How to Help Your Child Cope With Culture Shock When Traveling

Culture shock is a normal response to traveling in a foreign country. You can minimize your child's disorientation by familiarizing her with the country you will be visiting before the trip, maintaining rituals while traveling, and encouraging her to interact with local culture.

Things You'll Need

• Foreign Language Phrase Books
• Local Guidebooks
• Snacks From Home
• Disposable Cameras

Instructions

1. Teach your child about the country you will be visiting before you depart for your trip, and continue this education process throughout the trip. Get children's books about the culture and geography of the country from the library; show your child photographs and tell her stories.

2. Learn to identify the symptoms of culture shock: difficulty sleeping; sleeping for extended periods; headaches; nausea; diarrhea; anger; apathy or irritability; anxiety; and feeling highly critical of everything in a new locality.

3. Keep to your child's daily rituals (such as bedtime or bathing rituals) as much as possible, but don't be afraid to introduce new habits. The creation of new rituals, such as teaching her to rub her chopsticks together before using them, will help your child adjust to her new surroundings.

4. Create a comfortable, safe haven for your child within your lodgings, whether this be a hotel room, guest house or tent. Place a few familiar objects from home in this area, such as a stuffed animal, pillow or photograph.

5. Bring your child out as much as possible, and encourage her to join you in interacting with locals you feel comfortable with, rather than isolating yourselves with people from your home country.

6. Learn a few phrases spoken in the local dialect along with your child, and use these as much as possible to interact and connect with locals.

7. Give your child a disposable camera to photograph her own experience; she'll have her own lens for observing her surroundings, plus she'll create a wonderful record of how she viewed this world from her own perspective.

8. Encourage your child to talk about her feelings when she seems grouchy, timid or openly hostile to the travel experience. Don't reject these feelings - they're normal symptoms of culture shock.

Tips & Warnings

• Serve as a good role model for your child; be a curious, tolerant and adventurous traveler. If your child senses that you are hostile toward the country and culture in which you're traveling, she is likely to feel unsafe and rejecting of this experience as well.

• If you're traveling in an area rarely visited by foreigners, your child might draw some attention. Teach her the difference between hostile stares and curious stares. If your child finds the stares intolerable, stare back or encourage your child to stare back - this is often enough of a gesture to alert the curious observer of your discomfort.

• Don't place the ideal travel learning experience over your child's sense of safety and security. Take your child's fears seriously, however unreasonable and inhibiting they may seem to you, and be creative in finding ways to help her feel more secure.