Teaching your child the importance of life values is an extremely key part of parenting, as values deeply influence our behaviour throughout our entire lives, which go on to affect our decisions and relationships we choose to build. Teaching life values is considered as just as important as comprehension skills, as it directly impacts our morals and choices we make.
This article will discuss the life values which are most important to teach your child, and ways you can teach your children about life values in a way that will engage them.
Honesty:
As children develop, they learn the process of lying, which means it is especially important to teach the importance of truth and being honest. By making sure a child is listened to for telling the truth, as well as demonstrating an honest outlook yourself as a parent by following through on your words, it will demonstrate that being honest is important, and that lying can bring upon negative consequences.
Respect:
Before a child turns five is the perfect time to create the basic understanding of respect, as this is important in many stages throughout life and will continue to be taught throughout your child’s education. By being a model example and speaking to others with respect, it will teach how respect provides the positive feeling of safety and trust. As your child solidifies their understanding of respect, you can develop their learning by teaching how to respect differing opinions even if they are not your own.
Kindness:
Kindness teaches the feeling of happiness and makes the world a happier place. It is important to teach your child the value of kindness as it leads to experience of positive mental and physical changes. In children, kindness can be demonstrated through sharing, taking turns, considering others, and creating friendships, creating an overall positive state that is likely to be repeated.
Responsibility:
By the time your child is ready for big school, they should be beginning to learn the value of being responsible for themselves and their possessions. As a parent you can encourage this by giving them the responsibility for carrying their own bag, putting their toys away, or pouring their own drink for lunch like we allow the children to do here at Kids Play Childcare. Responsibility is important to teach from a young age as it creates independence as they grow.
Gratitude:
Gratitude effectively encourages positive emotions, builds strong relationships, and allows individuals to enjoy good experiences. As a child’s learning develops to beyond just the basic foundations, they become aware of their surroundings and start to reflect on positive experience, making pre-school the perfect time for teaching children gratitude. To teach your child to be thankful and appreciative of their surroundings is important and as a parent you can encourage this through daily life. This could be through making thank you notes with your child after a birthday, or through encouraging manners verbally such as saying please and thank you.
Ways you can teach important life values to your children
Ask for your child’s help:
By encouraging your child to help you with simple daily tasks, it teaches the value of responsibility. By demonstrating good practice, it teaches both how to be independent and how to work as a team.
Fairy tales:
Using fairy tales is an effective way to teach children about morals whilst keeping them interested in the activity. Fairy tales provide a good moral compass and allow you as a parent to refer to the story in real life examples.
Be aware of what you are modelling:
As a parent, you are the primary role model for your child, so the level of respect and kindness you demonstrate is likely to be watched and mirrored by your little one. Be aware of what you are modelling when your child is present, as this could impact their understanding of what is morally correct.
Teaching respect for authority:
By teaching respect for authority, it helps your child develop interpersonal skills due to listening and observing their surroundings. Be sure to point out uniforms of authority such as police officers and use this as conversation starters to communicate their importance.
Talk explicitly about your values:
By talking to your child about what values are important and why they are important regularly, it will become something they are likely to remember. If something makes you happy or sad that they do, let them know, as the reward or consequence will be something your child will strive for or aim to avoid.
Life values taught from a young age are more likely to be repeated and remembered the more they are practiced. By implementing these processes and discussing moral values with your child it will develop their understanding and have an immediately positive effect, as they not only have initial benefit but will continue to be used throughout their childhood and into adult life.
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