Dr. Elaine Heffner: Teaching values
There is so much focus these days on children’s academic achievement and concern about whether they are reaching expectations that have been set for school performance. Parents also worry about whether children are developing as they should, whether their behavior socially and emotionally is as it should be according to the expectations of their parents and others.
Questions and answers about child-rearing seem to suggest that there is a right way and wrong way of raising children. If problems arise – or something that feels like a problem – it must mean that parents are doing something wrong. Yet so much about the way our children develop is determined not by what we do but by who we are.
Children grow physically as they get older but when we speak of maturation, generally we are referring to another aspect of development.
When we describe a child as mature, this usually reflects an ability to deal with life situations – both social and emotional – in ways that are age appropriate, or even beyond age appropriate. Questions arise in parents’ minds about what is age or stage appropriate because a child’s behavior may not match their own expectations.
Parents differ in their expectations, and those differences most often reflect a difference in values. For some, academic achievement may be the highest value. For others it might be talent or a particular skill. Other attributes that may be valued are kindness, generosity, empathy, and considering the needs of others.
This was brought home to me recently when I stopped in an ice-cream shop. An older man and a young boy were working behind the counter and while I paid the bill the man instructed the boy to wrap the package. The boy looked very young to be working in the shop and I asked the man if the boy was his son. Indeed he was, and I said it seemed he had a good helper.
The father then told me that there was a special purpose to his son’s being there. The boy wants something that is rather expensive and his father thought he should contribute something in order to get it. They have an agreement that with the money he earns helping in the store 70 percent can go to buying what he wants, 20 percent will be saved and 10 percent will go to charity.
The boy said he was 10 years old and in the fourth grade. What he is hoping to buy is a Jeter watch. He has 30 days left of school and he is hoping to have earned the money he needs by then. He liked the agreement his father had described.
The father then volunteered that he felt it was important for his son to learn that he would have to work in order to have what he wanted in life, not just what he might want to buy but anything he might want to achieve. As he talked his voice was warm and loving, without the “I’m teaching him a lesson” quality that often feels critical to children.
But he was teaching him a lesson about the values that were important to him as a father and a man. He was teaching the value of working to achieve your goals, the value of saving, and the value of feeling responsible for others less fortunate than yourself. It was apparent that his son was experiencing this lesson with a feeling of pride in the responsibility that was being entrusted to him.
Our children learn such values from us daily, even when we are not aware that we are teaching them.
Elaine Heffner, LCSW, Ed.D., has written for Parents Magazine, Fox.com, Redbook, Disney online and PBS Parents, as well as other publications. She has appeared on PBS, ABC, Fox TV and other networks. Dr. Heffner is the author of “Goodenoughmothering: The Best of the Blog,” as well as “Mothering: The Emotional Experience of Motherhood after Freud and Feminism.” She is a psychotherapist and parent educator in private practice, as well as a senior lecturer of education in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Heffner was a co-founder and served as director of the Nursery School Treatment Center at Payne Whitney Clinic, New York Hospital. And she blogs at goodenoughmothering.com.