How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children

by Elisavet Arkolaki (Curator)

This guide features expert advice from Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold, Dr. Brigitte Vittrup, Brian Vassallo, Vivian Chiona, Rita Rosenback, Dr. Mary-Pat O’Malley-Keighran, Beth Hall, Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels, Tamara Yousry, Lisa Ferland, plus an inspiring chapter by a TCK, Yui Mikuriya.

The wish of all contributors is that everyone interested in topics related to multilingualism, multiculturalism, identity, diversity, expat/immigrant/multi-mobile life gets to read this book. Thus, an Ebook version which includes many links plus two extra chapters, can be downloaded for FREE in a PDF format at www.maltamum.com.

Book chapters:

1. Inventing identities for our multicultural children by Elisavet Arkolaki
2. The debate over multiculturalism and what we can learn from the Canadian model by Elisavet Arkolaki
3. My identity crisis growing up in numerous cultures by Yui Mikuriya
4. Why urging our children to embrace different cultures and learn different languages matters by Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold
5. The 5 most common challenges a parent faces while raising a multicultural kid and how to address them by Vivian Chiona, Dr. Brigitte Vittrup, Elisavet Arkolaki
6. 5 mistakes parents make when trying to raise bilingual children by Rita Rosenback
7. Language delays in multilingual children: what are they and what to do about them by Dr. Mary-Pat O’Malley-Keighran
8. Raising multilingual children with additional needs abroad by Dr. Ute Limacher-Riebold
9. Confident moms raise confident kids - On finding your tribe abroad by Lisa Ferland
10. Media influences on children by Dr. Brigitte Vittrup
11. The impact of culture on the education of the young by Brian Vassallo
12. Promoting tolerance, practical tips - What we should do to enhance religious tolerance at home (parents) and at school (teachers) by Brian Vassallo
13. Dealing with racism - perspective of a white transracial adoptive parent by Beth Hall (only available in the eBook edition)
14. Not just “white parents” with kids of color” - The importance of racial identity work for parents by Dr. Gina Miranda Samuels (only available in the eBook edition)
15. Crossing the Deep Cultural Divide by Tamara Yousry
16. The stories you should tell your multicultural kid every day by Elisavet Arkolaki
17. A list of websites and blogs about multilingualism & multiculturalism

Genres: Parenting, Family

120 pages, Paperback

Published August 16, 2018

About the author

Hi,

I’m Elisavet Arkolaki, it’s great connecting with you!

I’m a multilingual mom raising two beautiful, multilingual, and ethnically mixed children, and I’m a children’s book author, mainly writing and publishing bilingual books. I have lived in six countries and my home right now is in Norway.

Both my husband and I are passionate about traveling; inspired by global learning, we’re raising our own children in between countries, cultures, and languages. I write to build cultural understanding and sensitivity in young children while they are still eager to learn, and also help and support them in their bilingual journey. The bilingual books I've published are ideal for early readers: white background, large and easy-to-read fonts, the image on one page and the text on the other, etc. They're available in 50+ languages with progressively longer stories from one book to the other.

I have an academic background in foreign language teaching, translation, and marketing. I graduated from the University of Liverpool with a degree in Global Marketing (MSc), the University of Athens (EKΠΑ) with a degree in French Philology/Language and Literature (BA), and I was awarded a certificate of proficiency in English from the University of Cambridge. I speak four languages now at different levels of fluency.

I’m proud to volunteer as a PEaCH Ambassador. PEaCH is an Erasmus+ (EU) funded project that supports European families raising bilingual and multilingual children. PEaCH does this in the form of a handbook for parents, a handbook for educators, informative videos and an online collection of ready-to-use materials in the 24 official EU languages. On their YouTube channel you will find videos with narrations of my books in many languages.

To find fun and educational activities related to my books, subscribe to my newsletter (www.maltamum.com)

or join my private FB group "Elisavet Arkolaki’s Behind the Book Club" and head over to the "Files" section. You can also read on my blog, in full and for free, the guidebook "How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children".

You can get in touch by sending me an email at liza @ maltamum.com

Thank you.

*************************************************

Non-fiction books

How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children

A short love story for adults in a photo book format

Together They Blossomed

(It’s also available in bilingual editions in EN-FR, EN-ES, EN-IT and EN-GR).

Children’s books in English

Where am I from? (Faraxa Publishing, Malta, EU)

Sunny’s Magical Headband

Happiness Street

Cousins Forever

Nelly’s Box

Summer with Grandpa


Bilingual children’s books

Cousins Forever (50+ languages)

Happiness Street (45+ languages)

Nelly’s Box (30+ languages)

Summer with Grandpa (30+ languages)

Available languages:

• Afrikaans • Albanian • Arabic • Armenian • Basque • Bosnian • Bulgarian • Catalan • Chinese (Traditional & Simplified) • Croatian • Czech • Danish • Dutch • English • Estonian • Filipino / Tagalog • Finnish • French • Galician • Georgian • German • Greek • Hindi • Hebrew • Hungarian • Icelandic • Indonesian • Irish • Italian • Japanese • Korean • Latvian • Lithuanian • Macedonian • Malaysian • Maltese • Norwegian • Polish • Portuguese of Portugal • Brazilian Portuguese • Romanian • Russian • Serbian • Slovak • Slovene • Spanish • Swedish • Thai • Turkish • Ukrainian • Vietnamese • Welsh

Reviews

[Olga Mecking · Rating 5 out of 5]

This great book is a must-read for all wishing to raise confident and happy multicultural kids. In fact, it's a must-read for all parents. In this book, author Elisavet Arkolaki curated helpful and non-judgmental advice from experts from all over the world, be it about providing kids with a strong sense of belonging, making multilingualism work for your family, or how to prepare your children for the next move.

The world is growing increasingly diverse and books like "How to Raise Confident Multicultural Children" mirror this shift. A welcome addition to the bookshelves in any house and bookstore.

[Alexa Jaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful and enthralling account!
Bought my copy this morning! Drink the hot coffee before you start reading... it will be cold before you remember it! Fabulous reading! 💕🌷

[Chryssa Oikonomidou · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are raising bilingual / trilingual kids, if you are a multicultural family, if you are an expat raising your kids in a foreign country, if you have adopted a kid from a different culture/country then this book is a good place to start your journey. It will definitely help you reflect on your choices and develop strategies on how you will address potential issues and structure your life with the goal to raise confident, multicultural children.

[Elisavet Arkolaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to defend my work and that of the contributors here cause there’s online bullying taking place. There’s a guy, this guy here https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/profile/a... who pretends to be all the ladies posting the 1 Star reviews on Goodreads. One of the Goodreads 1 Star reviews that comes from a fictious woman is identical to his real Amazon account so the link here to his true identity is undeniably strong. All these Goodreads accounts have been opened within the last 48h with the only purpose being to harm. If you click on them, you will see they’re all fake, and located in Ireland. An honest person would leave a legit review, and leave it there. He wouldn’t need to open several fake accounts, pretending to be several women, to prove his point! A couple of months ago, he tried to ‘warn’ me not to work with one of the contributors. He posted an ugly public comment on FB under one of my posts, using-of course- a fake account, and I ignored him. So, he’s out to get us by posting all these revengeful reviews, then liking these fake reviews from his different fake accounts and pretending he’s having a dialogue! I have kept records of everything and I now know his real identity and his email address. Thank you for reading.

[Jamie Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set of Articles, Not Blueprint

This book is actually a collection of essays about multiculturalism and children written by a variety of different authors on a number of topics relevant to the topic. The focus of the first part of the book seems to be on language while transracial adoption and racial identity seemed to be more the focus of the last part of the book. There are also articles about living abroad with multicultural children, confidence (for both mother and child), and promoting tolerance. Unfortunately, with such wide-ranging topics and different authors, this book didn't feel like a coherent whole to me about how to raise confident multicultural children as the title says. That's not to say the articles aren't fascinating reading, though they are a little dense at times (some sounding more like academic papers than ones written to help parents). If you're looking for a simple, step-by-step approach to the book's topic, you won't find it here. But if any of the ideas I have discussed interest you, you might find this book interesting and useful.

I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.

My book blog: https://www.readingfanaticreviews.com

[Jacky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Language and it's many heritages

Coming from a multicultural family language was always a way to expand understanding and knowledge. Every language, every culture, and every place have an influence in the development of a child. This reminds me a psychology lesson on the difference between inherited traits and environmental traits. Multicultural children are brought up in a melting pot of both and a mix of many different sets.

[Sophie Williamson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whatever your opinion of the material in this book, the description of it offered by Ms Arkolaki and by other reviewers is not factually correct.

According to Wikipedia:

'An expert is someone who has a broad and deep competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study.'

This is simply not true of some of the actual contributers involved.

Again, we are led to believe by some that the book is 'full of personal insights from many multicultural individuals'. As regards at least some of the chapter writers, this is patently false.

This sort of spin is quite off-putting, and frankly, not particularly honest.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed Full of Resources

As someone who works with international families, and third culture kids, I found this book to not only be an interesting read, but I also found many of the resources linked inside to be very useful. This is definitely a book worth revisiting in the future.

[Nesrine Sleiman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very important

This is such an important topic. Learning about diversity early on is very significant to developing social emotional skills. Parents and early childhood educators must, equally, read and share this book, especially , that is backed up with valid sources.

[Inga Johansson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although one would certainly like to give every encouragement to enthusiastic amateurs and their efforts, this falls far short of what would be necessary in order to be taken seriously by the informed, objective reader.

It comes across as a thin, homespun pastiche of many other credible and reputable works that are already widely available.

Being charitable, the varied motivations behind this collection of articles might be described as mixed or questionable. In essence, it appears in part to be an exercise in self-promotion and validation-seeking, as much as anything else.

Sadly, it quickly becomes apparent why it is self-published, since the material would never see the light of day by way of a professional publishing house, given that it's littered with errors, misunderstandings, personal biases and thinly-disguised appropriation of other people's ideas.

[M van Someren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good idea, but a bit too over the place and US based.

[Pablo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very little substance.