Celebrate Your Heritage
Make sure your children get to spend time with their grandparents if your household is fortunate enough to have living ones. Asking straightforward questions such, “What do we have now that you didn’t have when you were (insert child’s age) can help to facilitate interactions between your children and their grandparents.” and see in awe when your kids learn that individuals they know grew up with indoor plumbing, televisions, and the internet.
If the grandparents are not available, tell your kids about their heritage—not just their ethnicity and family history, but also what has been significant to your family historically. An excellent approach to do this is by passing down heirlooms from generation to generation and displaying them as décor. Anything from a piece of furniture to jewelry might be considered an heirloom. Your children will be able to connect the past with the present by hearing the tale of why that item was considered valuable enough to be saved and passed down.
Establish Traditions
By creating traditions, you’ll offer your kids something to look forward to and remember fondly. It’s not necessary for traditions to be complicated or expensive to have an impact. Simple examples are building a large family of snow angels in the backyard after the first snowfall of the year or gathering seashells while taking a summertime walk along the beach.
As they become older, your kids will begin to understand how the routine activities you’ve done with them year after year have given them security and comfort. They will treasure the memories made when spending time together as a family and may even continue some of the customs with their own children.
It is not difficult or expensive to educate your kids the importance of family, as you can see from the tips above. It only involves being there, paying attention, and exchanging tales. As parents, it is our responsibility to teach these values in our kids. If we don’t additionally nurture their emotional development, it isn’t enough to only feed them.
Most kids will take it for granted that their parents care about them enough to want to teach them these things, but you may find comfort in knowing that if you teach these lessons correctly, your kids will grow up to be kind and considerate adults. Their offspring are our legacy in this world, and they are our legacy. Our greatest achievement as parents is educating kids to understand and respect family.
