7 Family Values to Teach Children as Holistic Development

People are acquiring patterns of behavior as we grow. These are not acquired magically: someone must teach us to be able to assimilate them into our moral code. Values are necessary so that our children, once they are adults, are socially adapted people and can have happy lives and achieve everything they propose.

Next, we will see a selection of the 7 family values that you can teach your children, all of them fundamental to raise children who interact healthily with others. Following values can play a vital role in forming holistic child development during the early formative years.

1. Responsibility

Responsibility is one of the most important values that children must learn from a very young age. It implies becoming aware that their actions will have consequences, both good and bad, and that is why they must take responsibility for their actions.
A good way to convey this value is for parents to fulfill their obligations, with what is expected of them, in addition to involving their children in such tasks.
Responsibility is also taught through punishment, as long as it is necessary and there is no other option. If the child has not fulfilled a task or something that he had promised to do, to learn that his actions have consequences, it will be necessary to apply some type of penalty.

2. Generosity

Every parent, brother, uncle, or relative who has a child in their family knows that the little ones tend to be selfish. They don't want to share their toys, they don't let their mother pay attention to their other little brothers, they don't want to give their cousin the bag of candy ... There are many situations in which their childish egoism manifests itself. It is not their fault, they are just children, and a certain lack of generosity is accepted at certain ages.

The problem is that if the value of generosity is not instilled in them, sooner or later they will become extremely selfish and self-centered children, who as adults will not care about the needs of others or share their things. Teaching to be generous avoids conflicts of all kinds, in addition to making children more likely to share without expecting anything in return encourages prosocial behaviors, making other children also be generous with them and become better friends.

3. Commitment

Commitment is a value closely related to responsibility, although it is not the same. We could define it as setting goals and trying to carry them out in the long term. This value is especially useful at the academic level since the child will do everything possible to get good grades, finish class projects, or have good relationships with their classmates if they have committed to their parents.

Commitment is also important in social relationships. Both parties must commit to respecting each other, value the other party, and give the best of themselves in every relationship. Thus, the children commit to their friends not to leave them behind if they have a problem, to be there, whatever happens, to attend their birthdays or to invite them to play a football game. Commitment is a prosocial value.

4. Humility

Before starting school, children spend most of the day with their parents or grandparents, receiving all kinds of compliments for what they do and stop doing. It is not surprising that in many cases they are thought to be the best that no one else can compare with them. However, as soon as they start kindergarten or school, they discover that there are more children like them in this world and that they too have been told that they are the best. Their bubble, in which they believed the best, has just burst.

This generates a certain conflict, it could even be said that they go through a small identity crisis, although it is resolved relatively quickly. Parents should teach their children that they have their good things and their bad things, that nobody is perfect, and that you have to be humble. Each has its strengths and also weaknesses. You have to be proud of what you excel at, and try to improve what is necessary. You also have to know how to see the good in others and value it.

5. Gratitude

Things, whether material or not, are not free. Everything has a cost, both in economic terms and in time and effort. The love of a father is a true investment of many resources and children should know how to value it and be grateful for it. They should appreciate the efforts of others so that they have everything they have, in the same way, that adults and other children should thank them for the good things that they do for them.

The value of gratitude is best taught at home for parents and older siblings to put it into practice. Some many small gestures and actions can be done to show gratitude, such as thanking whoever made the food, giving the mother a massage after work, cleaning the house as a thank you for having gone shopping...

6. Honesty

Honesty or sincerity is one of the most essential values in our society. It is closely related to humility, although sincerity is telling the truth, not lying or changing the facts as they are. Without honesty, no person can mature or understand that no one is perfect, just like humility.
Although it will end up being a learned value over time, it is not uncommon to find adults who do not have it very internalized. This is why it is so important that parents take charge of teaching it to the little ones, explaining why lying is wrong because not only does it hurt others, but also they run the risk of being damaged by the effect of their lies.

7. Patience

Patience is perhaps the most difficult value to teach children. As children, they must learn to defer the rewards, to understand that it is not possible to have everything at the moment and that on many occasions they will have to wait for a little to get their long-awaited prize. This can be perfected with the classic marshmallow experiment, although it can also be taught by explaining that if they are patients they will get more than they had originally planned.

For example, if our child wants to play video games all weekend, we can tell him that he will only succeed if during the week he puts aside the console and starts studying. If you succeed, we will allow you to spend as much time as you want with your games come Saturday, if not, time will be limited. Thus the child will learn to control his desire to play, learning that it is better to wait and get the big prize instead of getting small immediate satisfactions.