How do you teach your children about their culture? My hubby is maori though I am Aussie. Which I guess makes the kids mozzies!

Teaching kids about tolerance and multiculturalism is so much fun. I grew up going to International Schools and my daughter goes to one now. Between my husband and myself we encompass most of the globe, from Indonesia, Venezuela, the US, England, the Canary Islands, Holland, Italy, Ireland, Germany, France, China, Japan. . . and that's just recent lineage! All our ancestors have been seriously mixed. We love it. The kids love it. We practise on a daily basis a variety of customs we have inherited and even a few we have picked up and enjoy.

Here are a few things we have really enjoyed:

When the kids were tiny, the littlest was a firm proponent of the tan diet - potatoes, cheese, bread, cheerios - until she found out that in Indonesia you can eat yellow chicken, and in Venezuela paella is made with yellow rice. Now she is quite adventurous when it comes to food, never a picky eater. She loves meats, veggies fruits, even sushi, and on our last vacation she tried escargots. We never make her finish anything she doesn't like, and consequently she is eager to try almost anything. Now the kids ask me to make arepas from Venezuela, fried plantains, krupuk and sate all the time.

We watch the Olympics and the World Cup. And don't just root for our countries, but look up some that we may never even have heard of. There are some pretty cool places out there! The best stories come from the tiniest places.

When the girls were younger we used to learn bits of foreign dances, and we'd make a night of it (usually when their father was out of town). We'd snack on something they would eat. We'd learn the greeting from that country, play some of the music and do our best to put together something kind of like what they wear and do some dancing. It didn't matter that it wasn't exactly right, the main point was to foster the right attitude.

At the Indoneisan Consulate they have an Independence Day celebration every year with ethnic food, crafts and dancing. We go every time. There is also an International festival downtown that showcases a different country each year. We go when we can.

As a stepmom, we didn't encourage the kids to call me Mom since we didn't want to be inconsiderate of their biological mother's feelings, but the kids wanted to call me something more intimate than my first name after we were married, so we went through what different cultures called their mothers and picked one we liked. We also used the Dutch terms for their new grandparents like I called mine when I was little, which they felt was more familial and my parents thought sounded less elderly :)  a win-win!

We celebrate certain holidays in the style of the country we live in - US Thanksgiving and Independence Day, for example, but some holidays we celebrate in the style of one of our respective countries or we blend them: on their 15th birthdays, we have a quincinera like in Venezuela, instead of a sweet 16, and at Christmastime and New Years, we incorporate many of the Venezuelan customs as well. We tend to make a big deal out of holidays, which has the added bonus of encouraging the out of town and international relatives to come for visits.

I used to play language tapes in my car instead of music. The girls loved the lessons and even if they didn't learn the different languages, exposing them to the different sounds has I believe helped them pick up languages more quickly in school. They also loved basic language books with games for children - the only challenge came when they would come to me with questions . We would also sing songs in languages their father or I spoke. They loved learning those too.

It may sounds corny, but we go to DisneyWorld and Epcot center often. Their world showcase is great fun. And having kids is a great excuse to go!