can be complicated. If you have children, you might wonder how to teach them. Will they understand? What if they don’t want to partake in these new, unfamiliar traditions? If you’re worried, there’s some good news! When children are taught about their heritage, they tend to have a better sense of identity and a healthier emotional outlook. The knowledge might encourage them to learn a new language, find a new appreciation for music and dance, and even try new foods! Wondering how to teach your kids about their family heritage? These simple, fun ideas can help.
Explore Your Family Tree
Your family possesses a wealth of information. Start by having your child interview their living relatives, like uncles, aunts, and grandparents. Older relatives are especially great. They can likely recall people who’ve passed on, like their own parents and grandparents. This gives your children important information from not one, not two, but three or four generations ago. Maybe your great-grandmother immigrated from Ireland, or you have a grandparent who practiced a different religion than yours. These people’s experiences are invaluable. Have them explain why they made certain choices, and how it’s affected their lives.
Feel like doing a fun, informative craft? Help your children map out a family tree. Look through old photographs and conduct interviews and you can even have them do a people search to find possible relatives. Figure out who you’re related to, and what their lives were like. Treat this as an exciting investigation—for younger children, it can make for a great, educational game of detective!
Teach Them About History and Tradition
Teach your children about their culture, religion, and more by attending events, planning trips to important historical sites, and exploring unfamiliar traditions.
Are you Irish? Take your children to a fun, festive St. Patrick’s Day Parade! Do you have German roots? Celebrate Oktoberfest by wearing dirndl or lederhosen, making pretzels, and learning some German vocabulary. If you have the funds, take your kids on a trip. Visit the place their ancestors came from. This could be a country in Europe, Africa, Asia, or somewhere close by like Canada—or for Native Americans—a sacred field or a mountainside.
If you’re Muslim, teach your children about important traditions like Ramadan and Haji. They might not partake in these things until they’re older, but it’s good for them to know! Are you Christian? You might already celebrate religious holidays, like Christmas and Easter—but do your children know their origin? If you’re part of any religion at all, having your children attend church and other religious ceremonies is a good way to acquaint them with their heritage.
Learn Through Fun Activities
Another way to teach your kids about their family heritage is through fun, simple-to-understand activities. Who said learning has to be boring? Explore your family heritage through fun activities like food, music, and dance. If you’re Chinese, you can make fried rice, chow mien, congee, and other traditional dishes. What if you’re Russian? Pirozhki, borscht, and beef stroganoff are some great, delicious classics. Making other culinary masterpieces like baklava, hot cross buns, matzo, tofu, and ghee can help you connect your children with their family’s religion. Are your Japanese? If so, teach your children about higaku and traditional dance groups like Mai and Odori. If you’re Dominican or Puerto Rican, you can introduce them to traditional Latin music and dance.
There are plenty of options available for every kind of heritage. Your children will love these activities! They get to satisfy their curiosity, eat yummy food, and burn off some of their boundless energy.
