Impart Values To Your Child
Values are caught rather than taught. Probably the most important consideration in imparting values is the good examples that you, as a parent, can set.
Ways to teach values
• Reward your child
When he does something good, praise him or give verbal recognition.
• Inner labeling
Make your child's inner-self feel good and proud so that he wishes to behave positively again. For example, say to him "It takes a generous person like you to share your biscuits. You are a really kind person."
• Developing a caring attitude
Have an activity or discussion about friends and relatives and discuss their likes and dislikes. This helps your child to observe people and realise that they have different likes and dislikes. Get him to work on helping some of these people feel good and avoid feeling bad.
• Offering and accepting offers of help
Give your children opportunities to help with household chores. This helps build responsibility in them.
• Learning from others
Point out the good or bad points about other people and explain what is right or wrong using examples from newspaper or TV. Be careful not to tell your child that the other person is good and he is bad. This will have a discouraging effect on him.
• Role-playing
Ask your child to imagine a particular situation and tell you how he is going to respond, how he made his decision, how he felt and what are the likely consequences of his actions.
• Praising and scolding
Tell your child what he should do and explain to him the resulting consequences. You should also state the moral principle he should follow.
For example, if your child takes his sister's library book without permission, you could say "You should never take Sarah's book without asking her first. She was very upset when she could not find it. If it had been lost, she would have had to pay for the book. I have not taken your things without asking you first. You would be upset too. You should always think about the feelings of others when you do things that affect them."
• Asking instead of telling
This allows your child to reason on his own why he was wrong. 
Example: Your son was playing with his friend and they got into an argument. He got angry and threw his friend's toy against the wall and broke it. You could ask: "How do you think your friend felt when you threw his toy?" "How would you feel if someone damaged your things because he is angry with you?"
"What would you do if you were your friend?" (A role-playing question) "What would be a good rule to remember when you are angry with someone else?"
• Explain motives
Explain why you choose to act in a certain way when you carry out moral acts.
Example: "I was glad to let that woman come in front of the queue. She was struggling with so many things that she would have had difficulty if she had continued in the long queue. I felt good in helping her to complete her shopping."
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Impart specific values
• Love
We often think we can show love to our children by buying them things or by simply spending time and teaching them. What is probably more important is the ability to meet their needs. Sometimes we don't realise what their needs are. These needs include:
- to be independent and to do things for themselves
- to be heard where their views and feelings are concerned
- to have privacy and personal space
- to be able to choose and be with their friends.
• Respect
This is best shown in the way you speak to your children. Don't look down on or criticise them when listening to their views or trying to understand their feelings. When you spend time trying to listen and understand, even though you may not necessarily agree, you show your children that they are important to you.
• Care, concern and sharing
Family time can be used for everyone to share something, like a happy feeling or event, a joke, or anything that is meaningful. Your older children can also be asked to do something to show their care or concern for someone else.
• Telling the truth
It is important for parents to keep their promises and tell the truth themselves. When your child tells a lie, it is important for you to understand why he needs to lie. Then, try teaching your child how to meet his needs without resorting to lying.
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Practical Tips
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Values of being
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General guidelines |
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Honest |
- Be honest with your children. Answer their questions truthfully and when it is an off-limit question, let them know that you can’t answer the questions, instead of making up excuses. Don’t exaggerate and threaten to do things that you don’t really want to do.
- Don’t try to catch them telling lies all the time. Instead, praise them for telling the truth and give them a chance to start over when they are not being honest.
- Show them the cause and effect of honesty and dishonesty. Watch for a real life situation and point out the consequences.
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Courageous |
- Reward the evidence of courage in children of any age. The praise should be for the courage to attempt, regardless of whether there is any successful outcome or not. Try especially to praise moral courage, such as telling the truth when a lie would have been easier.
- Be a parental model by telling them about the difficult things you do, but not in boastful manner. Let them know that there are difficult things for adults too.
- Clarify the difference between lack of courage and shyness. Help shy children to see that courage is a quality of character and that everyone feels a little shy and scared at times. However, they can do what is right.
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Self-reliance and self-discipline |
- Show your children that you treasure this value and that you work for it. Talk to them about the things that you are good at and your potential to be better. Show pleasure in things that you do well and take pride in your responsibility.
- Try to recognise their talents and help them to develop their unique quality. Consciously find out who they really are rather than try to mould them into who and what you wish them to be.
- Reinforce their self-image and individuality and build their confidence to inculcate self-reliance.
- Help them to accept the responsibility when they make a mistake.
- Set an example and show them how you discipline and moderate yourself to accomplish the target.
- Help them to control their feelings of anger or aggression by counting to 10 before saying or doing anything.
- Give some examples of people who hurt others because they fail to stop to think of the consequences.
- Maintain a family schedule, which gives them the security of certain predictable things and the discipline, which is expected of them. E.g. have breakfast at a specific time.
- Motivate them to set up goals or objectives for themselves and encourage them to consciously discipline themselves to achieve the goals.
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Respect |
- Extend respect to everyone at home before expecting respect. Make an effort when dealing with your children as they are often treated with less or sometimes no respect by the adults.
- Reinforce respectful behaviour by recognising and praising them.
- Make it a consistent practice and help them correct their undesirable behaviour.
- Teach by example by showing them how you respect others as well as yourself.
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Love |
- Assure and reassure your children of your unconditional love for them. Separate dissatisfaction with their behaviour from love. Reiterate that it is what they did that displeases you, and that your love for them hasn’t changed.
- Learn to love through a service project. Involve your children and yourself in a service for the less fortunate.
- Show your love by displaying your affections, e.g. hugs and kisses.
- Provide and allow for apology and “repentance”. This helps to show them you value love and improvement more than punishment and penalty. Teach them to apologise and “repent” when they make mistakes. Praise them and show pride in what they do and express your love for them.
- Allow them to take responsibilities over their siblings, e.g. an older child can help his younger sibling with schoolwork.
- Teach them to care for animals or allow them to keep a pet. This will help them learn responsibility and develop dependability.
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Care, concern and sharing |
- Help children to learn that it is important to care about other’s feelings.
- Give them responsibility and try to bring out their appreciation and empathy for the difficulties and challenges they encounter.
- Teach by example and active communication. Show them the attitude of care and concern, and the kind of sensitivity that you want them to mirror.
- Give them some memorable incidents and acts of sharing and being unselfish. Point out how happy the recipient feels and reinforce the idea of the same amount of joy in giving as well as receiving.
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Kindness |
- Give your children clear and specific models for kindness and politeness. Practise using “Please”, “Thank you”, “Excuse me” at home and when you are talking with young children. This encourages them to do
the same.
- Talk to them frequently about what kindness means and cite examples in real life.
- Point out that the act of kindness can often be a chain reaction. A simple act of kindness can often change another’s attitude or moods.
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