What do you think of when you hear the word "table"? In your mind, do you see the large rectangular piece of furniture in your kitchen? Your fourth-grader might picture a multiplication chart and your sixth-grader a list of contents at the beginning of a book.
Each person's frame of reference develops from a perception of things based on the information we know and the things familiar to us. In one family it's not unusual to find one person's frame of reference totally opposite from another's, which leads to the familiar "I don't understand where you're coming from!"Here's a fun activity to help the whole family appreciate differences in perception.
Give each family member a piece of paper and a pencil and five minutes to write down all of the pictures they see in their mind when they hear a particular word. Then compare lists.
For example, try the word "copy." Did you write that it means to duplicate on a machine? Maybe Grandma wrote copy means to draw, trace or write the same thing over. If Mom is a newspaper writer, copy is the words or manuscript she writes. If Dad is a police officer, to copy means to understand. Discuss some of the things that may have made your definitions different, such as the person's age, work or school en-vi-ron-ment.
Continue with other words. As you become more aware, encourage your children to explore the differences in cultures of people in the community, whether they embrace a religion different from yours, speak a language other than English or come from another country.