Excerpt from A LifeCare® Guide: Parenting Your Preschooler:

Holiday Traditions
Unlike when he or she was a toddler, your preschooler can now begin, intellectually and emotionally, to understand some of the meanings behind your family's holidays and traditions. Whether it's going to church on Christmas Eve, Temple on Hanukkah or to Grandma's home for Chinese New Year, your child will take pleasure in familiar traditions and celebrate in age-appropriate ways.

Encouraging acts of charity and kindness—have your preschooler collect canned food from neighbors to donate to shelters, or ask your child to show special attention to elderly family members—can help your preschooler look beyond him or herself and develop feelings of compassion toward others. If it's important to you, now is the time to begin to expose your child to other traditions and holidays too, to show your child the diversity of ways families celebrate.

To encourage your child in learning about your own and other's traditions:

• Make a family tree using old photographs borrowed or photocopied from older family members.
• Introduce your child to the language, foods, costumes, stories or songs from your own and other's roots.
• Celebrate cultural holidays such as Cinco de Mayo, Kwanzaa or Hanukkah.
• Introduce your child to your own religious traditions, as well as others, to teach respect for all faiths.