Teaching your child about diversity is a vital to positive parenting.
Teaching your child that we are all different and to accept those differences without prejudice is a crucial aspect of positive parenting. We live in a rich, vibrant, diverse culture where children must learn to get along and accept people who may be physically, culturally, spiritually, or sexually very different from them. If children are not educated socially about different sexualities, cultures, religions, and disabilities it is all too easy for them to make their own, flawed judgements or to fear difference.  Fear of the unknown or different is at the heart of a great deal of prejudice and discrimination.
Positive parenting will help your child to grow up with positive ideas about each person they come into contact with.  Sadly, not everyone can see the vibrancy of our culture or accept the different groups and individuals that make it what it is.  It is a shameful fact that Racism, Homophobia, Sexism and Disability discrimination are still very much facts of modern life and your child will be exposed to people with skewed, negative views as they grow up, no matter how hard you try to shelter them from this.
If you make lewd comments about a young woman in the street or make derogatory remarks about your child’s Asian teacher based on their ethnic background, then you are teaching your child that this is acceptable. Our children look to us as role models and will copy and imitate pretty much everything we do. They will emulate our opinions and our actions and from their mouths you will often hear your own comments parroted back.  This can be quite an eye opener!
As parents we have a responsibility to address our own attitudes towards people and cultures that are different from our own. Perhaps if we were all to do this and make more of an effort to understand our neighbours and co-workers who may be different from us, then one day we perhaps we might eradicate prejudice once and for all.