Helping Your Child Develop Good Values

The beginning of good values begins with being honest yourself. You will be unlikely to be able to teach your child principles that you don't live yourself, so make sure you're living what you're preaching.

Children learn their values at a very early age, and so you must begin as soon as possible. Don't believe that, just because your child can't talk, she doesn't know what's going on. Teach your child that she deserves respect by respecting her. Teach her that she needs to respect other people by showing her how. Let your child see that it's okay to feel pain or anger, but that it isn't okay to act on those in order to hurt others, and that doing so only leads to more misery.

As your child grows, he will continue to learn from your example. Teach your child that helping others can make a really big difference by volunteering, along with your child, to help others. Make sure the activity stays close to your child's developmental level by asking, when you call or email the volunteer group, whether or not the activity will be appropriate for your particular child. Be sure to tell your child why you're volunteering and whom it will benefit.

Many people take their children to a church to help instill basic values. This can be a great support to you in helping your child grow into an honorable, good person. Many churches teach love and kindness and strength, so try to find one of those. Avoid the ones that preach hatred of anyone.

If you have family members who are great examples, involve them in your child's life. Make sure your child gets the chance to see that you're not the only person around that acts properly. This will come in handy in the teen years, when your child may not get along with you so well as they used as they learn to separate themselves from you. Point out good attributes of these people and talk about them with your child.

You can also do talk about characters in movies. Talk with your child about Nemo, for example, and how he learned to get stronger even though he was little, and how he learned how to break the fishing net from his friends and used that knowledge later on to save Dori and the other fish. Or maybe you'll mention his lucky fin, if it applies to your child. Teach your child to look at the world and learn from the good, and, before long, you'll find that you have raised a really great person.