grandparenting Teaching basic values to your grandchildren BY RICHARD AND LINDA EYRE
” “ W e often overlook the fact that most of the values we want to instill in our grandchildren actually do have to be instilled . They don’t just transfer from us by osmosis—basic values have to be understood and desired, and grandparents are the best ones to help this happen in kids! Good values may be lived and exemplified in their homes but children need a separate, outside voice reinforcing, elaborating, and explaining the importance and the practice of certain basic values. It is a mistake to assume that kids will nat- urally and instinctively gravitate toward honesty, loyalty, responsibility, respect, restraint, and other values you want them to have. Teaching basic values has to be a deliberate goal of parents and grandparents. Today, we live in a world where strong, clear values are needed more than ever in children’s lives. Years ago, we wrote a book called Teaching Your Children Values , which became a national New York Times #1 bestseller. The reason parents liked it was its sim- plicity. It set forth twelve universal values and suggested that families focus on just one of them each month. The formidable challenge of helping kids to inter- nalize the values that protect them and govern their choices and their progress in life seemed more manageable when it was approached one value at a time, one month at a time. Today, we live in a world where strong, clear values are needed more than ever in children’s lives. And yet it is a world where parents are busier and more dis- tracted than ever before and where most of them would welcome grandparents who can step in and be influential and direct teachers of values. The twelve values from that book are as follows. (As you review them, ask whether their practice is one of the legacies you want to leave within your
grandchildren and whether the internalizing of these values is perhaps the best protection and stabilizing influence, and the most reliable aid in decision-making that they could have.) 1. Honesty 2. Loyalty and Dependability 3. Respect 4. Love 5. Unselfishness and Sensitivity 6. Kindness and Friendliness 7. Courage 8. Peaceability 9. Self-reliance and Potential 10. Self-discipline and Moderation 11. Fidelity and Chastity 12. Justice and Mercy
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23 GRANDP arenting
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