How Children Learn from Festivals

As a first-time parent, Chyi began to see festivals differently after her child started school, and she learned how these celebrations could bring new color to her child’s development.

By Chyi Lee

Before I became a parent, festivals meant quite little to me. 

Having lived in different countries since I was a teenager, I missed most festivals at home, and festivals in the host countries were more like ‘cultural experiences’, another public holiday, or just an opportunity to indulge in lots of delicious food and drink. 

I also didn’t realize until we started sending our three-year-old to school this year that festivals could make parents so BUSY! 

Around the end of October, we received an email to dress our kid up for Halloween, and then another notification to prepare Diwali art for a competition at school the following week. We’re expecting more to come, such as preparing our child for the year-end Christmas concert and New Year celebration. I believe soon after we’ll have some family homework for the Chinese New Year. 

At the same time, I also started to see how these different festivals could add color to our child’s life. There are many things kids can experience and learn while celebrating festivals. Here are some that I have observed. 

Lessons in a new culture

Celebrating different holidays will help kids to learn about their own and others' heritage and culture, the history and story of the festivals, and why and how they are celebrated. Kids also have the opportunity to dress up in costumes and enjoy some traditional foods, and learn something new while having fun. 

Multisensory activities

Kids get to do artwork related to festivals, and in our case, the school also organizes art and craft activities to involve the whole family. For instance, during Diwali this year, we were working on the Kolam or Rangoli, a decorative design made during the Hindu festival. Even though we do not celebrate it, we had fun researching it, and creating the artwork also helped our child to develop creativity and learn about symmetrical patterns. 

New vocabulary

We often need to bring in new vocabulary when we introduce or explain a new festival to our children. In festivals such as Spring Festival, one needs to address others with auspicious greetings that suit their personal aspirations or stage of life. Teaching our child what to say to different people and how to say these things correctly expands their vocabulary—for the topic at hand and beyond.

Independent thought

Celebrations offer the chance for us to open up discussions with our children and listen to their thoughts. We let our daughter decide how she wanted to dress for Halloween. She got to choose the character and theme, then we selected the accessories, and we built the style together. 

Stronger relationships

By learning about festivals of different cultures, children learn more about their friends and neighbors from different backgrounds, share in the fun, and celebrate together with other children and families. It helps to build empathy and make them more sociable and more integrated into society. 

My observations as a first-time parent have helped me see festivals differently and appreciate them more than before.  

There's a saying that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. I wholeheartedly agree with this. As parents, there are limitations on what we ourselves can offer to our children, but by becoming more integrated in the wider community—through school, extended family and relatives, our neighborhood or other parent or friend networks—our children are given many opportunities to communicate, interact, and grow. Festivals offer one of the best occasions for this. 

Photo from Canva.

About the Author

Chyi enjoys learning about others’ stories, writing, and sharing them widely. She and her husband have a mini blog on Facebook to share their parenting story, especially food that they prepare for their daughter: https://www.facebook.com/papalove.bkk/.

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