Creative Ways to Teach Your Children to Be Inclusive

Posted on 9-15-2011-30-21 by Jennifer Landis

It’s not always easy for children to learn how to be kind, caring individuals. What happens when you discover your kids exclude others at school? A seemingly minute action can hurt their peers — like when they purposely pick someone to be on their basketball team last. It’s crucial to take steps to ensure your children are inclusive. Here are a few creative ways to encourage your children to accept everyone.

Encourage Individual Expression

A child who teases others for their clothes may not feel like they can express themselves. You can teach your kids to accept people’s appearances when you push for individual expression at home. In some ways, you should step back to let them pursue their interests. You have to let kids make their own choices so that they can be more confident and self-aware. These qualities translate to how they treat others.

You should let them wear their favorite outfits and try their favorite activities. This way, they’ll be more inclined to appreciate how others look, talk and act. Your effort to let your children “run free” doesn’t mean they’ll become disobedient. You can define a balance between expression and rule-following.

Use Books, Movies and TV Shows

These days, you’ve probably noticed that kids learn from various mediums. From books to movies to shows, your children can experience life lessons through various means. They’ll discover a new perspective on diversity and inclusion. As a result, you can have a way to spark discussion about why every person deserves respect. It always helps to explore topics like these as a family.

Try to dedicate one night per week to your initiative. For example, you could watch a movie about disabilities on Sunday. Then, you can chat about your thoughts. The next Sunday, you’ll read a book or play a game that deals with another related topic. Many resources exist to help children grasp these concepts. You’ll be able to find materials that everyone enjoys.

Simulate Scenarios Through Play

For younger children, it’s not as straightforward. They often need more work to understand that they shouldn’t act a certain way. A pretend play activity can allow your kids to recreate their social relationships as they experience them regularly. As you watch your children play, you may start to notice specific ideas they have. It’ll then be easier to come up with ways to teach them to be more inclusive toward others.

You could also simulate specific situations through a role-play activity. For instance, you can act like you’re a fellow peer on a playground with your child. How do they ask you to play? You can see if they use language or perform actions that seem exclusionary. Then, you’ll be able to work together to adjust their approach. Their new approach can help them do better with their peers.

Make Learning Activities at Home

It’s smart to carry over learning activities from school to home. This way, you can ensure your children learn certain topics on their own. You can work on these tasks as a family to ensure everyone makes progress with one another. You can research various learning activities to gather an array. Be sure to choose concepts that are harder for your kids to grasp. After all, you know that practice makes perfect.

If your children don’t want to participate, you can use a reward system. You could also incorporate an activity into their homework time. As a result, they’ll feel a little more motivated to realize why you’ve decided to teach them about inclusion. It’s not always easy to remember that your kids are kids. In other words, they won’t want to do things sometimes. A small push can help.

Do Your Part to Lead by Example

Are you an inclusive person? It can be tricky to look at yourself through such a lens. That said, you have to lead by example if you want to raise children who accept their peers at face value. That’s why it’s beneficial to step back so that you can consider your own actions. How do you appear to others at a sport or school event? If you don’t make an effort to at least greet each parent, you may seem unwelcoming or territorial.

The same applies to your job. In fact, you could want to start there. Do your best to examine your unconscious bias throughout your workday. This activity can make your efforts at home easier. When your children see your efforts to be more inclusive yourself, they’ll learn to follow suit.

Teach Your Kids to Be More Kind and Accepting Individuals

You have to teach your kids a lot about life. A necessary skill is learning how to be compassionate towards everyone. Use these ideas to ensure your children are inclusive.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
Dr. Seuss

You are the greatest teacher your child will ever have. You can support your kids to focus on the short-term and develop habits for long-term success from an early age. Success begins with making positive changes now.

As a parent, you understand the value of good study habits. But how to make your youngsters embrace them? These four tips can help you do that.

1. Immerse Kids in Their Interests

Think about it, learning is a large part of a child’s development. Young children learn with joy, through everything they do. There comes a time when they ask a bunch of questions. They trust their parents to have answers, so instead of getting frustrated with this phase, support your child’s curiosity.

Pay attention to what they focus on and nudge them to dig deeper. When they are pretending, check what they’re pretending to do. Then, ask them if they want to learn more.

You can easily find opportunities for immersion in their interests. If the animals fascinate them, take a trip to the zoo and delve into the animal world together. Give them the opportunity to form opinions and analyze them through conversation.

By doing this, you’re helping your child form a new learning habit – research. When you encourage kids to explore from an early age, they later might find areas of interest even in the subjects they dislike. You are establishing a pattern for success.

2. Instill the Mini-Habits

The intrinsic motivation for learning drops with age. That’s where mini-habits help. These modest efforts made daily will build up. It’s the power of small wins.

Take reading for example. Your child may look at a book he or she needs to read and think they’ll never be able to finish. Break big tasks into smaller bites to avoid procrastination. This way they will start any task with ease. Let your child read only two pages a day. Dividing the task keeps kids from being overwhelmed and builds confidence through a sense of accomplishment.

Be up front and explain this technique to them so they can use it themselves. When they embrace resilience and patience, it will favor them in adulthood through potential future entrepreneurial ventures where patience is key, and overnight success a myth.

3. Teach Children the Value of Systems

Introduce your child to the importance of processes as a habit. One way you can help your children focus on the procedure itself is by splitting tasks into smaller, actionable steps.

Maybe you must adjust your own thinking as well. Since you see the big picture, you may want to rush your child. Take a breath and remember that you’re building successful life-long habits – and that takes time.

Studying needs to be an outcome independent habit, as the process alone will almost always deliver a positive outcome.

Practicing to study frequently will help children as they move up in school. When kids understand that paying attention in school, taking notes, and studying itself matter the most, they will be confident they did everything needed. Focusing on the learning process should omit procrastination.

It’s easier to start studying for an exam when you are not afraid of failing. Being outcome independent takes the pressure of finals and other stressful situations as they will be able to break the situation down into manageable tasks.

4. Help Kids Improve Their Focus

Children’s minds wander, and can be hard for them to be focused. Obviously, small tasks will help. Another way is to encourage their studying preferences.

Analyze your child’s learning style through their studying. Are they repeating what they read aloud? Do they need to see something to remember? Visual learners like taking notes, so provide enough paper and colored markers.

Kids can stay focused with time blocking tools like the Pomodoro timer, as you can make it fun for them. They can monitor their own progress on screen and take frequent breaks.

Agree on the fun options your kid could do during those breaks. This will encourage them to see a task through to the end. Being task-oriented will benefit kids in higher education or when they step into the workforce and have to handle tasks that require focus and continuous work.

Small Tasks Add Up

As you can see, small tasks add up. Teaching your children small wins now builds success as they grow older. In the end, you will see that result you have pictured all along.

Michelle Laurey is a writer and a remote assistant for a few small businesses. Always interested in ways which can help individuals reach full potential in life, she enjoys producing stories on productivity, lifestyle, and entrepreneurship. Thunderstorms and heavy showers spark her creativity and imagination. After work, she counterfeits the sedentary life with spin classes. Talk to her on Twitter.

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Jennifer Landis is the founder of Mindfulness Mama, a blog where she talks all things #momlife, marriage, mindfulness, and everything in between. A thirty-something mom of two, Jennifer spends her limited free time practicing yoga and pilates, sipping tea, and reading with her littles. You can find more from Jennifer on Twitter, @JenniferELandis.