Welcoming Families From Around the World

Scenario : "You are working in an early childhood setting of your choice—a hospital, a child care center, a social service agency. You receive word that the child of a family who has recently emigrated from a country you know nothing about will join your group soon. You want to prepare yourself to welcome the child and her family. Luckily, you are enrolled in a course about diversity and have learned that in order to support families who have immigrated you need to know more than surface facts about their country of origin."

  The country I chose is Chili, which is officially known as Republic of Chile. It is one of the South American countries. Spanish is the official language of the country. People from Chili are called Chilean. In the following ways I will prepare myself to be culturally responsive towards this family from Chili:

1.     Majority of Chileans are affiliated with Roman Catholic Church. In this way, most of the national holidays are religious in nature. At the same time, Chili’s Independent day is on 18^th of September, which is one of the important celebrations for Chileans. Chileans celebrate their Saint’s day as much as they do their own birthday.

2.     Extended families are very close. It is important and polite to know the title of the person. So, if we know of any title we should always try to use them. If there is no title exists, then simply use, “Senor” (male) and “Senora” (female) followed by the surname.

3.     Direct eye contact is important.

4.     Young children are generally raised in a relatively manner. They are not sent to bed very early and fully participate in social and family gathering. Sometimes until very late at night. And also children even pampered by parents and are less independent.

5.     Chileans are generally punctual. So, it will be important to keep this in mind when scheduling a meeting or any other types of get together.

It is very important to know the culture, family structure, tradition or even ways of greeting of families we are serving. In this specific case, it’s the family from chili. It was important for me to do little bit of research about their culture to understand the children and family. In this way, as a teacher, I can make the family comfortable and feel welcome in my classroom. It is important for me to make the families comfortable in my class.