Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach all over the world about parenting child development,
good family communication through the lens of the principal self government. And in this video,
I'm going to be talking about how to teach children values.
In this video, we're gonna talk more about values so that we can understand what real values are and
what that even means and then we're gonna talk about key things that you can do to instill values
in children. If you look the word "value" up, it says that a person's values are their principles
or standards for life, the things that they hope to live. Basically a person's judgments about what
is important in life to them. But I'd like to go a little bit deeper than that. When we're talking
about how we're going to teach values to children, let's have a deeper understanding of what value
really means. So let's look at the root of the word of values and just go to value. What does
that mean? If you look in Webster's 1828 dictionary, then you can see that the word
value actually means what the worth of something is, or how useful something is, what it can be
used for, and what its price might be. So when we think about our values, our standards and the
things that are important to us, what we're really saying is, what do we value the most,
what is the most useful to us. So when we're talking about teaching a person values,
then we need to keep in mind that we're teaching them worth. We're teaching them
that there are some things that they should desire more than other things. So really,
we're scripting a person when we're teaching them their value. We're helping them decide
their priorities. Because essentially, if you say this is something that's worth, or worthwhile
or useful, you're declaring it as more important than possibly other things or other actions and
so you're making something a priority, that's a pretty big thing to teach a person. So how do you
go about teaching that to another person? Let's talk about that. So years ago, I happened upon
a book, I found it at just some thrift shop. And it was written by somebody last name Bennett, I
believe, and it was all about values for children and teaching values for children. So there was a
section in the book on courage and a section on honesty, and a section on being caring, right, or
kind, those kinds of things. So I started looking through this, and I thought, you know, this is
pretty basic and actually, the stories are okay, but I can think of maybe even some better stories
that I might like to share with my children, stories from my past stories from my grandmother,
my grandfather, stories from classical literature that I would like to share. And I think maybe
I would rather teach these characteristics or values in that way because really, when we're
talking about values, and what's important to you, the standard you live by, we're talking
about your characteristics that you're trying to espouse, or who you're trying to become. So
if you teach values, you teach honesty, the whole idea is that the person is then wanting to become
honest, right, or to become kind or courageous, or whatever those particular characteristics
are. Behind all of those values are actually principles. So when something is a principle,
it's true, there's a truth in there, that principle because it's broadly applicable
is going to apply to every discipline that there is. So when you teach a person values that should
hopefully make their math experience different, their literature, experience different, their
social experiences different, their work ethic different, everything that they do
should suddenly become different. And this process of teaching a person values is actually a process
of maturing a person. So you're helping them to mature in emotional ways, in social ways
by teaching them things that ended up relating to decorum and etiquette and valuing other people,
those kinds of things. So we're helping a person go from a state of immaturity to maturity, and
one of the most logical ways to start is actually with stories. So many people teach children values
with stories. So if you think of the story, the classical little story of The Three Little Pigs.
In the Three Little Pigs, we see the value of hard work because two pigs get eaten and another pig
does not get eaten because he puts in more hard work. So that's one story that teaches values.
There's another story about The Little Engine That Could, so we have the value of persistence or keep,
keep trying, keep going. Keep focusing on where you're headed, or what about The Little Red Hen.
Now we've got the value of work again. So this is a big one that parents are always trying to
teach their children work. They don't want their children to have years of laziness and
for them to not eat, right? If you don't learn the value of work, you might not eat was the logical
deduction. Nowadays, I'm not sure everybody sees that not working leads to not eating,
but hopefully they still do. Think of Beatrix Potter. So Beatrix Potter's books that are all
about the little woodland animals in England. She's got Little Peter Rabbit, right. And
what does Peter Rabbit do? He sneaks into Mr. McGregor's garden, and he steals things. He's
eating food that doesn't belong to him so he's trespassing and stealing, right? So interesting.
That little story portrays Peter as this victim of the mean, Mr. McGregor. But in the end, we see
he ended up not getting a supper, he had to have medicine because he didn't make it home in time,
he had his negative consequences that he had to follow. So when we teach a person value to
follow values, and what values they should follow, we're actually teaching them a lot of life lessons
in cause and effect. So I've recognized that while looking through stories for my children,
when they were little, that the older the story, often, the more obvious the lesson in values.
So nowadays, there's many stories that you can get out there, but many of them are what I call
twaddle because they don't really even teach a lot of values. They're just a random tale.
And sometimes the values are- some of the more modern values that people have said, okay, well,
this is a now a value for our times when in the past, it might not have actually been a principle.
So for instance, some people think that inclusion is a value but that's not a principle. And I,
for my children decided that if I was going to call something of value and spend some
time teaching that I wanted it to also be a principle, because this would be something then
that they could use for life. So inclusion is not going to work all the time. Because we say,
Oh, be sure to choose good friends. And then we say don't leave anybody out. Well, how do you
hook those two things together. And so many people just say, Well, you know, we always do inclusion,
so you got to have inclusion, but then you have people who end up finding bad friends, and people
who are afraid to ever tell their children, don't be friends with that person. Because, you know,
I'm looking, I'm discerning here and recognizing that person is not a good influence on you. So
inclusion would not be what I would consider to be a value. But in modern society today,
people are saying that inclusion is a value, and it's not. So there's multiple terms
that you might notice that don't really broadly apply to everything. So they're not principles,
they have exceptions. So if you can look for stories that are based upon principle, then you'll
probably have a better chance of teaching values to your children. I've got a few other ideas
for you for how to teach values to children. But before I do, I'd like to see what you've noticed.
What types of values, do you think that people are saying our values, but might not really
be a value? Just something that they're making up because they want to control how society goes,
but then what really is a value. I'd love to hear your take on that. There are
so many actually values that we really should live to be good people, but then there are so
many that I would just say that they're imposters, right? So making sure that you find true values
is going to make a big difference. So leave me your thoughts in the comments below.
Obviously, one of the best ways to teach a person values is actually by lived example. So if you
are the living example in their life of a person who lives values, then they are going to see that
living those values is important. If you talk about honesty, and you tell hey, I could lie here,
but I'm not going to because I know that it's important to tell the truth, people respect you
more. If you have those types of discussions with your children, then your children are going to see
those values as more important. So this leads me to another key thing in teaching values and that
is discussion. When you read the books, when you see things happen in the news or in the media,
and people are clearly being selfish when in reality, the value is to be charitable,
right, to other people. So when they're being selfish instead of charitable discuss it,
pointed out. In fact, it's not judgmental to point it out. It's instructional, it's educational. You
don't have to do it in a way where you're speaking mean about other people. But you can say, hey,
let's talk about the value of charity and let's talk about selfishness. Boy, what do we see around
us? That might be selfish? Or have you ever behaved in a way that's selfish? And how do you
know when you're being selfish, right. And then when you read a little story to the children,
like Little Red Riding Hood, and you're talking about Little Red Riding Hood, or the grandma,
or the woodsmen or the wolf and you talk about their characters, then see if you can identify
which values or things they value, which standards that they have in which principles
that they might be following or not following. These are going to be great things. I do think
reading the works of people that really, truly our principles are important. I know many people will
go to scriptural sources for good values training. But a lot of your really great authors, especially
old time authors from the past would have been bringing in all of those same types of principles,
and would be, you know, that would be done in engaging ways as well. So keep in mind that movies
and television programs are also stories, and they could be teaching values that are contrary
to the values you're trying to instill within your children. That does mean that you might need to be
very selective. Don't just go with anything that's out there just because it's labeled for children,
scrutinize it. Before I ever allowed my children to watch a television program
or a movie, I would preview it. And in this day and age, you can preview
everything because everything is on demand. So preview it, see if you think that it's the
lesson in values that you want to share with your children. And if there's no lesson in it,
why waste your time, that's just twaddle. And so it's not even worth it but if there is a lesson
make sure that you're able to point it out to the children and and honestly if there's bad lessons,
stay away, right? If you've enjoyed this video, I know you'd like my next video, which is How
do children learn values? What's actually going on inside their heads when you are doing that values
teaching? Click on the link to that video now.