Title: Using your Values to Raise your ChildrenThe Center for Parenting Education
Headings: Values Matter: Using Your Values to Raise Caring, Responsible, Resilient Children
LIBRARY OF ARTICLES::
Over-indulgence and Values:
Values Matter: Using Your Values to Raise Caring, Responsible, Resilient Children
What are Values?
Some Facts about Values
Values Can Cause Conflict
Values Are Subjective
Values Change Over Time
The Value of Values
Values Provide Clarity
Values Provide Guidance
Values Impact Relationships
What’s the Challenge?
Parents Don’t Know What They Value
Values Can Conflict with One Another
Parents May Disagree over Values
Values Change over Time
Transmitting Values:
Benefits and Pitfalls of Different Approaches
Moralizing
What is Moralizing?
Moralizing involves preaching and teaching.
Using Moralizing to Teach Values
The Pitfalls of Moralizing
Modeling
What is Modeling
Modeling involves parents acting in ways that demonstrate the desired values.
The Benefits of Modeling
The Pitfalls of Modeling
Clarifying Values
What is Clarifying Values?
The Benefits of Clarifying Values
Children are taught how to think about and evaluate a value; they are not taught what specifically to think.
The Pitfalls of Clarifying Values
A Laissez-Faire Approach
What is a Laissez-Faire Approach?
The Benefits of a Laissez-Faire Approach
The Pitfalls of a Laissez-Faire Approach
What to Do
Exercises to Help You Get Clear about Your Values
Basic Life Values
Desirable Children’s Traits
TRAITS MOST ADMIRED
TRAITS LEAST ADMIRED
Ranking Children’s Traits

Content: If you see your child misbehaving in a way that is contrary to a value you want to instill, it can be a clue about something the child needs to learn, whether it be kindness, generosity, responsibility, honesty, etc. The situation can be an opportunity to do your job as a parent to teach that value and the behaviors that reflect it, rather than a reason to get angry and punish. <return to top of page
What’s the Challenge? But sometimes it is not as easy as it seems it should be. Parents Don’t Know What They Value
For one thing, parents aren’t always sure themselves what they consider to be important, what it is that they value. As the old adage says, “If you don’t know where you want to go, you are far less likely to get there.” It often takes conscious effort to get clear about one’s overall value system. For example, if you are not clear that you want your children to show gratitude, you may miss opportunities to teach your child how he can express his sincere thanks when someone buys him a present. Values Can Conflict with One Another
Secondly, our own values can conflict with one another. This internal values conflict can occur when a person is not clear about which value is more important, or when a person values two things at once which seem incompatible.