A new interactive website--LosTweens.com--launched recently to help parents of diverse backgrounds raise multicultural children ages 7 to 12.
"As a Latina mom I realize that this is the age where any cultural links I attempt to establish outside the 'norm' will be most challenged," writes co-founder Cristy Clavijo-Kish. "If you don't focus on schoolwork, friends, coolness, discipline, spirituality (the list goes on) AND culture- the teen years certainly will not be the place to start emphasizing its importance ... I can support my child's learning to have an open mind if I anchor my efforts through presenting cultural understanding- starting with my own."
Clavijo-Kish is Latino marketing and PR expert and her business partner is Katherine Doble-Cannata is a nonprofit and immigration communications pro, according to HispanicAd.com.
"As our family treads through these amazing times with my girls and their friends (many of them boys!)- I was motivated by the fact that I wanted to create a forum where not only we can share our challenges and ideas surrounding this age group, but we could create and allow a forum for them- MyLosTweens.com," writes Clavijo-Kish. "A safe, creative and lots-of-fun site for them to share."
Both Clavijo-Kish and Doble-Cannata teamed with Adrian Acosta, a technology manager, to create Los Tweens, which was created to fill a void online-- culturally relevant parenting advice focused on the developmentally important "Tween" years, according to HispanicAd.com.
The site is interactive and users--parents--are asked to create log-ins and write tips and share experiences that they have had with their tweens.
The plan is to have a bilingual family community blog.
Potential Topics Include:
¡Cultures & Traditions: Sample angles: driving culture into the Tween brain! From a culture of health, music, spiritual, country of origin and more.
¡Travel with Tweens: Sample angles include: research, travel planning, photos and travel experiences, and more
¡Parenting Tweens from a cultural perspective: Sample angels include: what are you doing to retain your family cultural while living in the U.S? Or- how are you providing cultural influences for your developing Tween?
¡Education: School, studying, grades and more.
¡Personal Stories
¡Disabilities and coping techniques
¡Products that work with Tweens: The good, bad, terrific and so-so
¡Retaining Language
¡Media: The good, the bad and the inescapable.
¡Relationships with Tweens: Sample angles: impact of divorce, step parents, grandparents, friends and more. This
is a tough age where relationship are extremely impactful.
¡Recipes & Cooking Tips: Managing the ever-finicky kid!
¡Health and Wellness: Including Multicultural Education.
¡Faith & Spirituality in Tweens: Laying lifelong foundations.
¡Crafts and Activities
¡Community Involvement: Sample angle: Instilling the need to volunteer and sowing seeds of kindness and community support, and driving empathy.
