Setting An Example -- Parenting Based On Values And Guidance

Risky outside influences can lead a child astray, causing parents to worry about their children as they head off to high school, university, a new job or just a weekend away with friends. Life presents complex choices, and the choices parents and children make directly relate to their core values: what goals to pursue, how to manage time – who to listen to and even who to spend time with....

Parents who set examples of values-based behavior influence the personal development of their children, and this influence extends outside the home. Setting values-based examples also provides the motivation, focus and inspiration children need to make good decisions, manage their time well and navigate a successful path through life and career.

In fact, setting an example is the only real way that values are truly communicated. Simply talking about being good, trustworthy, honest and persevering without actually being so, usually yields poor results. Kids are perceptive and will quickly pick up on inconsistencies between what their parents have said, and how they have acted. By following wise instructions with exemplary actions, parents increase their capacity to articulate values.

Of course, in order to convey their values authentically, parents must first identify and understand their own core values. LifeManual, a self-help program for "blueprint to an extraordinary life," emphasizes values, and says that setting a positive example is only possible if your values are in alignment with your actions.

LifeManual recommends the following considerations for understanding your values and helping your children understand theirs:

--> Most of your values were instilled in you during your childhood, teenage years and early adulthood.

--> Your values are your priorities, so prioritize your values in order to effectively act in a way that corresponds with what you believe.

--> It's necessary to honor and respect your own values.

--> When you are truly in touch with your values, they are a tool for motivation. Values tell you when to say yes, when to say no, and what to do under extreme stress, and in times of uncertainty.

--> The time is always right to begin to make values-driven choices, because no matter what has happened, you never lose your values. It's just a matter of identifying and incorporating them into decisions.

Consider what one parent had to say. Dru Narwahi was a successful, but very busy, banking executive and father who recognized the inconsistency between his lifestyle, his choices and his values. One day he noticed his young children watching him silently as he rested after work. Their mother had asked them not to share their experiences at school so as not to burden him. It was then that he realized: "I was so disconnected and so busy…my values included family, health and integrity but I had lost track of that. I said, 'It’s time to follow my values.'"

A recent study by Penn State University helps demonstrate how positive decisions like this are more important than many parents might suspect. When analyzing the most effective deterrents to teenage drug use, the report concludes that personal example -- including relating past experiences -- adds credibility to the parents' messages and communication.

As the author Joseph Chilton Pearce writes: "What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become." When parents know their own values and act in alignment with them, parents become a living example that's legitimate -- people whose advice is worth hearing.