Childrearing is a lot like whitewater canoeing: there are many shoals to avoid, and the journey is long and hard. So how do you help your child become a resilient, responsible, and kind adult able to find rewarding work and relationships in the world? First you need to instill values.
From childhood onward, your experience has given you certain principles to live by. I’m not saying that you have copied your mother or your father (or your sister or your brother!) wholesale. Maybe you decided to do the opposite of what they did. But somehow, watching the people around you, you learned how to be a man or a woman, a husband or a wife, a sister or a brother, a friend, a citizen, and an employee. And you have formed opinions that you follow.
Your child is watching your every move. Your example is for her the single most influential source of information. If you say one thing and do another, what will your child learn? Ask yourself where your values come from.
Discuss values with your child as often as you can. Talk about your beliefs. Ask what your child believes. Find out what other people believe. Invite your child to consider different worldviews. Talk about what your family stands for. Beliefs encompass matters of faith (religion) but also attitudes about education, books, music, food, war, taxes, elected officials, neighbors, and ever so much more.
So when am I supposed to do all this, you ask? My favorite teaching or discussion ops are together times: car trips, dinner, and family time (a once-a-week get-together to discuss family business and have fun). Experiment with these different ways of approaching values, some new and some old-fashioned:
· Have family members bring questions and answers to the dinner table for an informal quiz about people and events in the news (something like the NPR talk show “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!”). Award points for correct answers—and discuss them.
· Assign research projects. You might tell a child to check the Internet for information on how old you must be to drive a car in different states. You might also invite your kid to interview the neighbors about the town’s curfew. Why do people pass such laws?
· Have a “hypothetical” moment. Ask your children whether it would be okay if a man stole a co-worker’s wallet to buy a compact disc. Then change the scenario: would the theft be okay if the man had no money for food and was very hungry? Suppose the man’s wife was ill and needed medicine? And what if the man had infant triplets at home and no money to buy them milk?
· Read aloud from a newspaper, book, or magazine and ask your children what they think about it. The editorial page offers some possible copy, as do advertisements, poetry, and even cartoons.
· Invite your kids to dress up and put on a skit (you might even videotape it) about stopping bullies in school (bullies should get the chance to play victims and vice versa) or asking the teacher to stop yelling. Or appoint lawyers and a judge to deal with vandalism.
· Select movies or documentaries, supply popcorn, and have a discussion period afterward.
· Play challenging games. The old standbys Risk (ages ten to adult) and Diplomacy (teenagers and adults) invite players to think about international relations. Some older video games that challenge children and ask them to balance competing interests are Sim City, Zoo Tycoon, Age of Empires, and Civilization. A newer generation, created by the Federation of American Scientists (you can Google it), includes Discover Babylon (Mesopotamian civilization for ages eight to fourteen), Immune Attack (immunology for high school and college students), and Multicasualty Incident Response (training for adult firefighters). Video games are starting to take on real-world issues!
Don’t miss the opportunities afforded by dinner table conversation. If there was a problem, how did different observers see it? Invite your child to notice how people view matters differently. How should disputes be settled? How do we settle them? Ask your child: if you were going to design a better world, what would you change? How would you go about making changes?
The important questions have no right or wrong answers. If your child learns to think about the issues and to act in ways that reflect his principles, over time he will understand the importance of diversity in our communities as well as the need for all voices to be heard.
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