How to Teach Morals and Values

Tweet There is no magical way to teach morals and values, yet they will be the most important lessons in life a child will learn. It was much easier to teach my child to read than it was to teach him how to be honest. What steps should a parent take in teaching morals?

First, define what morals you feel are the most important. Do you value honesty, integrity, compassion, responsibility, hard work? What about some of the harder ones like drug and alcohol use and teen sex? You can't teach all values at the same time so it is best to rank which ones are most important to you and concentrate on those. It also works well to teach a moral or value when the opportunity presents itself. For example, your child takes something from a store he didn't pay for. This is an opportunity to teach honesty.

Use your child's sense of feeling and/or self-direction. This also works best when a child presents an opportunity. If your child was incensed on how they were treated on the playground, remind her of how she felt being left out when she decides to leave somebody else out.

Use consequences or natural consequences. If you are going to punish bad behavior, you must also praise good behavior. Also, be careful with your punishments. If you are trying to teach a child violence is never okay, then don't hit them for hitting somebody else.

The most important of all is lead by example. You child must see you practicing what you preach. If you are trying to teach them about teen drinking, you must not drink as well. How is your child going to choose to stay away from smoking if you're smoking a pack a day?

Many years ago, I was at a grocery store in Chicago Heights, Illinois. I had a new baby and a five-year old daughter. We had gone in the late afternoon on a very cold day to the grocery store. When I got home, I found that I had not been charged for a 12-pack of soda. By the time I realized the mistake, it was dark and even colder outside. However, I bundled my children up again, drove to the store and went to the customer service desk to explain the mistake. The clerk acted put out that she had to correct the mistake and was a bit rude. I softly explained that I did not have to come back and it was more hassle than it was worth. When I drove off I was feeling angry that I had wasted my time with such an ungrateful store. When my daughter piped up and said, "Mommy, why did we have to come back to the store? If they didn't charge you for that stuff, it wasn't your fault." At that moment I realized what a great teaching opportunity I had and said, "It was the honest and right thing to do."

Teaching Values and Morals in an Immoral World

Tweet A recent conversation I had with a acquaintance revealed a disturbing trend among high school students. He noted a heightened disrespect toward teachers and rules in the public school system. For my friend, he found it much easier to leave his post at the neighborhood high school and teach in the prison system for incarcerated youth charged as adults. Imagine my shock when he told me it was easier to teach in the prison than in the public school. Why would it be easier? Because the incarcerated youth are not allowed to disobey or disrupt class. If they do, an armed guard escorts them back to their prison cell. School is a privilege to the incarcerated youth, not a right. The teacher compared that to what happens in the public high school where teens constantly disrupt the classroom with no real consequence.

One of the biggest challenges I face as a parent is how to instill good values and morals in my own children. When our children are faced with bad behavior glamorized by famous people on a regular basis, it seems old-fashioned to have morals. I have friends that believe instilling our idea of morality on our children is wrong and doesn't allow for the child's freedom and growth. I believe values such as honesty, integrity, respect, love, forgiveness, etc. never get old. I once told one of my children that it was better to take an F in a class than it was to cheat. I have watched too many parents hover around their children and interfere, sometimes unethically, so their children will not suffer a bad consequence. Recently, I told a teacher I thought she had been fair with my child in allowing him extra time for assignments when he didn't have a good excuse to need the extra time. I asked her to post a grade as is which was not the A or B I wanted my child to get, but the C he deserved. Was it hard? Yes! That meant my child would not get into a prestigious college or be eligible for an academic scholarship. But, as angry as that child was with me and his teacher, the lesson I hoped he learned was far more valuable than the scholarships he could receive. My actions let him know that integrity and hard work was more important than a good grade.

How do we teach morals and values? I wish I had the magic answer. What worked for one of my children was a complete failure for another. However, my next article will give some practical suggestions on how to teach specific values. I wonder how the financial collapse in the country would have turned out different if the Bernie Madoff's in the world would have had a moral compass.

One book referred to me many years ago, though I don't own a copy and it's been over ten years since I read it, I remember Teaching Your Child Values had some great advice without being overly religious. Lucky, I was able to find the book was still in print.

Education Lifts Socio-economic Barriers (On a personal note)

Tweet I recently had an author ask what motivated me to dedicate my blog to literacy, especially for boys. It got me thinking of why I would want to take the time to research topics, read books for boys, review them, gather author interviews and pay my own money on postage for blog giveaways. I wanted to give the author a simple answer and then realized my motivations are not simple.

I was raised in a working class family, living from paycheck to paycheck. A few instances, my family even received government assistance. My mom never finished high school and my dad barely graduated. Nobody in my family had ever gone to college, no grandparents, no aunts or uncles or siblings. They worked hard, but never got ahead. My parents divorce complicated the picture.

As a child, I had one thing going for me. I was an avid reader. I read every book in sight. I ate up Little House on the Prairie and Amelia Bedelia. I burned flashlight batteries on The Boxcar Children. My parents rarely took me to the library, but we had this Bookmobile that came to our low income neighborhood once or twice a month and I waited for it every time, checking out stacks of books until it would come again. The few books I got as gifts, I treasured and read over and over again.

I remember my dad telling me about the "rich people on the hill that think they are better than everybody else." He convinced me that the people in the next rung of the socioeconomic ladder were snooty and didn't deserve to be there. That somehow they weren't hard workers, but just lucky.

I landed a full ride scholarship to a small two year college and qualified for Pell Grants. I didn't end up graduating until in my thirties, but I never gave up. I married a man with graduate education and moved into a modest home in the type of neighborhood my dad criticized. The first thing I noticed about my neighborhood is that my dad was completely wrong. My neighbors were mostly kind and smart. There were organized book clubs where people talked about ideas instead of other people. I was thrust into a world where those around me were educated. Most of my neighbors were college graduates, many with master's and doctorate degrees. My lesson learned was that the single most important thing in helping one move up the socioeconomic ladder is a good education.

So why a blog about boys and books coming from my background? I learned for myself that reading is the single most important thing in academic success. I also have a daughter and two sons. I saw first hand how the elementary educational system seems to favor girls and watched as boys lagged behind in reading. My son who reads has a huge advantage over my son who doesn't like to read as much. In reading to my boys, I was introduced to books, as a child, I didn't even know existed. Treasure Island and Where The Wild Things Are and then a boy wizard by the name of Harry Potter came along and even my boy that didn't like to read changed his tune. I fell in love with so called "boy" books and haven't been able to put them down since.

So a very personal long answer to a short question. I devote my time to blogging about literacy because I have a passion for it. Nothing could be better than that.

Literacy Begins At Home

Tweet This week I read an article in the local newspaper that pointed out the disparity of reading scores in the local Hispanic community compared to that of the white community. Much was said about the educational system and how the schools should do more to help these children. While I agree the educational system should do whatever they can to help bridge the gap in reading scores, I was concerned that the article didn't mention anything about what can be done at home. After all, literacy begins at home. A child that is read to every day from day one will already have an advantage when school starts. Some of those children will be early readers. Most of them will already know the letters of the alphabet. All of them will have had positive experiences with reading.

Here are just a few suggestions to promote literacy in the home.

• Set aside time to read every day.
• Read aloud to your child even when they learn to read on their own.
• Let your child pretend to read to you even when they can't
• Have your child read to you.
• Ask your child to predict what will happen next in a story.
• Point out repeating words in a book like "the" and have your child find them.
• Ask how, what, and why questions when reading.
• Help children recognize letter sounds by pointing out the first letter of a word, ie. d is for dog.
• Point out words that rhyme. Have your child tell you some words that rhyme.
• Talk about words that mean the same thing like smile and grin.
• Talk about words that mean the opposite like up and down.
• Help children sound out words.
• Use drive time to promote literacy. Point out the words on signs, ie. s t o p spells stop when you come to a stop sign.
• Give books as gifts for every holiday.
• Go to the library or local bookstore and participate in the activities they have for children.
• Get your child their own library card as early as your library will allow. Take them to the library once a week or once every other week and let them pick out their own books.
•  As your child gets older, consider getting them an eReader and give gift certificates for books so they can fill up their eReader.
• Encourage reading of newspapers, magazines and even comic books. 
• Buy or check out books with instructions or recipes to make things 

These are just a few suggestions out of hundreds. Please tell us what you do to promote literacy in your home. Remember, education begins and ends in the home.