The Cross-Cultural Parenting Playbook - by Sangita Shresthova

About the Book

This book offers real-life stories, strategies and activities to help families raise cross-cultural kids. Based on interviews and lived experience, it explores how parents can use media to build strong cross-cultural identities, honor hybrid heritage, and navigate the joys and challenges of cross-cultural parenting.

Book Synopsis

A practical research-backed guide for parents raising children across multiple cultures in a world shaped by digital media.

Every day, more families span continents, cultures and languages to raise cross-cultural children. Yet even as media brings us closer than ever, travel restrictions and censorship remind us how fragile these connections can be. Offering real-life stories, strategies and activities, this book explores how diverse families use media, both old and new, to bridge cultures and support their parenting journey. We meet children who balance frequent moves with staying in touch with a distant homeland. We encounter parents navigating multiple languages under one roof. We hear from relatives determined to keep in touch despite the challenges involved. We learn that media remains a vital tool that helps all these cross-cultural families stay connected - through shared recipes that conjure memories, video calls that span time-zones, popular culture that reflects a family's blended identity, and more. This is a book for anyone preparing for or living the realities of cross-cultural parenting.

Review Quotes

A fresh and innovative approach to using today's technology to support families raising cross-cultural children. An important read for anyone seeking new methods to help children deal with the increasing cultural complexity so many face and use the gifts they receive from such a childhood as they move into adulthood. Well done!

-- "Ruth E. Van Reken, co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, 3rd ed. and co-founder of Families in Global Transition"

A compelling and insightful analysis into the world of bi-cultural parenting that brings to the fore the complexities and joys of raising children in a cross-cultural environment. Supported by extensive research and thought-provoking questions, the author takes us on a journey that is both highly entertaining and increasingly relevant.-- "Peter Gittins, Former International School Head and Councillor"

As a parent in a multicultural family, I found Sangita Shresthova's book both edifying and thought-provoking. I can't count the number of times I said out loud, 'Exactly!' or the times I thought, 'If only [insert name of friend from a monocultural nuclear family] would read this...' Inspiring reading.-- "Todd Nesbitt, PhD, Director of European Programs, Center for International Education, SUNY Empire State University"

Enriched with multidisciplinary research and real stories, this is an engaging look at how media, common sense and cultural sensitivity can help us raise happy and successful cross-cultural children.-- "Cynthia Green, author of Blue Feet Monsoon and co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, 4th ed."

About the Author

Sangita Shresthova is a Czech-Nepalese media researcher with expertise in popular culture, transmedia and civic engagement. She grew up between Prague and Kathmandu and has since called many cities home. She currently lives in Los Angeles and works as an Associate Research Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California. She is the co-author of several books, including Transformative Media Pedagogies and Practicing Futures: The Civic Imagination Action Handbook. As a mother raising a multiracial, multilingual, cross-cultural child, her personal journey fuels her commitment to bridging cultural and social divides.