Teaching Right and Wrong

One of my favorite quotes by Dr. Laura recently is " . . . I get calls from parents so enamored by the fact that their kid is so talented or smart that they forget that their kids have to grow up to be descent people." (something to that effect--I wish I had the exact quote)

Isn't that totally true? Some of the best parents I know literally FILL their kid's lives with music lessons, dance lessons, scouts, soccer, daycare, friends, outings, hobbies, games, etc, and honestly, the kid never has time to "learn how to be a good person." Dr. DeMille (from "A Thomas Jefferson Education") says that children in the "Core Phase" (ages 0-8 roughly) learn the lessons of good/bad, right/wrong, true/false and this is accomplished through work/play. Well, it's easy for me to say, since I don't have kids involved in all that stuff right now, but you really need to good chunks of downtime with your children for "the instilling of values."

Here are a few ways we are trying to teach values, virtues, morals, whatever you want to call them, to our children. My feeling is that a true leader, or a patriot, must have these qualities, and these must be taught while they are in their youth.

The first thing we LOVE are the "Standin' Tall" series by Janeen Brady. I grew up with these and to this day sing the songs to myself at times when I'm faced with a moral dilemmas. I highly recommend them!


It comes in a set of 12 books/CDs and the values that it covers are:

1. Obedience
2. Honesty
3. Forgiveness
4. Work
5. Courage
6. Happiness
7. Gratitude
8. Love
9. Service
10. Cleanliness
11. Self-Esteem
12. Dependability

Another thing that hasn't worked as well as I hoped this year but I've improvised is having my kids be a part of a Joy School (preschool) group where moms take turns teaching lessons based on the Joy School Curriculum written by Richard and Linda Eyre. Joy School is another thing I grew up with, and since I was home-schooled I was able to help my mom teach it to each of my siblings. I love the lessons, I love the songs, I LOVE what Joy School teaches. These lessons are honestly as applicable to adults as anyone in my opinion. My only regret is that Joy School has gotten more expensive over the years (because of popularity) and there are typically cheaper options that groups will choose instead. I hope I can get a group of moms together for this upcoming Fall to do a Joy School group with me. Here's their website http://www.valuesparenting.com in case you are interested.

The final thing I'll mention now is a new thing for me, as in, I didn't grow up with these, but they are wonderful! My father-in-law actually got these for us and honestly I don't remember seeing them before--



We have started reading these books to our boys at night, for Family Home Evening, and when we have "dead time"--I shouldn't really call it dead time, but it's cool: Dan will be cooking in the kitchen, the boys running around like wild indians, and I'll just open one of these books and start reading to the family, and every so slowly, the kids will come over to the couch to follow along, or, if it's the main book of virtues, Dan and I will have some neat conversations stemming from something I've read. Honestly, the "Virtues" talked about in these books seem almost foreign in our society now--what has happened to "hard work," "responsibility" and "forgiveness?" I want our boys to know these things, and I want to know them even better.


Does your family do something special to instill values in your children?
Please share!!