Family–parent/child communication
Everything begins at home. All that a child learns, such as love, hate, how to treat others, morals, etc., begins with their initial surroundings and begins as soon as they leave the womb. How to play, talk, walk, laugh cry, etc.
I believe we need to stop promoting this notion that a “normal/traditional” family consists of a mother, father and siblings because that is just not the case in every “family”. You put multiple people in a room from different ethnicities, backgrounds, etc. and ask them their definition of what a family consists of and there will be many variations as everyone identifies and defines family differently. We have witnessed that time and again with the many family sitcoms on tv, such as Modern Family, Growing Pains, Married With Children, Full House, and even in cartoon shows such as Family Guy, American Dad, etc. Each person has their own idea of family and one type of family shouldn’t discredit another for their dynamics nor should their be a “standard” to which a family is held against. For example, a child with two mothers would see their family as “normal” as would a child who has “two dads” and who would we be to say that it’s not? As is the case in the show Modern Family. Not only does it consist of a gay family, but an interracial and blended marriage with children, which is representative of different family dynamics all over. Growing Pains, mentioned above, though would fall in the category of a more “traditional” family, it was representative of a certain kind of family and they attempted to tackle issues relevant to them at their times. Family Guy is a cartoon family, and a little more in “tune” with today’s issues and puts a crude comedic spin on the issues facing us today, though they can be offensive about it. The point is the world is ever changing and we need to continue change right along with it. We need to make those who haven’t felt comfortable ever, because of the unfair standards society imposes, feel comfortable with who they are, how they chose to identify and how they chose to show the world, because everyone is needed in order to have a functioning and productive society.
In order to have a productive society, we need to begin with communication. Communication is one of the best weapons we have and we have the ability to use it at our disposal yet we use it so infrequently. Communication in any relationship is important, but one of the most important relationships is a child with their parents/family. Children should be able to talk to and go to their family about anything, such as, issues at school, issues with a family member, bullying, to talk about their feelings, sex, and so on and so forth. Children need and should be able to feel safe and comfortable at home. On the other hand, children also need to be taught to be accepting of others despite appearance, skin color, gender, etc. and that not one person or group of people, regardless of gender, sexual identity, health, disability, etc., is better than the other. And all should be treated equally. By ignoring the existence of different groups of people doesn’t make the disappear but it does do a great disservice to the child and to the group of people being “ignored.”
Once a child knows they are able to go to an adult, regardless if it is their mother, father, aunt, uncle, etc., about any issue they may be having, whether it is bullying, just to talk, school, etc., they will most always do so. When children feel heard, appreciated, accepted, etc., they will continue to keep the lines of communication open. Just having the ability to be able to go to someone may be a great deterrent to something bad. Not everyone has someone they can lean on and that can have lasting and detrimental effects.
Communication also works in correcting inappropriate behaviors. though most behavior is initially learned at home, children, as they grow, venture out of the house and learn on their own as well. Sometimes they are exposed to behaviors that are unbecoming of a fellow human being and that’s where we must step in and correct the behavior and explain what was wrong and explain the appropriate remedy.
There are books that aid in all types of discussions to have with children that help teach about gender, race, bodies, sex (not necessarily intercourse), trans, etc. and are broken down into age groups. Books geared towards younger children may contain pictures that better help the child understand while books geared to older children go into much more detail about different subjects which would help further what they should have begun to learn in their early years.
Teaching children that people are people should be the first thing we as humans should be doing because what matters most is the person you are, how you treat your own family, others around you along with any contributions you may or may not make to your family and eventually to society. A person’s skin color doesn’t define a person. It is part of a person’s makeup, but not something that should be used against someone. And shouldn’t that be what you should be teaching them? Shouldn’t we be teaching our children not to judge others based on based on their looks, how they are dressed, their occupation, their nationality, etc. so they grow into adults who are decent human beings that would think twice about judging someone based on outward appearances and further who know that there are many different types of people in the world, and each person may or may not fall in to more than one “category” but that not one person is better than the other and we all deserve respect regardless of our circumstances, education, health, etc. We should all be learning about each other rather than relegating everyone to their own separate corners and categories. I’d like to think that we are on the right track to achieving equality amongst everyone, but we still have a ways to go.
