How to Talk About Values to Your Kids By Kevin Leman If a serious talk about certain values with your
child is warranted, I suggest you go about it in the following way. First of all, arrange it so you can sit down quietly and be able to give your child your full attention. Try to ensure that you will not be interrupted. (Take the phone off the hook, if necessary.) Also, try to pick a time when neither of you is in a hurry or has to be somewhere. Next, set the stage by saying, "Honey, I need to talk to you about something that's very important. Can we talk now for a few minutes?" After getting comfortably settled, say, "You know, honey, there are people who might think that what I'm going to say is pretty square or hopelessly old-fashioned. But this is how I see the situation that just came to my attention." Then go into the problem and the value involved. It's important to stay low-key and calm. Do not come across as if you're saying, "Hey, I'm laying down the law, and you'd better listen." You will have much more authority and effectiveness if you speak quietly and with conviction. Here's another opening you might want to use: "Your friends might think I'm out in left field, but here is what I believe is right." As you continue to discuss the problem, say something like, "I think what has happened is not right, and it needs to be corrected. This is what I believe should be done." As you bring the conversation to a close, you might say something like, "Some people might think I'm an old fuddy-duddy, but I believe if you do the right thing, you'll feel better about yourself. You'll be able to look into a mirror, and no matter what anyone else says, you'll be able to tell yourself, 'I did what was fair. I was honest. I did the right thing. '" To Teach Accountability, Become Accountable To have the kind of conversation outlined above, you need to be sure of your own values. Above all, you need to know that you back up what you say with what you do. One of the best approaches to teaching responsibility and accountability to children through role modeling is the approach taken by Josh McDowell, a family speaker-lecturer who talks about spiritual and moral values to thousands of high school and college students each year. McDowell also talks to parents' groups, and when parents ask him how they can teach their children responsibility and accountability, his answer is always: "Try being accountable to your children."
By being accountable to one's children, McDowell is not suggesting that you put them in charge of the home and the family. What he means is that the parent is willing to go to the child and say something like this: "Honey, I need your help. I want you to hold me accountable as your mom (or dad). If you ever see me doing something you believe is wrong, unfair, or unloving, I want you to tell me." Now obviously, this is risky. For one thing, children have a way of seeing things from their point of view that may not be accurate or fair to you, the parent. But I still believe McDowell has a great idea here, because children also have an incredible ability to "tell it like it is." You can sort out the times when they have the wrong perspective or not enough information. And you can stay in healthy control of the situation by reminding them that they are free to tell you what you're doing wrong or when you're being unfair, but that they have to be respectful when they do it. It's my belief that most of the time, kids will be "right on the money" and you can have some tremendous times of learning for both of you. McDowell admits he has been embarrassed more than once when his own kids took him up on his offer to hold him accountable. On one occasion, he was on a street in the small town where he and his family live, and he was very short with someone who had just come up to speak with him. His ten-year-old son was with him, and as the man was walking away, the boy said, "Dad, you weren't very nice to that man." McDowell literally ran down the street after the man, and with his son standing there, he apologized for his rude behavior. In another instance, McDowell and his entire family (four children in all) were planning to go out to dinner. The younger children voted for a well-known fast-food place in town, but the oldest daughter, a teenager, adamantly refused. She started calling the restaurant chosen by her brothers and sisters a "grease pit" and a "garbage dump. McDowell corrected his daughter for her language and attitude, and they compromised by agreeing to drop the younger children off at the fast-food place while he, his wife, and the older girl went on to eat somewhere else. As they drove up to the fast-food restaurant, he let the three younger children off. Then, half in agreement with his teenage daughter, he said, "Everybody out for the gag bag." The younger children scampered off, too excited about their burgers and fries even to register what their dad had said. But his older daughter had heard, and as they drove on down the street, she said to McDowell, "Dad, you just did what you told me was wrong. What's the difference between calling a place a garbage pit and a gag bag?" This is what is known as "an embarrassing moment as a parent." McDowell had to swallow his pride, admit to his daughter he was wrong, and thank her for pointing out he hadn't been a very good role model. But in doing that, McDowell was actually being a
tremendous role model, because be was humble enough to admit he was wrong. That went a lot further with his teenage daughter than any amount of lectures ever could."' Don't be afraid to admit to your children that you are human. It's fine to place great value on being accountable and responsible, but let them know it's okay to make mistakes, and forgive them when they do have failures and own up to them. The benefit in being accountable to your children is that they can help keep you honest. They can help you break old habits and constantly remind you that your role in developing their young lives is crucial. Parents who are accountable to their children become better people, and they are also more sympathetic to their children when they goof up.
Values Are Caught More Than Taught By Kevin Leman In a New Jersey classroom, a teacher posed this situation to her pupils: "A woman finds 1,000 dollars lying in the street. She decides to turn it in to the authorities. Did she do the right thing?" According to the story that originally ran in The New York Times, all 15 children thought the woman was stupid. "Why turn in the money?" these kids wanted to know. The rule they preferred to live by was the old, familiar line, "Finders, keepers." But the story doesn't end there. The really chilling part is that the Times reporter asked this teacher, "Why didn't you tell those kids that turning in the money was the right thing to do?" "That is not my job," the teacher said. "My job is simply to help them find truth as they find it within themselves." This teacher was voicing a general tendency on the part of the educational community to refuse to teach children morals. "That's not our job," teachers say. "That's up to the parents." You can argue for or against the teacher's position, but the fact remains that parents who are interested in using The Reality Rule in their families can't count on a lot of support from the schools. There are exceptions, true, but the general attitude is, "This isn't our territory." We could hope that the opinion of those New Jersey schoolchildren was a rare exception, but unfortunately there is too much evidence that their attitude is widespread. An obvious example is the rampant cheating that goes on at all levels and that really gets fine-tuned by the time students make it to high school. One study of high school students revealed that 75 percent of them cheated during exams for one reason: "To get good enough grades to get into a good college." The motto among many students is, "Why flunk when you can cheat?" Values Are Caught More Than Taught Make no mistake: Your children are learning their values by watching Mom and Dad every day. It's in the everyday situations that you communicate values, whether you intend to or not. For example, suppose Mom and her three kids, all under the age of nine, are walking across a parking lot and they come upon a money clip loaded with greenbacks. If Mom wants to teach a simple value like honesty, she will put an ad in the lost and found section of the paper to see if anybody comes forward to claim the money.
Some of her children might protest and say, "Mom, you're nuts," echoing the value system shown by the kids in the New Jersey classroom described earlier. It's then that Mom has to hang tough and simply say, "Honey, that money doesn't belong to us. We have to try to find its owner." Or she might use Jesus' familiar words in Matthew 7:12 to make her point: "Do for others what you would like them to do for you." An even simpler and more familiar illustration, perhaps, is getting back too much change at the supermarket counter, for example. Again, Mom or Dad has the children along, and the question is, do you try to give it back or do you just let it go? Suppose you get change for a twenty when you really gave the clerk a ten? By now, the clerk is very busy with someone else, and as you come back to explain what happened, the clerk gets embarrassed and says, "I didn't make any error!" Now you can really teach values by sticking to your guns, making the clerk verify that an error has been made, and returning the money that does not belong to you. Values Can Get You Audited by the IRS As the above examples demonstrate, money is a great tool for teaching values. As your children watch you handle it, they learn a great deal not only from how you make it, spend it, and save it, but also from how you give it away. In recent years, I have been audited by the IRS several times because they have had questions about my tax return. The first time it happened, my children asked me, "Did you do something wrong, Daddy?" "I'm not sure, kids," I replied. "I'll go find out." When I got together with the IRS agent, I discovered that his main concern was the deductions I had taken for charitable contributions. I contribute substantially to my church, as well as to other organizations, and he felt that my giving far exceeded the amount the government normally allows for. Fortunately, I was able to produce canceled checks and other receipts that satisfied him. "Well," he finally said, "looks like everything is in order." When I got back home, my children asked me again, "How did it go? Did you do something wrong?" "No, kids," I told them. "As a matter of fact, we've done something right. We exceeded the government's guidelines for giving." I hadn't bothered to tell the IRS agent that I also do a certain amount of what I call "natural tithing" giving money to needy friends and other acquaintances with no possibility of a write-off. But my kids know, and that's what's important. Other opportunities to teach values are everywhere. Obviously, as you drive along the city streets or the freeways, your children are watching the speedometer. Your children
are listening as you talk about traffic cops and what you think of them, and of course, any parent who thinks his children don't know what a radar detector, or "fuzz buster" as they've been called, is for is naive, indeed. Or suppose you discover that your child has stolen something. Instead of giving the child a spanking, a grounding, or some other kind of punishment, the best way to teach the child is to accompany him back to the store, march him up to the manager or the clerk, and have him make restitution right on the spot. This kind of experience will teach more than any spanking ever could. Obviously, the values we most want to instill come straight from the Bible, beginning with the Ten Commandments. God is a holy sovereign; he has clearly told us, "This is right, and that is wrong." And parents are instructed to teach his ways to their children in Deuteronomy 6:6-7: "And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again." By implanting biblical values in our children, we prepare them for lives of peace with God, with themselves, and with others. This is our greatest privilege and responsibility.
