Modeling Family Values: The Why and How

Being teachers and general planners, my husband and I had talked for years about how we wanted to raise our children. But when we actually had a kid, the fantastical conversations of what we might do became a reality. And at first, more so for Joe. After I brought baby Fitz home from the hospital, I remember my husband mentioning many times the big responsibility we had now: We had a KID to raise! We had to teach him things and train him well! Of  course I was mostly worried about just, you know, keeping the baby alive. In the blur of new mommy-hood, I was focused on figuring out breastfeeding, constantly changing and bathing him, and trying to get him (and me) to sleep. These seemed like way more pressing issues then discussing specifics on how we were going to raise him. 

Luckily, after a few months in, I had the keeping-the-baby-alive part down pat and I knew that we needed to have more conversations about our child-raising beliefs. When my brother and sister-in-law told me of a local parenting seminar in town, I quickly signed up. Once there, a session on modeling family values really resonated with me because I knew that I wanted to impart to Fitz the things that are really important to us.

Instilling a love of learning in Fitz starts with books and more books!

There are obviously a lot of really great things we all want to teach our children. However, when you can identify a particular set to really focus on, it can help your child not only learn what’s important to you, but it will also provide them with a strong sense of identity and an understanding on which to base their beliefs. 

What’s really neat about different families is that while we all have our own set of values we strive to impart to our children, we can still enjoy and benefit from each other. For example, the speaker mentioned that creativity is something that he and his wife specifically choose to cultivate in their children. It’s very important to them that their children find ways to creatively express themselves. While there are many different forms of creativity, my husband and I are not particularly creative (to put it nicely), so other things came to mind before we would include creativity. But you better believe we are so glad that there are creative people in the world and families that especially encourage creativity in their children! 

The modeling piece comes in so that you are showing your kids what it looks like to actually live that value out. Instead of “Do what I say, not what I do”,  it’s important that we model what we want our children to value, and allow them to practice acting on those values too. I found it helpful to explicitly define with Joe what we really wanted to impart to Fitz as he grows up. Here are the steps we followed: 

  1. We sat down separately and made a list of the top values we each thought we wanted to teach Fitz. 
  2. We shared our lists with each other and discussed them. It was interesting when we saw we actually had very similar responses!
  3. We looked for common answers and then decided on a final list of our top 4 family values. We ended up with loving God, loving other people, being a hard worker, and learning/education. As you can see, a couple of them are very broad and some are more specific. It’s whatever you want it to be! As long as you both have an idea of a few things that you are going to be purposeful in showing your children, you are good to go. 
  4. Finally, we looked at each one and came up with ways that we can model them and live them out as a family. We want Fitz to value loving God, so we try to model that by attending church, praying with him, and reading the Bible with him. Because we value learning and education then the decisions that we make as he grows older are going to reflect that, such as prioritizing school attendance and homework and spending time together learning new things.

We are by no means always perfect at this, but I love that we have these four guiding values that help us when we make family decisions! What are some ways that you decide on and model your family values? 

*Credit to Andy Bondurant, Family Ministry Pastor at Crosspoints Church. 

emilyc
Born and raised in Turner, Emily now lives in Overland Park with her husband Joe (high school English teacher and golf coach) and son Fitzgerald (2). Emily and Joe met in college, but later found out they grew up mere blocks from each other and even had the same kindergarten teacher just one year apart! After 11 years of teaching 2nd, 4th, and 5th grades and K-6 STEM, Emily is now an instructor at the University of St. Mary. She likes to explore old and new spots in Kansas City so Fitz learns to love this great city too! She enjoys spending time with friends and family, playing games, doing jigsaw puzzles, and cheering on the Chiefs and Royals. Emily's current goals: Be more organized, make dinner more often, and read more books just for fun!

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