How do you teach core values to children? This has been on my mind a lot lately because I’m in the early days of motherhood (my baby, our first, is 8 months old), and all my shortcomings and not-knowings feel urgent. All of a sudden, there’s so much at stake. Questions like these are always floating around in my mind and Google’s answers slowly fill up my Safari tabs.
Without Googling this one, my gut says the surest way to go is to model the values we want to pass along to our child. This, unfortunately, brings me to the problem of defining my own values. I thought I knew them, but it turns out I don’t really (not in the sense that I can list them), and I wonder how many of us live in this sort-of-knowing-not-knowing space. And does it matter?
If someone asks me if I stand for kindness and compassion, of course I do. If I’m asked to choose between teamwork and discord, I support teamwork. I believe in the values of friendship, courage, and creativity. But are these my core values?
I decide to go through a values exercise after hearing Brad Stulberg, a writer and coach on mental health and human potential, talk about the importance of clearly defining our values. As he defines them, these are “qualities that we hold as aspirational — they’re ourselves when we’re at our best.” He invites us to define the core value in specific terms, and then ask what actions you can take each day to live in alignment with those values. This, he says, leads to living life fully in accordance with your values. Sounds like a low lift for a very high reward.
I don’t expect this exercise to be time consuming, given I already have a general sense of my values, so I sit down with a list of 100 values (there are so many of these lists out there, if you care to Google!1), and narrow it down to my top five. It takes me two days to complete this exercise. For every value I cross off the list, I ask myself why I prioritize another one. By the time it’s down to five, the five have strong legs to stand on.
The five I land on are integrity, wisdom, levity, presence, and grace. Each of these values resonates with me because of my unique life experiences and beliefs, so I wouldn’t expect my parents or even my siblings to land on the same exact list. For this reason alone, I think there’s some benefit in asking yourself these questions, and inviting those you live with or are close with to do the same (if they’re up for it!) and then to share where you both land. I find it’s always a good thing to have more points of mutual understanding in any relationship. If my highest core value is truth, and yours is kindness, your feelings might get hurt by me trying to help. I think I’m doing you a service by sharing a hard truth, and you think I’m being an asshole. If I know how highly you value kindness, and you know how highly I value truth, maybe we can meet in the middle and/or adjust our communication accordingly (to whatever extent feels appropriate and still values aligned for both of us).
I come up with three actionable items under each value, some more tactical than others, but all things I (in theory 😂) can practice daily or weekly. E.g. “Because I value presence, I make eye contact and actively listen when in conversation with someone, only getting my phone out if it’s directly relevant to and necessary for our conversation.” This may sound detached or forced, but it helps keep me accountable when I otherwise often gravitate toward my phone for no reason other than habit. I often feel a disconnect when others glance at their phones while we talk, and I can’t imagine I’m the only one. Being specific about this, at the very least, makes me aware of it when I’m doing it, which is an important first step to change.
I understand an exercise like this (choosing an arbitrary values list and whittling it down) may feel sterile and/or like a bad work meeting where your organization is trying to figure out what to put on the new website. But it has anchored and re-oriented my actions bit by bit, slowly and gently shifting the way I show up for myself and for those around me. It feels better to align myself to one of these aspirational values (on my good days) than to float along the current of my usually stressed, sometimes depressed, occasionally anxious mind.
I also now notice how often I spend more energy judging others for living out of alignment with my values than I spend on cultivating my core values within myself. It’s so easy and tempting to get mad at other people for living out of alignment with my values — and taking out that anger can become a full-time hobby (e.g. Twitter comment wars or Facebook rants). It feels crazy to even write that — they’re my values, not necessarily theirs! — but it’s how my brain works.
I’m a mindfulness & meditation teacher, and more recently also an Awakening Joy teacher. My mentor, the founder of Awakening Joy and the co-founder of Spirit Rock, encourages me to continue my teaching and training journey because he thinks I have a lot [of joy] to share. My brain, naturally, interprets this encouragement from someone I admire as “you’re almost enlightened,” so living with a mere mortal (my husband) can be frustrating at times. During my Awakening Joy teacher training, my husband and I have a tiff that ends with me yelling at him “YOU’RE NOT CHOOSING JOY!” I am a walking, talking embodiment of “those who can’t, teach.”
One person sees me at my best, has the kindness of heart to reflect that back to me, and I take it as an invitation to stop practicing that value and to start policing it. The moment I think I “have” a value (joy), if someone else doesn’t embody it for a brief moment, I snap. When they don’t show up in this way, I lose touch with it myself, instead opting into frustration or lament. I heard a lecturer (a psychologist) recently say “there’s nothing you could receive as wisdom that could be more valuable than knowing who you are when the situation is dire.” I would not call a tiff with my husband dire, yet here I am, pouring my energy and attention into frustration, rather than rising to an opportunity to connect with an aspirational value when it matters most. Of course when the sun is shining and everything goes my way, I’m levity and grace herself. But if it’s a bit cloudy at home, I struggle to embody any of my core values when the situation invites me to step up. Not the most inspiring data point.
Motherhood has been the ultimate reckoning with hypocrisy, which brings me back to my urgent question: how do you teach core values to children [if you struggle with them every day]?
It feels important to share the values I believe in with my child — not to indoctrinate him, but to express a way of being that feels like truth to me. I’d like to invite him to do the same; to find what values most speak to his soul. I don’t live in accordance with my values every day (as we’ve seen), but I do think that bringing them into my daily awareness makes me more intentional with how I show up for my family. The flip side is that it also makes me more aware of when I’m not showing up in this way. I think that’s part of the learning process — awareness of our actions empowers us to change them — but it’s not always flattering or fun to look in such a squeaky clean mirror. (It’s like one of those hotel magnifying mirrors with the bright lights, showing me my full mustache. Some things look best left dim.)
Do you have clearly articulated values?
Do you think a clear articulation helps ground and guide you toward wise action when life gets hard?
Thank you for being here. I can’t wait to keep untangling this all with you :) I’ll continue to share what’s on my mind every week. Some of it may excite you and some of it may upset you. Some of it may bore you (my writing muscles have atrophied; I’m grateful for this space to rebuild strength!). My sincere hope, if you choose to stick around, is that you’re willing to reflect and engage with an open mind and heart.
March 7 2024 update: Just discovered this values sorting board created by Steven Schlafman. I love the accessible format!
Ok wow there is so much *wisdom* here. How beautiful to be living your life with such intention that you are seeking the truth about yourself in service of your son. What struck me while reading this is how your values will shape him in just the way he needs. So beautiful to consider.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6SJ_ZPM3cw/?igsh=MXkxamE1emI4OTR1ag==
I am not sure if sharing an IG link here is legal, but I seriously cannot come anywhere close to conveying what this girl says here. I wish....oh how I wish I'd been taught this as a child.