On a good day, our values are what drives our behaviour. So as parents, grandparent and people who love the children in our lives, how do we teach the values that are the foundations for healthy relationships and fulfilling lives? And as someone who loves teaching values, I wanted to do some more investigating on what parents are noticing impacts their children the most.
One of the people I interviewed was Vancouver’s excellent family therapists and mother of two boys, Michele Hucul-Kamolis. She said "I try to focus less on teaching values, and more on embodying them."
She noticed that within each family the values become the energy set in the family system. She is referring to how we interact, how we play and get things done together. Michelle says the old adage is true ‘Children are very aware of inconsistencies and really do take more from what we do than what we say. ‘So the biggest part of teaching values is to look at how we are living.
We can start by looking at what values are important to us, and how our children may be experiencing them in our home. For us having a loving environment is an important value so there is lots of cuddling, backscratching, and expressions of love. Mutual respect is expected so if anyone feels like they are not being treated well, we talk about it in private and do our best to work it out. We experience imagination and fun by creating lots of free time for dress up, dancing, building fairy house and when we are washing dishes we sometimes wear soapy santa beards. Fun is an area I can build on as a way to get my daughter engaged more easily in household chores and keep me more present.
Of course it is completely unrealistic to even hope to perfectly live our values so you’ll see some gaping holes. Michele outlined how vital it is to talk through the times when you are not living your values. It helps a child make sense of the inconsistency and it brings the value to more conscious awareness. And perhaps most importantly, it gives your child all kinds of space to be imperfect as they see it even happens to the adults they adore.
I had a rather embarrassing example of this. One day when I was holding up another vehicle while parallel parking, my 7 year old daughter said, "That was nice of that man not to honk at you." The inference was very clear, she remembers times when I’ve honked with impatience. Rather than breathing and being centred while driving, I have gotten lazy and just honked impatiently sometimes when there hasn't really be a need to.
These humbling, vulnerable moments, I'm realizing now, are some of the juiciest parts of my life with my daughter. Sometimes I smile as I notice the glee in her eye at seeing mom’s imperfections. At other times I am deeply moved by her empathy for me and the grace and wisdom in her observations.
And you don’t have to use current examples of mistakes, children love your family stories particularly those that involved mistakes and mischief, which can easily be turned into memorable values lessons.
The value of sharing my mistakes became clear as one evening, when my daughter was so upset and wouldn’t talk about why. Later, she pulled me aside and said, I know you’ll understand this mom because remember when you were a kid you felt this too. I cherish this as possibly as most basic value - wanting our child to feel safe enough to share her fears, her anger, her excitement, and her imaginary world so we can be beside her as she finds her way.
Sometimes I’ve had challenges taking the time to reflect or care for myself as well as might be beneficial. Or be as gentle on myself when I see my shadow and I would with my cherished child as she finds her way - I too am also every day finding my way and need to remember that. I call my daughter my Buddha, as my profound love for her demands that I look at myself, not just how I parent but how I live.
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