Growing Up Global Read-Along: Greet Your Friend

We’re back for the second instalment of our expat parenting book read-along with Chapter 2 of Growing up Global: Greet your friend (you can find the Introduction and Chapter 1 here).

We’re a couple of days behind schedule due to birthday celebrations (someone turned 4! Already!) and The Baby Who Refused to Nap for an ENTIRE DAY! I’m just lucky he has a very sunny disposition, otherwise it could have been disastrous!

Anyway, back on subject, I finally completed Chapter 2 of Growing up Global. I’m finding this book quite an easy read despite being a bit behind; I’ll blame that on my procrastinating personality.

Chapter 2: Greet your Friend deals mostly with language and, as you can guess from the title, sociocultural conventions regarding greetings around the World. Once more, I found this book to be very USA-centric, but I guess that is the general audience for it, so let’s leave it at that.

The first thing the author tackles hit a bit close to home with me – getting your child used to saying hello (and generally greeting) people. I’m going to publicly admit here, before having kids I was one of those people who thought “how rude! MY child is going to be brought up to be more polite and greet others (a simple hello – I never thought you should force kisses/hugs/etc.)”. Well, I’m eating my words. The author points out how, especially American children, are not used to greeting people they meet. I agree with her and have always emphasized this with my children. all went well until around the time Sprout 1 turned 2 and suddenly decided he was shy (yes, I’m aware it’s not exactly a decision – you get my point). Now I have a 4-year-old who not only will most probably NOT say hello, you might be greeted with a scowl as well. And there you have it. I honestly don’t know what to do. I tell him it’s polite to greet people and, at a minimum, not try to scare them. I’m hoping it will pass with time and was hopeful Ms. Tavangar would have some tips other than reading one of Emily Post‘s books on etiquette for children, but I do realise this isn’t the focus of the book. I’m open to any of your suggestions/tips though!

After getting into the habit of saying hello, Homa suggests learning greetings outside the children’s own culture, giving tips such as watching for cues and showing respect when you aren’t familiar with the proper way to greet someone. This chapter also has a list of general principles for greeting people according to continent. A good way to practise would be looking at the map with your child and talking about different ways people greet each other, as well as role-playing.

I’ve personally always found greetings in European countries to be a bit confusing. Being Portuguese, I’m obviously well aware of the rule of giving 2 kisses to everyone if you are a female and 2 kisses to women and a handshake to men if you are a male. In other countries, Belgium included, it’s not so straightforward. After living here for over 6 years now, I still don’t have it straight and all the other nationalities you encounter just seem to add to the confusion, so I’ve made a mental note to more purposefully educate myself on this.

All throughout the chapter there is a big focus on getting to know people of different cultures and ethnicities as individuals and not stereotypes, adjusting your behaviour accordingly.

There is an entire part on activities to do with children divided by over 10 and under 10, as well as many resources, both paid and free.  A few I found interesting for younger children are Muzzy, by the BBC, Beth Manners’ Fun French for Kids ages 2-6, Putomayo’s Playground collection of world music for kids (we have a few of these – really good) and looking for Listmania lists on Amazon by relevant topics, such as Father & son’s social justice picture books for children list.

How about you? Do your kids greet people? Can they do so in different languages?

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Read-along time: Growing Up Global

It’s time for our read-along to begin! I hope others have been reading the book as well and I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments, even if you haven’t been reading along.

Growing Up Global: Raising Children to be at Home in the World, by Homa Sabet Tavangar

I have so far only read the Introduction and Chapter 1: Be a Friend, so I can truly limit myself to commenting on only these two.

I’m enjoying the book so far, but I do have to point out that this book is very much aimed at an American audience (as in USA, not American continent). I’ve been reading the Kindle Edition bought from the US Amazon site, so I’m not sure if the UK version has any differences. There are many references to the United States and how cultural differences are perceived there (such as references to the way Muslims are viewed post 9/11) and some of the resources presented are specifically for the US. This book was clearly meant for an American audience with a more or less ethnically  and linguistically homogeneous background. This seems natural considering the author is American and this book is very much based on her experience and aimed at those who can not easily travel overseas to have first hand contact with other cultures.

That said, most of the information and tips can be interpreted and applied elsewhere as well.

The introduction tells us what brought the author to want to write this book (you can find out more about that on the book’s website as well, here: Growing up Global), basically to help parents raise children with a global perspective, whether or not they can travel overseas.

The book is structured like a recipe to make a friend – a global friend – and that’s clear in the Chapter’s names. It is also strongly based on the Golden Rule – one should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself – which exists in most world religions in one form or another. (I will not argue here any quibbles I may have with the Golden Rule, but let me just say, I don’t necessarily think it’s fair to assume others would like to be treated the way we would like to be treated. But that would be a philosophical question, and I do think as a general principle the Golden Rule does have it’s merits and is simple enough for a child to understand.)

In the first Chapter there is a list of “10 things to do now”, which you can also find on the book’s website here, which I find is very useful. Many of these tips I already have incorporated into our daily life already, such as having a World Map over Sprout 1’s bed (we chose the Peters World Map because the representation of the size of countries is more accurate than the more widely used Mercator Map).

Peters World Map

We also have some of her recommended books (that’s a surprise, huh!) such as Children Just Like Me, a Unicef publication by Anabel Kindersley, Barnabas Kindersley  and, Sue Copsey.

Children Just Like Me, by Anabel Kindersley, Barnabas Kindersley and, Sue Copsey

The part about exposing children to other languages and cultures is almost a given for expats. However, it has made be thought quite a bit. While my children have constant contact with many different languages and cultures, do to the very international community they are living in here in Brussels, I do find they don’t have enough (in my opinion) contact with the national culture.

I find we don’t have many Belgian friends. Acquaintances yes, but friends – not so much. While I do find language to be one of the barriers (my French is fluent, but nothing compared with a native speaker and sadly I have yet to learn Flemish),  I do find cultural differences to be the biggest obstacle. It seems to me people are a bit weary of making “international” friendships. I don’t really blame them;  it does seem people are coming and going constantly, which leads to inevitable good byes, so investment in a friendship may feel high risk. Or maybe it’s just me and I have to find a way to better integrate into Belgian culture. I would love to know how others have been handling this, especially if you’re here for the long run like we are.

Homa Sabet Tavangar, an Iranian growing up in the US herself, shares her own stories of hidden prejudice towards others, as well as prejudice from others, which I personally found I could relate to. As much as we don’t want to be prejudiced, it sometimes does seep in without us even being aware, or wanting to acknowledge!

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the book, especially the hands-on suggestions promised in the next chapters.

The next installation of our read-along will be on Wednesday, 17 April. Get reading!