Determining Your Family’s Values
Just like any organization, every family needs a set of values. The values in a family may not be on a website or on a poster in the breakroom, but all families would do well to determine what values they hold dear.
Values help organizations and families understand what is most important and what they believe. The time to figure that out is not in a crisis or in the face of temptation. I need to be prepared and my children need to be prepared before the crisis or the temptation comes.
Is my family prepared?
Disclaimer: I realize the term “Family Values” can create a stir in the hearts of a lot of people. The term has been politicized. This is not a political blog. This is a blog that comes from my heart, to parents who are leading families.
The Coming Crisis
There is a crisis coming. Someday we all face one. A crisis is not merciful to anyone. It will challenge adults and children alike.
A solid set of family values will allow each of us in our family to make it through the tough times. Values give us a set of principles to filter our reactions through. How we react in a crisis as parents will go a long way in determining how our children will react to one when they become adults.
Click on the following title to read a related blog: Staying Strong In A Crisis
The Coming Temptation
If my kids do not know what is important or what we believe as a family, I am rolling the dice when they are confronted by the temptations of the world. Values go way beyond a list of do’s and don’ts that some parents believe are adequate.
I can not set up enough rules to address every decision my kids will encounter. A strong set of family values can address most of the temptations my kids will face. Values provide everyone in the family a framework for making wise decisions.
The Coming Decisions
Why do some “good” kids go to college and get in trouble?
I am not trying to raise perfect children who follow the rules. I want to raise adults of high character who make wise decisions.
My children will have to make their own decisions when they go to college. The question is, have I taught them how to make wise decisions or just left them with a list of inadequate rules.
Once they are in college, the decisions my kids make will be up to them. Have I prepared them to make wise decisions?
A List of Family Values
This is not a comprehensive list. You may believe in other values or use other terms that fit your family better. Great! This list is a starting point:
- Integrity
- Family
- Love
- Kindness
- Forgiveness
- Trust
- Service
- Selflessness
- Education
- Faith
- Perseverance
- Respect
- Prayer
- Courage
- Hard Work
- Communication
My favorite ones that I would apply to my family are:
- Faith – Without it, we will fail at the rest.
- Family – We are always here for each other
- Forgiveness – We grant forgiveness even when it is not deserved.
- Fortitude – We don’t give up.
- Fun – We don’t take ourselves too seriously.
The Bottom Line:
I am failing in one of my primary responsibilities as a leader, if my family does not know what is important to us and what we believe in.
There are three steps that I must take to begin seizing that responsibility:
- Define my family’s values
- Communicate my family’s values frequently
- Coach my family’s values
I go into more detail on these three steps in a recent blog about corporate values that you can read by clicking on the title: Integrity is a Lousy Core Value.
The values we hold dear can be identified based on the behaviors we regularly display. What do I display? What do my kids display? Have I done anything to guide my family towards living out a set of values?
If I have not, should I be surprised when the family or individuals in my family stumble in the face of a crisis or temptation?
To read more blogs on Leadership, Character, Culture, Courage, and Trust click on: www.alslead.com.
Question:
What can you do to intentionally establish family values in your family?
Only those who seek to divide would characterize “family values” as politicized. Pay them no mind. You and I both know that the family unit is at the intersection of the divine and the temporal. To redefine it only weakens it and gnaws at the foundation of civil society.
If I were to add one, it would be chastity. It’s the 800 lb gorilla in the room that nobody wants to acknowledge and is inextricably linked with family values. Not that I am a prude, but I see the harvest from the seeds of leading a promiscuous life. More children who grow up fatherless, or wards of the state, who don’t learn family values.
Great addition to the list and a great value to discuss across the family. Do you think some people don’t hit on this within the family because they feel hypocritical because of their own past?
Yes, I think guilt of past sins keeps some of us from proclaiming truth where it exists. We are all, in our own small and large ways, hypocrites. That’s our nature. It takes an extreme amount of courage to be honest with your kids about your past and to be honest with yourself. But I look at is as a parental responsibility to warn your children of the moral pitfalls in life.
However, I’ve observed a growing permissiveness (at least in my A.O.) with regards to personal restraint, especially in the areas of sexuality and the use / abuse of intoxicants (**** disclaimer **** I consume adult beverages **** disclaimer ****). We’ve elevated personal freedom above fidelity to truth and respect for all that is holy while diminishing the role that traditional family structure plays in our society. Consequently, our culture has become very self obsessed and petulant when faced with adversity, a perceived injustice, or a call for restraint.
None of which was tolerated in my family when I was growing up and none of which is tolerated in my family now. All out of love.
I am not proud of my past sins. I try to use them to teach my children and others how to avoid them and not have to learn the hard way.
I became much less concerned about being a hypocrite when I learned about the challenges High School guys face the years I taught Sunday school for that age group. It is so much tougher now versus the challenges I faced. It helped me understand my kids environment and speak much more plainly than I would have without that perspective.
Anyone who thinks they understand the challenges teenagers faced because you were once a teenager, is not dealing with reality. We must prepare our kids for what they will face not for what we faced 25 years ago.
Dave,
Great post…especially as I am going through the process of creating my family Vision, Mission and Values statements. Thanks for the help.
As for the hypocrite angle. If we, as a society won’t address objective Truth (capitalized on purpose) for fear of being a labeled a hypocrite, we are not going to be able to tell anyone anything. We are all hypocrites. We need profess the objective Truth that we struggle and stumble trying to live up to knowing we never will. But, and this is almost blasphemy in today’s world, it isn’t about us and our standards. I am not telling my children to live to my standard that I am not living to. I am telling them to live to His standard no matter how many times they or anyone else, including me, fails. Right is right, wrong is wrong and we are charged to train our children on right and wrong – whether or not we have lived up to it.
People may use that as an excuse but, in the words of a phrase many of us know all too well, it is “No excuse, sir!”
Great comments Eric!