How To Teach Indian Culture To Kids Living Abroad
One of the prime concerns that parents have when they bring up their children in a country abroad is how they can keep them connected to their roots. Teaching kids their culture and traditions is of the utmost importance as it makes them more aware of who they are.
This becomes, even more, trickier as these children grow up in a space that has a completely different culture from yours. Balancing both cultures to ensure that your children get the best of both worlds is something every parent strives for and we are here to help you with just that.
Here are a few tips to help you get started on this and we hope some of them prove to be useful for you!
Conveying the Importance of Understanding the Culture
One of the biggest questions that your children may ask you when you urge them to follow a particular custom or practice is as to why they should be doing it. Answering this in the right way is crucial to ensure that they feel the need to keep engaging in it.
Make them understand that their culture is a part of their identity and that is what makes them distinct from each other. Knowing more about their family history and understanding the reasons why certain festivals are celebrated or particular practices are followed will help them to appreciate where they came from and who they are as a member of the community.
Children easily pick up habits from their parents or adults in general so you need to make sure that you are following these customs too so that they feel encouraged to do the same.
Consistency is also key. Just because you made the effort to celebrate a particular festival this year does not mean you should take a break the next year if there are no reasonable excuses.
Encourage Your Mother Tongue at Home
Language is one of the primary aspects of a culture. When you stay abroad, a majority of your child’s time is spent in an environment where they interact with the locals there. So, it’s only natural for them to pick up on the local language and use it to converse all the time
But when they’re at home with you, use it as an opportunity to promote your mother tongue. They might have an accent while speaking but it’s alright. With practice, comes perfection so keep encouraging them. Learning the new language will enable them to understand better when they converse with their relatives and friends from back home.
Celebrate Festivals
Festivals are a great way to imbibe some traditional values into your children. Make it a point to celebrate important festivals in your culture along with them. Share the historical significance of these days and put an effort to involve them in the activities to be conducted for the day.
They may take some time to absorb the activities at the beginning as the people they interact with do not partake in the same things. But soon, they will come to appreciate this difference and take part in the festivities with more enthusiasm.
You might even have them bringing home some of their excited friends who have been longing to take part in the celebrations too! Celebrating festivals also ensures that they do not feel alienated when they visit their home country and mingle with the local people for the same events.
If there are local associations in your region that are celebrating the event, take your family there for the day. Food is undoubtedly the best part of any Indian festival. Rope in your children and teach them how to make some of those delicious delicacies that you used to munch on back home.
Taking them to your religious places of worship such as Gurudwaras, temples, mosques, etc is also a great idea as they will learn a great deal as they interact more with individuals from the same community.
Enroll Them in Classes
These days, finding classes for various activities has become much easier than it used to be.
Find out online platforms which offer classes that promote activities in your culture such as the various art forms you have from singing and dancing to playing a local instrument too!
Your children are more likely to pick up the new skill when they are engaged in such a regular activity like attending classes and when they are in the midst of like-minded individuals.
Teaching Indian Culture At Art Gharana
At Art Gharana, we take pride in celebrating the diverse culture and values imbibed in our rich Indian heritage. We constantly make an effort to promote the same among people so that they can also share in this joy of what it means to be an Indian. We provide a platform for individuals to come to try their hands at a variety of activities from dancing, singing, painting, playing an instrument to learning about astrology.
If you love dancing, we have classes for you in different dance forms such as Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Punjabi, Bhangra, Tollywood dance, and Bollywood dance. If singing is more of your thing, we have classes in Bhajan, Ghazals, Indian classical music and so much more. We also provide the training of a wide range of instruments from the keyboard, guitar, and drums to the dhol and flute too.
We bring in the very best experts to teach you so that you can leave with an experience of a lifetime. All our courses are online and they have been meticulously designed to ensure that you not only learn a great deal from them, but you also have an insane amount of fun while you are at it. So go ahead and book your class today!
We look forward to having you as a part of our family.
Happy Learning