Yesterday, my 1st grader came home and told me that a girl at school was being a bully at recess. Of course, I asked a million questions trying to get more details regarding what happened. It seemed to me after talking about it for a long time, that this other 1st grader was trying to tease my daughter because of something that my daughter said. I finally realized that it was mostly innocent child’s play (although a little aggressive), but at the same time, I used it as a teaching opportunity to tell my children again that if they don’t like the actions of someone else, to walk (or if necessary, run) away. I also taught them about the importance of turning the other cheek, and being the bigger person. I also noticed similar behavior with my 3 year old and a friend at the park. His little friend was being overly aggressive and my son did not know what to do. As he was being tugged and pulled to do something that he didn’t want to do by his little 3-year-old friend, I was grateful that he didn’t lash out, or hit.
I can’t help but worry though about how to teach your children values like respect, love, and non-violence, but also teaching them how to stand up for their personal beliefs, and in extreme circumstances, protect themselves.
I was listening to an episode on the Mormon channel titled, “Teaching your children values-Part 1 Episode 32” which gave me some ideas on how to turn a teaching moment like the one I had above into an opportunity to help our children grow and understand themselves, those around them, and the gospel. In listening to this broadcast, I took away that in any situation, I think that we can help our children learn values by doing some of the following:
1. Discern which values are the most important in order to help us live a good life, and live a life where our Heavenly Father would be proud of us. Think about writing down those values to focus on as your children grow.
2. Teach our children what empowerment means. Help them realize that everyone has their own agency, and that we are each responsible for the choices that we make. However, there is nothing wrong with protecting ourselves whether it be physically or spiritually from those that wish to harm us. Give them the tools to know what to do to help themselves in a myriad of difficult situations that might arise.
3. Teach them about the blessings they will receive for standing up for their values.
4. Be in tune with the Spirit so that when teaching opportunities come up, you are ready and can teach in that moment. However, we can also create those moments to teach by holding regular Family Home Evenings.
5. Be an example of what our children should value. Live the values that you want your children to possess. Be consistent.
I think that if we can follow some of these simple steps every time a difficult situation arises in the life of our child, then they will leave our homes knowing what we believe in, stand for, and what our values are. Like they said in the broadcast, it may not mean that they will adopt all of our same values immediately, but they will know what their parents values are, and when faced with a difficult situation, will hopefully lean on those values until they become their own.
*Photo courtesy of Morguefile.com