Learning about foreign lands and peoples can broaden your appreciation for your own culture. Better still, it teaches your kids to resist the urge to instantly brand something different as wrong. However, understanding distinctions is crucial to building discernment.

Begin the exploration by hopping online to find where your children will find out about various cultures in a kid-friendly format. You’ll be intrigued at the wealth of information available. With a few more searches or mouse clicks, you’ll find photos, recipes, and stories about the land you’re exploring together.

Children need to realize that not all governments rule fairly, however, and sometimes differences count to the core—especially when the topic is God. Your children should know that there are people who sacrifice freedom, and perhaps their lives, to worship as they believe.

Help your kids ask the right questions. Does the religion of a certain country support the freedom to worship as a person sees fit? Christianity allows people to choose for themselves whether or not to believe in God, let alone serve Him. Many other religions won’t tolerate such openness and consider outsiders heretics. Teach your children to cherish their freedoms and pray for those who do not have the same privileges.

Your children will find much good in other cultures and see that certain differences don’t matter. They can and should learn to enjoy other ways of communicating, eating, playing, dancing, and dressing. But when it comes to personal faith, not all cultures are the same. Pretending otherwise undermines our beliefs, confuses our children, and does great disservice to the God we trust.