As the world progresses through dynamic and open relationships, there is the need to broaden your child’s perspective of “What is a Family”.
Gone are the days when a simple family consisted of a mom, a dad, and a child.
Parents – Rise to the Challenge
Tomika Long shed light on the ways to achieve such harmony by discussing how puzzles can be a source of connection between parents and children on difficult topics.
Thankfully, a few puzzles from the Family Collection at ZeezKids and some conversation from the side of the adult, will assist children with a better understanding of different family structures.
1. Nuclear Family
Nuclear families are traditional family structures with two parents and their children living together in a single-family home.
This is commonly seen in children’s books, shows, and spoken about a lot in schools and essentially needs no introduction. But this is often defined as standard, which can be challenging to process for your child if he/she does not live in this family structure.
2. Single Parent Family
The single parent family involves a single parent looking after their children alone. It can be a single mom or a single dad family. To make it easier to explain to children, parents, guardians and educators can use the single mom puzzle or the single dad puzzle to ease their child into conceptual understanding. This can help extract the stigma out of a non-nuclear family structure.
3. Extended Family
Extended family structures can be multiple nuclear families living together with one goal. These families are normally connected by marriage or blood and can involve several adults living together along with their children.
They are often considered great for assisting with elderly parents who cannot take care of themselves or for financial reasons.
4. Stepfamily
A stepfamily is a very complex and often difficult-to-understand structure for children – and not just young ones. In most cases, children observe these dynamics on their own. Whether it is a spouse remarrying after the death of a spouse, or the result of an unfortunate divorce and remarriage. If you want to explain to your child why mommy and daddy are living separately and with different people, a Weekend at Daddy’s Puzzle can make it easier to explain the normality of such a situation.
5. Adoptive Family
A beautiful family structure indeed, the adoptive structure is when a family legally welcomes (adopts) a child which is not biologically theirs.
For kids who lose their parents early on in life or those with abusive households, foster and adoptive parents are a chance at a better way of life.
If you are an adoptive parent and have not yet broken the news to your adopted child – perhaps a fun puzzle depicting the Adoption Office is the right way to break the ice.
Takeaway
Just as the world continues to evolve, so will the family structures.
It is up to us to ensure our children are respectful and empathetic towards people from all family structures, no matter how different they may be.
Break the barriers and ease the conversation, with a tone of softness and a Zee Zee’s World puzzles by your side.
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