Communicating Values
             – A Systematic Exercise

Everyone agrees that instilling good values in children is important.  We all want kids to grow up with the values that we consider important.  Yet for many parents little conscious thought and systematic effort goes into instilling values in their children.  Fortunately, most children learn well by example and most parents set a fairly good one.  However, our world becomes more complicated each year.  Competing influences often interfere with values development.  Just what are your children thinking when it comes to values?  Do you know?  Confusions and uncertainties can make a child act against good judgment and good values, even if that child has a good value core.  For these reasons it is important that parents, and important others, make the effort to systematically review the values that they instill in others.  While a systematic approach may seem somewhat stilted or too planned, don’t let that deter you.  There will be many opportunities for spontaneity and serendipity along the way.

Here is a lightly structured framework that you can use to help instill values.  Ideally, this process should begin early in a child’s development and should be revisited occasionally.  If you have never formally discussed values with your children, they may, initially, show indifference or resistance. Persist.  Putting the right format on the discussions can make for a very interesting, engaging, and enlightening experience for all involved.

• Gather:  Write out your core values.  These are the values that are most important to you. These may include values such as truthfulness, honesty, respect for self and others, hard work, personal integrity, doing your best, community involvement and so forth.  Make your own personal list.  Start with the values that you feel are primary, and then branch to secondary values.  Discuss them with your spouse of other important individuals and refine your list.  Give yourself a few days to think these values over, and then review your list, making additions, changes, or elaborating as necessary.  Be ready with examples.  Anecdotes of self or others are most effective.
  
  

• Present:  Provide a copy of your values list to your child or children.  Let him, her or them know that you have been thinking about values and that it is important to occasionally discuss values.  Briefly, very briefly, tell why these values are important to you.  You don’t have to talk specifically about each value now.  This should take no more than five minutes.  Avoid giving a lecture.
  
  

• Ask:  Ask each child to make a list of values that he or she feels are important.
  
  

• Meet:  Set a time for a family meeting where all involved will bring their lists and talk about values.
  
  

• Discuss:  At the family meeting, discuss similarities and differences in values.  Get into specifics, but keep the discussion appropriate for the ages involved.  You don’t want to overwhelm with too much information that a child is not ready to understand (if you have a fairly wide age spread in children, you may need to hold meetings for each age group).  Discuss examples of good values and poor values.  Discuss how values sometimes conflict.  Discuss why values may differ among individuals and how values and individuals can change.  Discuss how emotions, fears, desires, and such can affect the way one accesses and responds to values.  Discuss scenarios of situations where a number of values come into play.  This can be a lengthy process, so you may want to set up more than one meeting, with an agenda for each.  Don’t try to do too much at once.  Avoid overload.
  
  It is important that these meetings are not “lectures” from parents.  They should be sharing, learning, a lively dialog.  They can be done in a light atmosphere.  Give it a “game” format if you want.  Be creative.  The important part is that concepts are communicated in an open, positive, and optimistic way.  If differences in viewpoint exist, discuss them and why they are appropriate or not.  This is information sharing.  Check sarcasm and cynicism at the door.
  
  

• Model:  Show your values by the way you lead your life.  Let your children know what values you hold important by your work and by your deed.  Occasionally point out situations that are value based.
  
  

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